John Craig
Associate
John is Director of The Innovation Exchange, which works to grow innovation from the third sector
- The naked company There?s a good review on Slashdot of a book called The Naked Corporation, which discusses the effects of new standards of openness. The review argues that tools such as Google make it easy for customers and activists alike to hold companies to account, so that they increasingly have to take the initiative, making openness a priority of their own. For me, one interesting example of such a tool is the Parking Lot Indicatr, to which anyone can submit a night time picture of a company?s car park... continue reading on 25th January 2005
- Tasty broadband I have long been confident that Paul's enthusiasm for del.icio.us was misplaced. However, I was completely wrong, as a conversation with an enthusiastic subscriber to our delicious entires proved yesterday. In recent weeks, I have been using our page to store web links that are useful for our Broadband Britons project. Having built up some entries, I can now show visitors to the project page what we are reading about broadband right now. One side effect, though, is that the picture of our... continue reading on 21st January 2005
- Well, Natasha I had the pleasure of appearing on BBC1's breakfast programme today, and sitting on the sofa with the lovely Natasha. They were talking all morning about a new report from HEFCE on the failure to make any real progress on widening participation in HE. I was on with Sir Howard Newby from HEFCE, and as the news story shows, he was surprisingly open about the scale of the problem and the lack of solutions. It was fun to see a virtual institution operating out of not much more than a broom... continue reading on 19th January 2005
- The problem of openness First was the very different coverage of the premiere of Jerry Springer the Opera. With a different group of religious protesters, largely white, the soul-searching shifted from the role of public life to the role of art. On what is sadly safer conversational ground, this seemed nearer the mark. Secondly, Ken Livingstone got in to hot water in the London Assembly this week for describing criticism of his dialogue with the cleric Yusuf Al-Qaradawi as ?racist?. Equally, this made me wonder... continue reading on 16th January 2005
- A belated end to asymmetry Authenticity is so time-consuming. Follow-up coverage this week helps me to make up for failing to blog, of all things, our interim report about the social impact of broadband, published in December. Proper journalists such as the BBC were more vigilant, focussing on the idea that broadband is increasingly allowing individuals to make more pro-active uses of the internet, both in their social lives and their interactions with public services. Perhaps iconic of this shift were the findings... continue reading on 16th January 2005 Comments (1)
- Sure Start's premature obituary Last week, Norman glass, the father of Sure Start, claimed in the Guardian that the flagship programme had been killed off. The government, for the their part, argued that it had simply been ?rolled-out? to the whole country. Both are an exaggeration ? while Children?s Centres mark a new phase for Sure Start, the broader debate about its principles goes on. As Norman Glass himself observed in an earlier article, one key principle is that of local public involvement and initiative. On... continue reading on 11th January 2005
- The personal is political: fact or aspiration? I'm not the first to observe that the discovery of something called morality in the US elections seems likely to impact on our own poll. Nor am I breaking new ground in observing that if we can better connect politics to the feelings people have about the world, so be it, but that it ought not to be at the expense of open political debate. Against this background, I wonder what will happen in the coming months to issues that have always been politically emotive. In the news today, the LGA... continue reading on 5th December 2004
- Creatives and the cheap revolution Atop Paul Miller?s growing pamphlet mountain, Disorganisation and The Pro-Am Revolution remind of two posts worth sharing. The online text and cartoons of Hugh Macleod?s How to be Creative have insight with the schmaltz, and his picture of hierarchy is fantastic. He also has a word about our pro-ams, of which there are further examples here under the banner of ?the cheap revolution?. continue reading on 30th November 2004
- From last resort to first Staffer turned poli sci journeyman Peter Macleod had an op-ed piece in Canada's Globe & Mail yesterday about his constituency project . He talks about new federal funding for constituency offices in Canada, and their shift from last resort to first port of call for citizens looking to navigate the complexity of public services. Is this a way to bridge the governance gap between the public and their services or unwarranted interference in collective provision? (And while we're at it, how... continue reading on 25th November 2004
- Rules ain't rules Robert Kagan, noted if occasionally unpopular thinker on global affairs gave this address on the relationship between the US and Europe. They should work together, he argues, not for abstract reasons of global justice, but because the notions of liberalism to which they both subscribe will simply make it hard for them to ignore each other. Far from rousing stuff, and lots to argue over, but at least it feels more real than the usual pop-psych writ large of international politcal... continue reading on 24th November 2004