Digital consultant, writer & speaker on design, business and technology trends
Originally published on Spiked. Organ donation is a contentious issue. As it stands in the UK, losing a close relative can suddenly mean a difficult decision on whether or not to donate their organs, especially if they did not indicate any prior consent. There are moves towards ‘presumed consent’ – where it is assumed, unless […]
Continue ReadingOriginally published on spiked. The magazine Design Week recently asked various designers what they think London mayor Boris Johnson’s design priorities should be. One respondent, David Kester, who is chief executive of the Design Council, summed up the way the British design establishment has jumped on the government’s narrowing political bandwagon. Kester thought the mayor should think […]
Continue ReadingOriginally published in Battle of Ideas festival. QQ, Tudou, Mixi and CyWorld are not familiar names in the West, but these websites based in China, Japan and South Korea are more popular, profitable and technically innovative than their Western counterparts, MySpace, Facebook and YouTube. South Korea and Japan are the most advanced internet markets in […]
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Buy on Amazon. Contributing author. ‘The Future of Community is a much need challenge to the complacent and flabby orthodoxies currently dominating the debate. It asks all the right questions. . . . Suggesting compelling answers, this book will lift the communities debate to another level.’ Julian Baggini, philosopher and author of ‘Welcome to Everytown: […]
Continue ReadingOriginally published on spiked. Last week saw the launch in Washington DC of the World Wide Web Foundation, a new organisation with the aim of maintaining the web as an open and beneficial tool for all. On the face of it, its aims should be deserving of our support. But the Foundation should steer clear […]
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Originally published on Culture Wars (now defunct). Clay Shirky, adjunct professor at NYU, in his new book Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, argues that all this represents the awakening of democracy. People are more able to influence others by overlooking cumbersome official channels that are unrepresentative and out-moded, which worries the […]
Continue ReadingOriginally published on spiked. UK prime minister Gordon Brown’s bedtime reading this year has included a book called We-Think: Mass Innovation, Not Mass Production, by Charles Leadbeater – a man familiar to many in British government and policy circles, since he previously worked in Tony Blair’s 10 Downing Street policy unit (1). He is also the […]
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Originally published on spiked. Philippe Starck is possibly the world’s most famous designer. He has put a sense of style and fun into many people’s lives, furnishing their homes, offices and public spaces with his trademark French flair. He has made millions by doing everything from designing lemon squeezers to styling airport lounges. But Starck […]
Continue ReadingOriginally published on spiked. The internet is made up of hardcore pornography, videos of fighting, bullying, rape and websites that glorify extreme diets, selfharm, and suicide. Or at least that’s the impression you could easily be left with after reading an alarm-ridden report just published by a UK parliamentary committee. And that means further support […]
Continue ReadingOriginally published on spiked. Over the past month, the UK’s internet service providers (ISPs) have sent letters to more than a thousand people each week who have downloaded or shared copyrighted music via the internet. It is part of a campaign to ‘get tough’ on illegal file-sharing. The letter-writing campaign is a response to the […]
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