This is a personal reflection on the work that I have been supporting at Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) in my role as a trustee of the Democratic Society. I joined Demsoc back in 2010 as a governor (non-exec director) and have worked with them ever since. It’s gone from being very much a …
Sociologists use the term framing to describe the way in which your prior experiences – cultural and personal – give context to way in which you approach a problem or issue. Its a central aspect of how the public sphere operates and critical to our decision making process – both formal and informal. As a …
I was talking the other day about potential visions for future public services. I was asked what mine was and I didn’t give one. Instead I talked about culture and method and behaviours because how we go about shaping the future is critical, how we work will determine what is within reach. I have passionate …
The political landscape has still not got its act together – and I am too impatient to wait for it to change. As the post-industrial society unravels and something new emerges we need to focus on equipping people to participate in what comes next. Our tools to shape these changes are limited so we need to hone …
This is an action research post and very much me thinking in public. As I write this it occurs to me that I am perhaps less of an innovator and more of an experimenter – at the moment I am experimenting with ways to get things done. I’ve been thinking about collaboration a lot – …
What if we defined the purpose of digital public services as being to build a more participative relationship with the public? If we are seeing the emergence of the network society then don’t we have to? One of the reasons I believe that you can’t design an effective digital strategy without thinking about 21st century citizens and …
When it comes to leadership I believe in zero tolerance for digital ignorance. The more I work with senior teams and around digital transformation projects the more strongly I believe that leaders need to make sure that they have relevant and robust skills around technology because without these they are making decisions with at best …
This post is by way of a warm up for LocalGovCamp – its to help me shape what I want to pitch. There is no guarantee I’ll actually pitch it of course but best to be prepared! Localgovcamp is, for me, a chance to work on ideas which are personal projects so this post is …
This is part of a bigger project that Solace are looking at around a policy landscape for local government on the digital agenda (hopefully covering all 7 tribes of digital!!!). I’ve been asked to sketch out the critical questions and issues that I see under the broad heading of digital by design. Hopefully colleagues working …
There are no good answers without good questions. The spaces in-between which connect different concepts are often relatively unexplored – I think this is the lure of multi-disciplinary work – these spaces express the tension between ideas but are also the connectors and bridges between different groups of thinkers and practitioners. I have for a …