Renaissance Realised
Nigerian activist Seun Kuti spoke recently about the need for ‘government to serve us’, rather than ‘us to serve government’. His challenge to President Goodluck Jonathan serves as a perfect aphorism for the global landscape surrounding government, as evidenced by the 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer, launched today at the World Economic Forum in Davos. More...
Europe: The Crucible of Trust
Monday 23 January sees the launch of the 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer – with its core message that trust in government has fallen dramatically worldwide, and that business now has the opportunity to shift from protecting its License to Operate to properly earning its License to Lead. There is a global sense of citizens rising...
Who Do We Trust
I have spent the past twenty four hours in a luxurious retreat in the hillsides surrounding Lisbon, listening to the great and good of the global PR industry consider ‘the future’ and what it all really means. Peter Gummer/ Lord Chadlington (for they are one in the same) sparked, for me at least, a frisson...
An Informed Society and a new hope?
By the time I had returned to the office on Friday from speaking at the #Polis11 conference at LSE (curator: @CharlieBeckett), a colleague had already received an excited e-mail from a local politician asking for a transcript of my five minutes on An Informed Society? Apparently, I was ‘making waves’ – though the broad themes...
Squaring The Circle?
I am often asked how I can ‘justify’ my (senior) position within one of the world’s largest Public Relations firms, with my impassioned views on citizenship and society. I have long held the belief not only that it is a crass falsehood to see PR as a perpetrator of evil but also that the communications...
Citizen Capitalism and the Peaceful Revolution
The following is an extract from a talk given on Saturday 5 March in Portmeirion, Wales, at Names Not Numbers – billed as ‘a very British Davos’. The theme of the 2011 gathering was Community and Values. The most consequential outcome of the global financial crisis is now the challenge to capitalism itself.
Beyond the Bankers: The Advance of Citizen Capitalism
The publication of two significant works within the past fortnight signposts a welcome shift in conversation about New Economics and ‘new’ business models in the wake of the great crises of our time.
Heading Our Way: Why the Re-Alignment of Trust is Good News for The Citizen
Today’s publication of the 2011 Edelman Trust Barometer, also covered in The FT, confirms the re-alignment of Trust in the wake of the great crises of recent years.
The Big Society Can Bite Back: A Citizen Perspective
It is, admittedly, early days but opinion is divided as to whether David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ is a genuine commitment to citizenship and civic responsibility or a clever ideological play to dramatically reduce the size of the state, delivering a Grantham fist within a Notting Hill glove.
