Duncan O'Leary
Duncan works on projects looking at public services, skills and work.
- Get involved! Welcome to the project blog for this project. During the project i will be posting some thoughts up here and bookmarking some of the interesting things that i read during the project here. Leave a comment or drop me an email if there's some research you think i should be reading or a potential case study that i should be visiting... continue reading on 25th July 2006 in Professional Authority
- Where to, guv? Writing in the Guardian today Polly Toynbee argues that “If John Major was in office but not in power, Tony Blair is still in power but no one knows what for.” I’m not so sure. continue reading on 21st July 2006 Comments (3)
- Hot air? It didn’t make the front pages (as far as I know) but I think David Miliband’s speech yesterday floating the idea of carbon rationing for individuals is going to be an interesting one to watch... continue reading on 20th July 2006 Comments (1)
- Recyclebank I’ve just come across what looks like a brilliant recycling scheme in the US. It’s called RecycleBank and it works like this:1. Each house gets a recycling container with a barcode on it, that allows the recycling truck to identify what your household in recycling 2. The amount your home recycles is translated into RecycleBank Dollars (paid for by the council through the savings they make on landfill sites) 3. You can spend your RecycleBank dollars at any of the 100 participating... continue reading on 10th July 2006 in Cool Tools for Government Greening Up Demos Comments (1)
- How to reconnect young people and organisations Have a read of the pamphlet here, or have a glance over the presentation that Sarah and I did at the event this morning. We had a good old debate with Sir Digby Jones and Wes Streeting from the National Union of students going toe to toe, and lots of very insightful commentry from Kevin Steele from Enterprise Insight.Let us know what you make of the report anyway - email me here or leave a comment if you can get past our embattled spam filters! continue reading on 13th June 2006
- Top of the Hoffs Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman says that ?We have never been so free and so unable to change things? - and David Hasselhoff fans have been listening. They want to get their hero to number 1, but realize that they?ve got a problem: they need some way of persuading people to take action (i.e. buy Looking For Freedom on i-tunes) when each person?s individual contribution makes such a small difference. Without overcoming this, Hoff fans are likely to feel powerless, and the chances are no-one will buy... continue reading on 5th June 2006
- The Origin of Wealth I'm going to do something silly here and recommend a book before i've even read it. Going solely on the basis of a write-up in the Sunday Times yesterday, The Origin of Wealth looks worth a read. Eric Beinhocker, a senior fellow at the McKinsey Global Institute, reckons that the economy is a "complex adaptive system". (Apparently) he explores why we respond to incentives in some cases and not in others, and looks at the interaction of states, markets and communities in creating social... continue reading on 5th June 2006
- Jamie, Tony and David Tony Blair caused a stir a couple of weeks back by signing a petition (do prime ministers sign petitions?) and Cameron says that his government would be an advocate for best practice, whilst criticising those companies who do not live up to expectations.Great. But coming back to the question, wasn?t one of Jamie Oliver?s great achievements to put government in a position where it had to respond? Undoubtedly the government was reacting to ? rather than leading ? the debate on this and deserves... continue reading on 22nd May 2006
- Rise of the Pro-Ams Demos associates Charlie Leadbeater and Paul Miller have just started working on a book version of The Pro-Am Revolution pamphlet they wrote for Demos. They've set up a blog where they're going to try out some new ideas - have a look here. They're looking for pro-ams they can interview for the book, so if you're a pro-am or have good suggestions drop them a line at hello(at)proamrevolution(dot)com....last thought: they're both professional writers - is that cheating..?! continue reading on 19th May 2006
- Collective action lives on Crisis, what crisis? In a perfect storm of identity politics and collective action a new organisational emerges: the Pete Collective. Turns out that our own Peter Bradwell is a fully-fledged member, and i'm sure will share the concern of the authors on the site that Pete from Big Brother hasn't - as yet - been flying the flag in the house. continue reading on 19th May 2006