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.
The new, social, democracy of media and beyond
Marshall Mcluhan once famously proclaimed on both the message and the medium. Most of us have grown up with the accepted truth of the media as an imperious and unshakeable institution; the disseminator of news and views, fact and (occasional) fiction; the property of Barons and magnates, living in castles on the hill or fortresses...
Citizen Truths and Civic Principles: The Reformation of Public Relations
At an event today, the great and the good in UK media discussed ‘where the truth lies’ in business and media today. Guests bristled through a lively conversation on a wide range of topics...
Playing Politics with the Citizen
If certain news reports are to be believed, David Cameron might just offer Nick Clegg and the LibDems a ‘deal’ in the event of a hung parliament: they can have Proportional Representation, but just not everywhere. It might be ok for Europe and for local Councils, but of course not for Parliament. To many, this...
The Rat, the Squirrel and Chimes of Freedom Flashing
It has been something of an odd couple of weeks, with some of my professional peers either brazenly speaking of lying (PR Week, February 3rd), or offering somewhat antediluvian points of view about what PR really is and how we go about our everyday business. Having recorded the BBC’s The Bottom Line with the erudite...
A Footnote Posting
There are two silent – but nonetheless brilliant, contributors – without whom Citizen Renaissance would not be possible: Arabella Bakker and Antoine Soussaline. Jules and I are deeply indebted to them both. Arabella helped prepare and organize much of the work for the CBI Climate Change conference at the end of last year – a...
Looking Again at The State We’re In
I have been doing a lot of reading and thinking around the subject and nature of Trust, as we prepare to launch the 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer in London and in Davos this week. It will come as no surprise to many to learn that – as with the interim Barometer, published in the summer...
Citizens / Climate change / Communications / Individuality / Leadership / New Economics / Trust / Wellbeing
Inverting The Power Pyramid
Preparing some notes for a panel session at next week’s CBI forum on Climate Change, I am struck by how top-down the world still really is and suddenly alarmed that I remain in a narrow minority of those wishing and willing to embrace bottom-up democracy and ride the chaos of new networks. The CBI intro...
The Genetic Mis-Disposition of Airmiles Andy
If the Republic Blog’s reporting of Andrew Windsor’s speech about Bankers’ Bonus’ is accurate, then his words simply beggar belief: “I was brought up to do this sort of work. It is training, experience and genetics. We offer consistency and regularity. We have been around for a long time and will be around for a...
