Author: David

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Week 3 – Ups and Downs

Learning Points …

Last week was a bit of a roller-coaster. It had it’s ups – watching NW & NH in Denver do such a good job for the JISC and UKFAM; having TW visit and “patient-sit” me while Jenny went for a hospital appointment; having a lovely walk and chat with EW who was also “patient-sitting” me; and catching-up with a few things in respect of affairs I’m dealing with in Hastings. It had it’s downs – the urticaria and the “night sweats” both got me down quite a bit, but I had a really bad day yesterday when I got quite depressed. So what do I take from last week?

  1. Getting something “substantial done” is a big call – pottering is about all you can manage after an operation like this. You get extra-ordinarily tired, even when you don’t think you’re doing anything.
  2. Following on from this, I think I can fairly say that you suffer a progressive energy drain as the days away from Day 0 increase. I shouldn’t be surprised at that, should I? After all my body is mending itself … bigtime. Patience is not a virtue I possess. It’s hard when it’s being imposed on me.
  3. When the adrenalin rush comes, as it it did for a couple of days last week, do you ride the wave or throttle back? I really don’t know – I’ll tell you next week. I do know that Friday was a really low-day and that Jenny had to work really hard to motivate me to do anything. I felt really sorry for myself but it was interesting how a chance meeting with a neighbour (DJ) caused me to “buck my ideas up” and “snap out of it”, causing me to believe that I don’t need to stay in a depressed state for any length of time. I’m sure there will be other days like Friday, but now I know what to expect!
  4. Celebrate the fact that broadly I achieved the objectives I set myself last week. I did specify the PC; I have almost come to a decision about BT Vision – though we used it last night to watch the Frost/Nixon film; I did write a couple of blogposts (and I did a lot of reading and viewing of the Educause 09 Conference in Denver); I did spend some time on my own and in some small ways did more for myself. So on balance I ended the week in a better place than I started. Bring on the champagne – forgot, I’m off wine for a couple more days.

Hopes and fears for Week 4 – I think I’ve got myself into a better place mentally for the coming week. Have had two “setbacks” so hope to learn from them. An obvious fear I have is that I start feeling sorry for myself. Having written that down here – I trust it won’t happen. 🙂 I’m really looking forward to a couple of visits by friends next week. I realise that they could also be tiring, so I must make allowances and take proper rest as well.

Objectives – not so many this week I feel. I think the coming week will be a reading and watching week. Got some stuff I want to read, I may have got to the moment when I can give some time to some serious reading. I also want to watch more of my Michael Palin Travel DVDs; Planet Earth; and the Lord of the Rings – it’s about time I gave that another outing otherwise I’ll wonder why I ever bought it in the first instance. Also I think I’ll work my way through the complete Beatles collection which I bought a few weeks back. I’m surprised from my sampling to date how much I’m enjoying the tracks I didn’t like at the time, and how extra good the ones I did used to enjoy are now in re-mastered stereo. The most serious objective is to do more walking. Been too much “in my head” this last week, must get out and exercise more – it would be good to find some trousers though that don’t chaff the scar on my leg; that would make things easier. Perhaps I’ll resurrect my “joggers” from the bottom drawer. 🙂

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The end of local democracy as we know it?

It’s been an interesting month for social networking and politics/business/media. Elsewhere @RuthHarrison has drawn attention to the debates surrounding Trafigura and Jan Moir, but something that caught my eye (on Newsnight) was the resignation of the Somerton Councillor’s because of vindictive blogging by Muck&Brass. I’m not going to comment upon the authors style (which is far too personal in places and which should be deprecated), content or methods of drawing attention to what he (and others it would appear) feel about their Council; nor am I going to comment upon the Councillors resignation other to suggest it’s a rather feable response to criticism; what I want to write about is how does the Local Councillor respond to the “crowd”.

Once upon time, everything was so controlled. You knew the editor of the local paper and if something was “not quite right”, or “you needed to get your point of view” across, or “you just wanted to correct a mis-understanding” that had leaked out into the press; you would ring them up and more often than not something would appear in the press, and all would be well with the world.

How does a democratically elected council deal with the “crowd” where they have no way of influencing what is written about them. They could actively participate in the blog, but they’d be at a disadvantage there as politicians are all about “pushing information” rather than shared communication. Collaborative social networking tools are not a happy place for them to be. If it’s their blog … that’s fine! If it’s someone elses … that’s a challenge!

We’ve been well-served by local democracy for centuries. With the rise of the empowered citizen blogger unaffiliated to a political grouping, able to move between causes and campaigns with little thought for the effect they may be causing on local democratic organisation are we in danger of making the Town Council a place that no one would wish to be elected to.

There’s a lot more thought to be put into this. I used to be heavily involved in politics at the “grass roots” as an old Liberal Party member. We worked hard to build consensus and ownership into our local campaigning – what would we have given for twitter or blogging in those days. These tools are now being used by all political parties but nearly always for delivering “the message” and faux consultation. They will struggle if an army of citizen bloggers begins to rise-up who have no allegiances, no sense of responsibility for their actions (other than a professed desire to “do the right thing”), and no real desire to take the place of those that they attack.

This is a concern to me … where does this all lead?