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 …
A lot of my thinking about place has been shaped by social geographers like Doreen Massey or more recently by economic thinking about how to drive place based growth. In considering how to build digital civic infrastructure I leaned heavily into the idea of a story of place and the need to find or create …
This is the first of a number of posts I plan to write as I prep for my viva*. If you prefer my less academic stuff then look away now! The prep involves re-reading the thesis and noting all the bits I would now like to have done differently (eurgh) as well catching up on …
This post is an outline of one of the policy question that we are discussing that the Master of Networks event (in Venice!!) next week. While not a proper paper as its an academic audience you may find this slightly more referenced than usual…its really lazy referencing with just signposts to literature rather than a …
Howard Rheingold was one of the first people who articulated the promise of the social web. With “Homesteading on the Virtual Frontier” he literally wrote the book on online community. Rheingold is an unapologetic enthusiast for the potential of digital community and the network society but he is also thoughtful and balanced in his examination …
I have been dithering about this post and this issue for a while now but thanks to a brilliantly interesting meeting with the team at the South Yorkshire Joint Secretariat (thank you folks) and also a couple of conversations with other Police Authority clients its time to get something out in the world I think. …
I spent a couple of days last week with the We Live Here Team at the Creative Councils Camp in Birmingham so this post is an attempt to capture some thoughts from the experience. My first thought is that I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with the team – thank you all…. The point of the …
How Many Friends Does One Person Need?: Dunbar’s Number and Other Evolutionary Quirks This is brief write up of the Robin Dunbar book “How many friends does one person need?”. I read the book as a balance to the way in which its very easy to start thinking of networks mathematically and systemically even though …
This post is a good example of where my work and research start to come together. Over at Public-i we have been working on a number of social media audits for clients and I have been working on a more formal framework to deliver this (white paper on this soon) and so I have been …
The ability to reach the other side of the world without leaving your sofa brings changes beyond saving the cost of a stamp. The ability to share data and content without doing so in person or setting it in the aspic of print gives it a life of its own which starts to interweave with …