Highlight of 2009: ‘retrenchment and revolution’ 4. January 2010 – 18:25 by Dan Jellinek

A Happy New Year to all PEP-Netters.

I’ve been thinking back to some of the highlights of last year, and I think one of the most memorable for me was actually a policy talk, a prediction of what the year ahead 2010 might hold, and beyond, in our field.

It was a talk by Geoff Mulgan, director of the Young Foundation and former advisor to Tony Blair, who looked beyond the double whammy of the dot.com bubble bursting and the economic crisis to what might be a period where the true potential of social media in the public sphere can be realised. Mulgan suggested that we are on the brink of a period of “extraordinary growth” in the use of new technologies to boost citizen engagement in society, driven in part by the very economic hardships that are making increases in centralised services simply too expensive.

A full report (by me) of the talk to the UK’s local government Society of IT Management (Socitm) annual conference, ‘Retrenchment and revolution’, can be read online at:

https://www.socitm09.net/blog/2009/10/11/retrenchment-and-revolution/

It is an exciting analysis, and let’s see what happens!

Dan Jellinek

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