In a recent talk at Newcastle University, Mark Smith, the new Service Innovation Lead at Gateshead Council (link here) gave a refreshing perspective on service redesign in local authorities. The talk called for sensitive and nuanced use of service levels standards. Standards do not equate to quality First of all, Mark Smith provided helpful context […]
The emergent ecosystem of civic data Recently I have been working on housing land supply data as part of ‘OurLand’. OurLand is a research and development project supported by the Future Cities Catapult to innovate access to development land data. The background research involved a detailed review of housing land supply data in five UK local authorities. It […]
A couple of years ago, my blog featured an article in the wake of the emerging crisis relating to the Snowden revelations. This topic is not cored to my typical work, but it is still highly relevant, as it relates to digital public engagement. Many pressing questions remain to be resolved as to what the […]
On Monday, Apple presented the latest member of their product line-up, the iWatch. It’s by far not the first wrist-bound wearable as Apple’s competitors, Samsung, LG, Pebble, Motorola, all came much before [see here]. Nonetheless, much hope has been vested into the capacity of the device to jumpstart yet another category of personalised, ultra-portable digital […]
The Internet is often viewed as a first-ever ‘planetary machine’. Its scale and extend is vast and it has enabled digital platforms available anywhere. Some obvious examples are Facebook’s global social network, Wikipedia’s platform for collaborative peer production. The scale and vastness of the Internet combined with the continued move to digital systems have led […]
I am preparing my PhD’s empirical study on the basis of my position paper, presented at Ubicomp’12 conference. In this study, I will work with Lancaster City Council planners. I aim to deepen the understanding of information use and access as part of consultations in urban planning. I see planning as a proxy to understand the […]
In the past months, I’ve focused on research in urban planning as my primary research context. Just next week, I am heading to Pittsburgh (USA) to attend the ubicomp conference as a presenter of a full paper, a participant in the SOFTec workshop. It will be an excellent opportunity to exchange some ideas with members of the computing community on the proposal of […]
