Knowledge Centre blogs

By: Kieron Kirkland
On: 30th January 2012

In my last post, The quest for the holy metric? I argued that the heart of the shared measurement issue in social development is not an evaluation problem, it’s a translation problem. What we really want to know is how can I translate the social value that I have captured into a language that you understand so that you value the work too? more >

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Evaluation should be about testing models, not organisations

By: Kieron Kirkland
On: 19th December 2011

Who wants to shout about something that’s gone wrong?

We have a mission at Nominet Trust to understand how the internet can be used as a force to disrupt social challenges and create positive change (when I write this, it does vaguely sound like it should also be the motto of a lesser known slightly geeky comic book hero, whose secret power is wifi.)

A lot of our work is about looking at new models for change. However, by their definition, not every new model is going to impact on a social challenge as deeply as another, and even if a model has worked in one place there’s no guarantee that it’s going to work in another. Scaling and replication is not a simple business. more >

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Open Conversations

By: Ed Anderton
On: 16th December 2011

Some rights reserved by cliff1066™

The fact that 'Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics' is a phrase that has been in use for more than 100 years is perhaps an indication of the abuse to which data has been subjected in public discourse. We are by turns exasperated, decieved and baffled by the incessant quoting of percentages, putative correlations and trends by politicians, journalists and pundits, which we then sprinkle into our conversations (tweets, facebook updates) in more or less thoughtful, balanced ways. Usually less.

If we are to harness the potential of open data to allow us to ask better questions, and make better choices, we need to consider what kinds of conversation allow us to reach an informed consensus, rather than afford 'victory' to the most skillful orator with the weightiest arsenal of 'killer stats'. more >

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For now we see through data, darkly....

By: Ed Anderton
On: 8th December 2011

Early next year Nominet Trust will be working with 10 Charities to explore how open data could enrich their work - and how their own data might bring our image of society into sharper focus.

Some rights reserved by NVitkus

Seeing pictures, it seems, is a deceptively tricky business. Leonardo Da Vinci suggested we might look at a stain on a wall and see "heads of men, diverse animals, battles, rocks, seas, clouds, woods and similar things". Our imagination can powerfully alter the mental image we create for ourselves: what we see is only partially determined by what we're looking at. Crucially, our imagination is directed by our intention: a professional Renaissaince wall-cleaner, for example, might have seen in Leonardo's stain only an embarrassing mistake (or a business opportunity). more >

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Why bother with Logic Models and a Theory of Change?

By: Kieron Kirkland
On: 7th December 2011

I had a very interesting chat the other day with a researcher. I won’t say who, and I won’t say where. So essentially this could be part of an elaborate storytelling ploy.

It centred on why we are using logic models and theories of change as the basis of our new evaluation strategy when they’re not perfect tools to understand change. At least not when compared to deep, longitudinal ethnographic research.

As anyone will tell you, whether they are a secret evaluation geek or not (just me with my hand up?) evaluation can be a bit tricky. The fact is human and societal change is complex and messy. But if we want to progress our field, like any field of endeavour, we have to learn from what we have done to move forwards. more >

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Innovation in Context

By: Dan Sutch
On: 24th November 2011

- exploring the potential of digital tech around young people's mental health

Understanding how digital technology can best support young people around issues of mental health is a challenging area of study, and equally so when it becomes the centre of a design process to create new resources and tools – but that’s what the Innovation Labs are aiming to do with support from Comic Relief, Right Here and Nominet Trust.

The Innovation Labs are an attempt to create a process for supporting the co-design of new digital resources to help young people around issues of mental health. Facilitated by Cernis, the series of labs aim to create the conditions for innovation to allow young people, mental health service providers and tech experts to work together to create new ideas for digital technologies in this important area. Lots more details about the labs can be found here and here. It’s the process of innovation that I’m particularly interested in as a subject for this post. more >