Dec 21
Big Digital Society, I Think Not
There have been a couple of articles this week which do nothing to make me feel any less concerned that we are failing to address the fundemental need for a knowledge society so that the benefits are there for everybody and not just the few.
Jul 23
Therefore it’s unacceptable….
It’s a fair question, isn’t it? Government invests all that money in local government IT; then supports all of that community based activity: digital inclusion advisers, digital mentors, UK Online Centres, Race Online 2012; what does it get for its money?
Jun 24
DAA11EU Impressions and Reflections
Conferences come and go but there’s always something that sticks in your mind. The Digital Agenda Assembly 2011 was structured around the pillars of the Digital Agenda and sought to set the scene for European Activity to achieve the targets for 2020. So what sticks in my mind? The venue; Autoworld was a pretty spectacular [...]
May 9
Place Based Social Innovation
On Wednesday 4th May 2011 @Coprodnet asked: What would a place-based social innovation infrastructure (people-relationships, places, processes tech) look like? For what they are worth these are my thoughts…..
Apr 20
Shropcamp Report
I am hoping that this will become a vibrant community of interest which will drive the use of open data and social media in helping to engage and empower communities in rural areas such as Shropshire so that next year’s Shropcamp will be bigger yet and who knows, it may take on a wider rural participation.
Apr 18
The Geek Layer
And Gov said “Let there be data” and there was data and he looked and he saw that it was open. In the past I’ve had my doubts and my rants about the claims made for open data and its potential for bringing transparency to political process. I think my frustrations came from the idea [...]
Jan 6
Digital Inclusion – Time for a rethink?
Is it time we re-evaluated what we mean by digital inclusion? Should we be asking ourselves the question in what are we including people? Is the set of values that underpin our approach to getting people on line rooted somewhere in the past and have we reached the point where we should be moving away from the ‘get everybody on line to access services’ approach and rethink along the lines of public value creation and design?
Oct 31
Big Society Digital Challenge
Like impatient children on a long journey we say “are we there yet?” To which the reply comes, “nearly” but should we be asking what else should be changing along the way? I’m a digital optimist: I believe that digital technologies can change lives though for me that means tackling the barriers to change at the organisational level. Digital politics are deeply embedded in the social fabric and shifting the balance in favour of the majority will not come quickly or easily.
Oct 11
The Big Digital Society?
The new localism waits in the wings ready to challenge the established order of local government and service delivery. It is about to disrupt the raison d’être of the established third sector and it is opening to door to new forms of organisation and individual action. Perhaps now, the potential for digital inclusion will play a part in the empowerment of communities and crowd accelerated innovation with become the accepted norm.
Mar 14
Cesi n'est pas une pipe
The National Digital Inclusion Conference 2010 (NDI 10) was a better conference than last year. This was in part due to the involvement of larger numbers of individuals and groups that are engaged in delivery and in part due to the organisation of the event which was much more open than last year. Martha Lane [...]
