(This is a full version of an article I wrote for The Guardian’s Local Leaders Network on how councils can measure the success of social media. You can read the edited version on the Guardian’s site.) According to the 2013 BDO Local Government Social Media Survey, 98% of UK councils are using some form of digital or … Read more
Online privacy issues are currently difficult to understand. Amid media headlines about NSA, Prism and Snowden, terms such as encryption, Tor and HTTPS are used extensively with the average person expected to keep up with what they mean and understand how the issues affect them. For people who aren’t technically adept, the message about why online … Read more
Before you make the leap, there are some freelance essentials that you should have before you launch your new freelance career. While sometimes boring and time-consuming to set up, the more work you put into getting these essentials set up now, the easier your life will be once you get into the more important aspects … Read more
This article originally appeared in The Carrier, a monthly newspaper founded in 2012 as a way to send news to the people in our lives. I love living London with all it’s hustle and bustle. It can feel like the centre of the world and that all the world’s important moments are happening, just minutes away, in … Read more
Twitter has been speeding up the experiments they run on their platform recently. From a recent blogpost: "A common thread across recent releases has been experimentation. We’ve tested various features with small groups of our 200 million users before determining what we’ll release. These tests are essential to delivering the best possible user experience. It’s rare … Read more
Steve Jobs, the late Apple co-founder, ended his famous commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005 with the words "Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish." This advice came from the back cover of the Whole Foods Catalogue final issue in 1974. Accompanying a photograph of an early morning country road, it was the farewell message of the … Read more
Jelly is the new iPhone and Android app from Twitter co-founder, Biz Stone. The basic premise is of "loosely distributed networks of people coordinating via Jelly to help each other." Here’s their video to explain more: I’ve been playing around with the app this morning and found the experience a mix of Instagram and … Read more
I love being productive and the feeling that comes from getting the right work done at the right time. A recent productivity hack I’ve been following is to save all reading – including articles, newsletter and books – to outside of work hours, when I have downtime and can concentrate on the material. There have … Read more
I’ve written about my reading habits before, using apps like Tweetbot and Pocket as a system for saving interesting content to read later. So when the Cronycle team got in touch to offer me a test drive of their beta product, I was interested enough to take a look and see if it could be … Read more
Growing up in the seaside town of Brighton, I never thought I would meet and mingle with "famous" people (famous in the form of well respected icons – not the here today, gone tomorrow celebrity variety). When I was small, just going to the local park or the walk to school seemed like a big trip. … Read more