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. If you are new to this space you may find it helpful to read my ‘why I still 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 Dorset Council.

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.

If you are looking for my professional bio then you need to head over to LinkedIn .

Dr Catherine Howe

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

Latest posts

Enquiry Map July 2020

I am talking about enquiry a lot at the moment and I want to unpack what I mean partly as it’s a good habit in your practice to reflect on these terms you use a lot and partly because I am meeting a lot of new people at the moment ...

People get stuck….until they don’t

I have a theory that people and systems tend to get ‘stuck’ at the point at which they have their digital moment and realise that the world could actually be different and that looking at how you change ways of working as well as the underlying technology could be part ...

So long and thanks for all the digital fish

I left Cancer Research UK last week and while this is not exactly a goodbye to digital transformation it does signal a shift for me – instead of supporting other people to make change happen I will be leading change in the services that I am responsible for – working ...

Going to not going from

I have rewritten this first sentence about 20 times because its hard to express how sad I am be leaving my current team at the same time as expressing my huge pride and delight at the fact I am leaving in order to join Adur and Worthing Councils as Director ...

Thank you #NotWestminster

This is a really quick reflection on really brilliant day at NotWestminster – in the tradition of the 10 things style – but not actually bothering to count how many things. I am also working on a write up from the session I ran. Its been a while since I’ve ...

Ethical technology?

Forget about values – its about ethics these days Ethical thinking must be a significant shaper of technology in the 2020s. I am not in the habit of making predictions so let’s call this a hope based on a growing sense that people are starting to really look at the ...

Plan the day not just the work

In 2018 I wrote a few things about something I called mindful diary. I rather lost a grip on this in the later part of last year – not helped by an office move to Stratford and the fact that this has made quite a big impact on my commute. ...

Systems of democracy: A bit of democracy everywhere

Last year I set out three areas of enquiry for myself; The relationship between technology and change, the effect of networked social movements and democratic innovation. This year I want to focus on democratic innovation but still draw from the other two as the last year has given me clearer ...

2020: setting an(other) intent

As ever I am spending these first few days of the year pottering about sorting at home, thinking and writing. I love this time hunkered down at home, the house is cosy and the dog walks are tranquil with the countryside sleeping (albeit it doing so underwater). This post is ...

In which purpose demolishes culture while culture is distracted eating strategy

I am a bit wary of talking about culture. It’s intangible, elusive and in reality best addressed via behaviours rather than head on. As my team know, I have a huge fear of a conversation about culture or values ending up as a pile of laminated signs that get strewn ...