Thinking and doing: theory and practice

Welcome and thanks for visiting.  This blog is where I write about projects I am working on, capture my research in progress and generally organise my thinking in public.  It helps me enormously to have a place to do this – I hope you also find it useful.  I try and maintain a running post with some definitions and background reading that may be helpful.

I tend to roam between designing for democracy and more general thinking about technology driven change and the digital mindset.   I’m increasing thinking about systems practice as well as my own leadership practice. You may find it helpful to read this ‘why I blog blog’ but suffice to say that this a place where I share my thinking in public but that means its subject to change and may look quite different when its actually applied in my role at Adur and Worthing.

If you are looking for my professional bio then you need to head over to LinkedIn . If you are trying to find me online for a more research orientated discussion then you can find me on twitter as @curiousc.  If you want to contact to me about speaking at an event then you can contact me via either of these routes.

Dr Catherine Howe

Here are some of the things I am currently working on:

Latest posts

the network society is networking the organisation

For various reasons I’ve been spending more time talking to engagement and communications teams recently.  That, combined with the usual work with democratic services has made me think about the way that technology changes the relationship with the citizen and that the emphasis on interaction requires a ‘coming together’ of ...

A paean to petitioning…..

I took part in an Petitions round table last week run run by the consultation institute. The round table format means you really get chance to talk through specific points and the group was all very fired up about what the new Local Democracy Bill will mean – and specifically ...

What do I actually mean by the virtual town hall?

I realise that I keep mentioning it but haven’t actually described what I mean. Here are the main points of the kind of space I am imagining: Its designed to incorporate and respond to the next online fad – and the one after that. Its just not efficient for you ...

Devon CC – Social Web guidelines

Carl from Devon CC has posted his social web guidelines on his blog.  You can find them here.  I think this is a hugely helpful thing to do and something that all Councils need to be getting on and doing…..enjoy…. I think one of the trickiest things about council officers ...

iphones – gadget lust or actually useful?

Research proposal submitted!!! I’m enjoying a weekend of leisure having sent the final draft off last week – just have to wait for the research committee meeting next monoth now. Leisure is perhaps stretching the definition slightly as a lot of it has been spent cleaning and sorting in preparation ...

Conferences and co-operation in The North

I have been out and about again over the last couple of weeks and the deadline for my research proposal is looming hence the lack of posts. I spent most of the weekend in the back of a VW campervan (hired from the excellent VWCampervans) on the Isle of Wight ...

Evaluation – You know you want to really….

However tempting it is just to dive in a set projects up in the social web I you need to consider stopping to think about how you will measure and evaluate success. It’s a big part of using these new tools to have a positive impact rather than just creating ...

The evolution of power and internet dog years

This is just a segue from the research proposal work of the weekend……. Manuel Castells talks about the fact that institutions will evolve to accomodate new power structures.  I think he’s right – very few institutions are foolish enough not to change and one thing that a universal media age ...

Literature Review – structure

I am attempting to get my research proposal into shape which is proving a challenge as I can’t seem to get the literature review to work at all. Below is an attempt to try and give it an outline that I can then build on: The decline in democratic participation ...

 
 
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