Democracy and knowledge

Great, meaty article in this fortnight’s issue of The London Review of Books by David Runciman: The wisdom of crowds: why the many are smarter than the few. We-think: the power of mass creativity. Infotopia: how many minds produce knowledge.…

Boris isn’t listening

Boris Johnson has hit Twitter! Marvellous. Only… As of the time of typing, Boris isn’t following anyone. Also, ‘under the auspices’? Jesus wept. Compare this to 10 Downing Street’s much healthier use of the service: Twitter doesn’t work as a…

Learning from Obama

Edelman have published an interesting white paper on what lessons can be learnt from Obama’s use of the social web in his campaign. It’s worth a read. Here’s the headline list of learning points: Start early Build to scale Innovate…

Be less boring

I wasn’t sure whether or not to blog about this. But I think I ought to, simply because this is such a cracking example of how badly digital engagement can be, and how easy it could be made much better.…

Making Council meetings social

Image credit: tricky Tidying up a few bits on the IDeA Performance site, and seeing Steven Tuck’s comment on my previous post about it, I thought about how these techniques could be used in different situations within local government. After…

FixMyStreet on DirectGov!

Tom Watson reports via Twitter that MySociety’s FixMyStreet is now embedded in DirectGov. On the page in question, a boxout gives you the option of reporting a problem via FixMyStreet rather than through the usual route of DirectGov linking you…

An open transition

Another Saturday evening post about how the internet can have a positive effect on the way democracy and government operates. This one is straight from the US. An Open Transition is a site set up by a coalition of folk…

Us Now

Quite a few folk have been lucky enough to see Us Now, a film made by Banyak Films in association with the RSA. Ivo Gormley directs. Here is how the film is described on its website: Us Now is a…