Stop, collaborate and listen. Demos have a new collection out today called The Collaborative State. I’ve got two pieces in there: One on the online response to Hurricane Katrina (co-authored with Niamh) and another about how Government can use online collaborative tools more generally called Flesh, steel and Wikipedia (written with Molly). Simon and Catherine had an op-ed article (sub req’d) in the FT yesterday [...]
Number 63
The Long Now Foundation (who I’ve got to know and enjoy working with over the past five years) have a new Membership Program. Becoming a Long Now member helps to fund their various projects (like the Clock) and provides access to high quality online video of their San Francisco Seminars. They also send you a really cool stainless steel membership card engraved with your charter [...]
The political backdrop
I realised recently that political theatre has changed quite substantially in the last decade in the UK. When I think back to 1997, the background to the Blair campaign was all about big crowds waving flags and placards and cheering and clapping. I think it was borrowed from the US with those huge party conventions with booming “The Next President of the United States” introductions [...]
Short short stories
Wired have a lovely little piece where they asked writers to come up with six word short stories. My favourite has to be this one: Machine. Unexpectedly, I’d invented a time – Alan Moore
Tropical South London
I was looking out of the window of my gym today admiring the spring blossom when I realised there was a flock of about 30 parakeets in one of the trees. According to this BBC piece it’s an increasingly common sight.
Neighbourhood Fix-It
I’ve just used MySociety’s Neighbourhood Fix-it for the first time to report a flooding problem on the main road near my house. Love the really simple reporting procedure… now just have to wait and see whether the council takes any notice!
Tories 2.0
I went along to hear George Osborne speak at the RSA yesterday morning about the internet and was very impressed. Normally, listening to politicians talking about technology is a bit embarrassing. They fall into lots of very obvious traps and sound very naive. But the shadow chancellor has met the people, read the books and obviously spends a fair amount of time online (using Firefox [...]
Lurching between optimism and pessimism
Just noticed that the RSA have put up a transcript (pdf) of the climate change event last year where I responded to the Treasury’s Michael Jacobs. My short talk was about the emotionally exhausting nature of the climate change issue – how it has developed an uneasy relationship between optimism and pessimism. Also noticed that Matthew Taylor – new Chief Exec at the RSA – [...]
Tiptheplanet
A little while back I met Tom Savage at a event about social enterprise. Tom is behind Tiptheplanet which is a kind of editable ‘How To’ guide to being more sustainable. It strikes me as a genuinely useful use of a wiki – as Tom explains: From little things, like cleaning your leather shoes with a banana skin – (rub with the inside of the [...]
It’s not what you know…
I’m writing a piece for the wonderful Enterprise Insight about networking and entrepreneurialism. The basic thrust will be that networking is a good thing to do if you want to make your ideas happen. It’s an interesting time for me to be writing it because I’m busy trying to start up a business with some friends. The thing that has struck me so far is [...]