About David Wilcox

Over the past 50 years I’ve been a print journalist, consultant in regeneration partnerships and community engagement, and for the past few years have focused on how to mix face-to-face and online activities for collaboration. I call that social reporting.

From 1969-1976 I was planning correspondent for the London Evening Standard, and wrote a book on London for Thames TV. I now live in the City of London, just south of Smithfield, and I’m currently developing a storytelling and mapping project to explore the past present and future of this area, and Clerkenwell.  More here and in a new Connections blog linked to a column in the EC1 Echo.

From 2016-2020 I worked on Networked City, an exploration into how digital technology and network thinking can help reframe London’s civil society and support social action.

Drew Mackie and I also had the opportunity to put into practice some of the ideas we developed with others during that time. We worked with four equalities networks on the NetEquality Project, using network mapping and digital communications to enable peer-to-peer collaboration as well as network campaigning. More in this blog post about the start of that project.

One other major area of work has been development of games and simulations to co-design local and network platforms – including use of a co-design app. More here on that.

On the ground I’ve developed, with my son Dan, a demonstration of how we can use Google Earth, Story Maps and 360 photos and videos to create heritage trails. Here’s what we’ve done in Clerkenwell. Further north in Islington Drew, Dan and I developed a site for the Octopus network’s Urban Wildlife Project, using stories, videos and a network map to show how new social relationships – as well as wildlife – developed during the project.

I’ve worked with Drew Mackie on a major simulation for the Joined Up Digital project for the Centre for Ageing Better, following an exploration into Living Well in the Digital Age with the Age Action Alliance. We’ve developed social network mapping for the Croydon Best Start programme and other clients, and also created a suite of workshop games and simulations to support co-design.

Open explorations – mixing online research, blogging and crowdsourcing of ideas with events.

Workshop games, books and resource kits

Reporting events

  • Lots of blogging, tweeting, video, audio to help events expand beyond the room, and be part of a process of wider engagement. These ranged big events like Chain Reaction and a social innovation conference in Lisbon, to a one-day sessions for the Innovation Exchange where we helped facilitators integrate video into table discussions.

Training

Over the past few years other projects have included:

  • Helping the London Borough of Newham set up an internal online collaboration systems.
  • Supporting the BBC Trust on a consultation process that engaged bloggers in helping promote online dialogue.
  • Working with organisations like Community Housing Cymru and Digital Unite on how they could use social media.
  • Helping the organisation Making Music think through how they could use social media to provide additional services to members
  • Contributing to development of an innovation framework for NESTA, and principles for collaboration.
  • Working with IDeA on co-designing knowledge transfer between councils.
  • Workshop on designing user-centred digital public services with Consumer Focus
  • Social innovation reporter for the Big Society Network
  • Exploring how the use of social media could support tobacco control.
  • Work with the Third Sector Research Centre on the Beyond the Radar project.

I worked with Simon Berry to develop The Membership Project which aims to explore how social media and other drivers for change will impact on associations, nonprofits and other groups that serve members or look to them for support. We received initial funding from NCVO and RSA, and you can see more recent development here.

I’m married to Ann Holmes, who is a councillor for the Farringdon Within Ward of the City of London, where we live. Ann is currently Chief Commoner.

David Wilcox
david@socialreporter.com
https://socialreporter.com
@davidwilcox

+44 (0) 7970 621696

8 Comments

  • Monique Potts
    April 9, 2008 - 6:25 pm | Permalink

    Hi,

    I would like to get an rss feed for your blog but couldn’t find a link to it on your page. Could you please send me the URL for feeds. Thanks

  • socialreporter
    April 9, 2008 - 8:32 pm | Permalink

    Thanks for the nudge … how did I forget? Anyway, see right sidebar now

  • May 15, 2008 - 10:24 am | Permalink

    Hey Mate,

    Have found your blog/site very interesting. Could you please enable email subscription.

    Cheers

  • socialreporter
    May 15, 2008 - 3:45 pm | Permalink

    Thanks Don – I’ve put in a subscribe link at the bottom of the sidebar

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