Spent the day in Chelmsford today meeting loads of people re: Virtual Town Hall. This is by way of some observations and notes for me to remember for research purposes: Meeting the districts: We spent the morning with 3 districts who are considering getting involved and we had a very in-depth discussion about the concept …
We had our second VirtualTH project meeting yesterday so this is just a short update on that. The pilot is now full with Kirklees and Redbridge joining Chorley, Essex CC and North Lincs as pilot sites. We are also lucky to have Carl Haggerty participate as a ‘critical friend’ on the technology strand which is …
Though I am getting very excited about the technology for the virtual town hall (sad I know) the real challenges are I think in the social elements of creating a permanent civic space – a local public sphere (yes – lots of Habermas read this weekend). There are three main social challenges in my view: …
We need to remember that if we are going to make the virtual town hall work we have to always remember that its all about the people and we need to make this work in the messy realm of people compromises rather than the tidy world of technology. One of the underpinning assumptions of the …
I had the excellent pleasure of someone not only having read my post on life leaks but then having them point out that I was contradicting myself at the very moment we were discussing it – it was such a good point that I didn’t even mind not having made it myself!! We were talking …
I’ve been rather focused this week on getting the paper I needed to get finished in order to explain the Virtual Town Hall concept and finish recruiting people for the pilot. I’ve spoken to a lot of people in principle and had some very positive noises – now is the time to actually get the …
Brace yourelf – its a long one….. I am working on the theoretical framework for my thesis at the moment and so trying to establish its firm roots in the idea of a ‘network society’. The idea that we have moved into a post-industrial information age is well entrenched in current thinking (Webster 2006) with …
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 to keep reinventing your strategy …
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 checking citations for the proposal …
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 empty buzz. I have been …