Clay Shirky

Why a change of generation is not going to make politicians’ net comms more interesting

In a variety of different ways I’ve been working with politicians on the net for more than a decade now. At one level it’s fine work – everyone knows the future is going to be online, right? It’s cheaper to

16.12.2010 EU Politics / Technology

The need for a credible bargain – what the EU should learn from today’s #EUCO Twitter wall experience

There’s a legendary story for those of us that look at political activity on the web that concerns change.gov, Obama’s platform to allow the public to put forward their political ideas that went live the day after he was inaugurated.

08.12.2010 UK Politics

The Labour/left blogosphere in the UK and Wikileaks

The whole Wikileaks saga has left me torn and confused. My automatic reaction is to welcome the leaks, to welcome the fact that we know much more now about how the wool has been pulled over our eyes as citizens

01.11.2010 Technology / UK Politics

Big Society under the Coasian floor (rather than thanks to Nectar Points)

There seems to be a fundamental misconception at the heart of the ‘debate’ about Cameron’s Big Society ideas. This misconception is fed both by the discourse used by the Tories themselves, and the media reaction. Take this piece in today’s

23.10.2010 EU Politics / Technology / UK Politics

Public intellectuals on Twitter – where are the Brits (or even the Europeans)?

Attending Personal Democracy Forum, re:publica and other equivalent events has – both directly and indirectly – opened my eyes to the writing and thinking of a whole group of US public intellectuals. I’ve had fun meeting Jeff Jarvis, have heard

04.08.2010 Technology

What’s the value of an e-mail (or a thousand) in a political lobbying campaign?

If you’re an elected representative, what does an e-mail mean? If it’s from a constituent, individually written, it’s clear enough. But what about if it’s part of a campaign? In the clip above Clay Shirky argues that the predictive value