I’ve been scootling around the place recently making a series of short films as means of introductory pieces for a neighbourhood safety conference in the Hague this coming week. I’ve met four groups from Birmingham and two from The Hague, all working experimenting with ways to give residents more power in reducing grime and [...]

The photo of Katie Derham swaddled in bank notes is from the flickr part of the promotional package for the People’s £50 million. In the next two weeks the whole nation will be invited to vote on which of 4 communal projects should win £50 million from the Big Lottery fund.

I want the Black [...]

I can’t bear gift tokens. I usually forget to spend them. According to Seth Godin that is true of $8 billion dollars worth each year in the US (not sure of the source for his number).

Seth wants two things: For us to stop believing that gift tokens are more thoughtful than cash [...]

Beth used Facebook to ask for our time saving tips for professional and organisational social networking. She asked specifically about tools etc to help work across mutliple sites (something which I can’t answer) but I can offer some basics, and getting the basics right will save wasted time:

1 Guiding principle number one is to [...]

I’m about to indulge in substantial conflation. Bear with me.

Yesterday on the train from Birmingham to London to take up William Hoyle’s characteristically sociable invitation to explore Dan McQuillan’s proposition for establishing Netsquared in the Old World, I was reading the latest edition of Prospect.

In it American writer Walter Russell Mead confronts us [...]

Leng is going to University after Beth Kanter raised the $1000 dollars it will cost in less than 24 hours. This worked simply because Beth knows how to use online tools like ChipIn, asks us to contribute to an individual and most importantly is known and trusted by hundreds of people.

If Beth tells me that [...]