A Measure of Sacrifice
By the late 13th century western Europeans had developed a new culture. They possessed a unique combination of the craft skills to make clocks, and more importantly, growing use of relationships that benefited from more precise coordination in time. Almost simultaneously, again uniquely, in the late 13th or early 14th century these Europeans started making and using two very different kinds of clocks – the mechanical clock and the sandglass. The technology of the mechanical clock was independent of that of the sandglass, but they played complementary roles in their function. As a result they appeared and were widely used at the same time and place in history. – Nick Szsbo
Adaptive State — A podcast about public service in the 21st century
In March 2019, I gave my first hour-long talk at the Service Design in Government conference in Edinburgh — where I tried to express what nearly a decade working to modernise public services in the UK has shown me are just a few of the vital organisational, conceptual and cultural challenges for 21st century government.