Archive for the ‘Society’ Category

Dynamics of dense crowds

Monday, May 2nd, 2011Interesting article in The Economist on how crowds self organise -Existing models of crowd behaviour  treat moving masses of humanity as though they were fluids. This works, up to a point. But it often fails to predict the changes that ...

The democratisation of financial capital

Friday, April 22nd, 2011FaultlinesWhich business, which industry, which NGO or political organization, democratic or otherwise has not been touched by the impact of our most recent communications revolution? In a breath it seems, businesses defined by their socialness, community, and peer to peer ...

Juliana Rotich of Ushahidi in conversation

Tuesday, April 12th, 2011Ushahidi (Testimony) inspires me, because it was created from nothing, with no money, it demonstrates what true entrepreneurship can do. It also inspires me because like any good piece of work that is true to the age we live in ...

The rise and fall of information empires

Wednesday, April 6th, 2011In his review of Tim Wu's recent book, The Master Switch John Naughton asks at the outset, "At the heart of this fascinating book is one of the central questions of our age – rendered more urgent by recent events ...

Mobile culture and commerce for cultural institutions

Wednesday, March 9th, 2011Today I spoke at a conference on how mobile communications can be transformative for cultural institutions - my keynote was called Assets and Access in the Cultural Sector. The overview of the event organised by Camerjam, CultureLabel.com and Spark are ...

Intersections 2011

Wednesday, March 9th, 2011It was a strange piece of sychronicity as I drove down to the Eden Project in Cornwall to speak at the Intersections Creative Business Summit as I was listening to a Radio4 programme about one of Cornwall's famous sons Peter ...

Critical enquiry

Thursday, February 24th, 2011Howard Rheingold provides and in-depth and eloquent lesson on how we need to engage in a world defined not by scarcity or information but abundance, in which we need to be able to determine for ourselves the validty, and quality ...

True democracies in open space

Saturday, February 19th, 2011True democracies need open public spaces, that are shared, where people can meet as equals, writes John Keane in The Life and Death of Democracy. It is no surprise then that we see the square recently as the symbol of ...

Did the church see Gutenberg coming?

Thursday, February 17th, 2011Social Media or Social Business?Did the Church see Gutenberg coming? I asked this question recently at an event on innovation and disruption. Those of you that are fans of Blackadder, let me use the comedic twinning of Rowan Atkinson as ...

My East End is no longer our East End

Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011Why do people quest for connection and communication? Why is the world gone all social? Why does social communication dominate? Why is everyone writing about it? And why is everything that we define as 2.0 defined by participatory culture and ...

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