The outcome of political careers and even campaigns is increasingly dependent on the successful mastery of new communication tools including social media. Many MPs and members of Congress are embracing the use of social networking tools to keep in touch with their constituents, whilst Facebook, YouTube and even Twitter have potentially changed the nature of [...]

Journals and peer-reviewed publications are still the most widely used channels through which research is disseminated within the scientific community and to a broader audience. However, social media is increasingly challenging the supremacy of editors, reviewers and science communicators. Blogging about science has become a new way of engaging “the public” directly with researchers whilst [...]

Theorists such as Yochai Benkler have suggested that the accessibility and inherently social nature of Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, social networking and wikis mean that we might expect them to enhance our democratic freedoms through the opening of new channels for debate and collaboration. Academic research suggests that such new opportunities have not [...]

Among the traditional media, blogs and other contributions to citizen journalism have for a long time been regarded as posing a significant threat to ‘quality’ news reporting, whilst the global recession has shown that the threatened failure of high quality local and regional media outlets was not a groundless fear. Whilst some of the most [...]

In the popular mind, science is often represented as a profoundly cold and impersonal affair, strictly governed by method, reason and impartiality. It is carried by the notion that the scientific endeavour is propelled by the anonymous knowledge-worker who carries out experiments under strictly controlled conditions behind closed doors.  Steven Shapin, eminent historian and sociologist [...]

Twitter could not buy this publicity! Current events in Iran show how widely the use of social media tools, such as Twitter, Facebook, Blogs & Co, have revolutionised politics and indeed political dissent. Unquestionably, corporations, newspapers and even governments are increasingly embracing blogs and Twitter feeds as key-elements in their communication strategies. Yet, research shows [...]

There’s no better way to kick off an entrepreneurship trek than by having breakfast with Joe DiNucci at Bucks of Woodside.   I first met Joe when Silicon Valley Came to Oxford (SVCO) back in November ‘08.  He’s the type of guy you wish you could have on speed-dial because his wisdom, experience and hilarious anecdotal [...]

We headed back to San Francisco this morning to visit the team at YouNoodle, a software company which uses an algorithm to predict the success of startups.  Bob Goodson, YouNoodle’s co-founder and CEO, shared his thoughts on entrepreneurship and experiences on running a startup.  What was particularly cool however was the candid Q&A session we [...]

For the past 8 years, the Said Business School has hosted some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs during its annual Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford (SVCO) event.  This flagship event, held every November, provides an opportunity for Oxford MBA’s and others to interact with Silicon Valley VIP’s through a full day of masterclasses, garage-style [...]

Tension, is the word that I would use to describe academic and practitioner perspectives on Africa.
A devotion to the obsessive pursuit of knowledge within a narrow and sharply defined area is one way to view academic research endeavours; in ‘The Bottom Billion’ Paul Collier describes research as an intense but very narrow beam of light. [...]