An online notebook
Get posts sent to your inbox:
An online notebook
Catherine Howe – Head towards the North Star: Some of the shifts we need to make are very much rooted in public service; better coproduction with communities, prevention at scale and deep modernisation of technology and practice. Some of this…
Carl Haggerty – Introducing the Chrysalis Work: Working in a council right now can feel a lot like being inside a chrysalis. The old shape of things is still visible – job titles, structures, budgets, habits – but much of…
Wise words as always from Catherine Howe – Change is a layered thing: There is an alchemy to taking stuff you have already and turning it into something different but I think that’s the essence of organisational change. You are…
My good friend Carl Haggerty and I are really pleased to be kicking off a new monthly thing – The Change Makers. The first one is on Tuesday, 28th January 2025 at 11am and you can sign up for it…
I published a newsletter on Wednesday, talked a bit about blogging. Hadn’t done one for a whole and picked a fairly safe topic just to get back into the swing of things. Today’s innovation igloo was a right laugh, as…
Resource. If you stop and think about it, it’s a terrible way to speak about people. A resource is something you take and use. Applied to people, it carries dismissive and devaluing undertones. Original:
All change is system change — to say otherwise is to ignore a fundamental truth about organisations being living breathing human systems. Original:
I was asked this morning for the two main blockers to progress in the various attempts at technology enabled change over the years, whether titled e-government or digital transformation. Here’s what I came up with – it would be interesting…
I’m pulling together a list of interesting, thought-provoking reading on how design, technology and change (the three things that, for me, define ‘digital’) can help organisations that work in the community, voluntary, charity, non-profit, social enterprise type space. Is there…
It isn’t said enough, I don’t think, that change – particularly in big organisations – is hard. Really hard! If it wasn’t, it would be happening all the time. At events there are regularly discussions that go on along the…
Five for Friday is WorkSmart’s weekly roundup of interesting stuff from the week’s reading. About change, defaults and disruption – “large organisations are racing against start-ups to stay relevant”. Great stuff from Anne McCrossan Creating a minimum viable product using…
Five for Friday is WorkSmart’s weekly roundup of interesting stuff from the week’s reading. Attention, Please! PC Programs to Stave Off Distraction – can technology help you stop wasting time with technology? Oppia – a Google 20% project to “enable…
I find this stuff so you don’t have to: Redefining the Digital Divide | @helenmilner The system is failing, hack the system – via @annemcx The Four Freedoms – wonderful piece on #opensource by @photomatt The dangerous appeal of the…
37 Signals’ David Heinemeier Hansson: When people talk about their IT departments, they always talk about the things they’re not allowed to do, the applications they can’t run, and the long time it takes to get anything done. Rigid and…
Something like Wikileaks couldn’t happen in local government, could it? Well, it looks like something similar is kicking off in Lincolnshire, with the Watching Lincolnshire County Council blog. It’s a whistleblowing site, where disgruntled employees are sharing rumours, gossip and…
It’s pretty obvious that local government, like all areas of public service, is facing a challenging time. Most of Learning Pool’s customers work within Organisational Development, or Learning and Development roles, and when budgets get cut, it’s often training that…
I find this stuff so that you don’t have to. The Collapse of Complex Business Models « Clay Shirky – Awesome stuff from Shirky. Reflecting on my MSc research by Michele Ide-Smith – "By researching the attitudes and perceptions of authorities…
[Something is going wrong with this again. For some reason this hadn’t been posted before now.] I find this stuff so that you don’t have to. Embracing Government 2.0: Leading transformative change in the public sector (PDF) – PDF warning!…
I find this stuff so that you don’t have to. comment.ofqual.gov.uk – Lovely commentable document style consultations from Ofqual MINDSPACE: Influencing behaviour through public policy – Institute for Government – "Influencing behaviour through public policy explores how behaviour change theory…
Last week I spoke at the Online Information conference. It was a session about Twitter, where Karen Blakeman did a great job explaining the whole thing, and how organisations can make use of it. Then I stepped up and told…