How do people view the Church of England?

Stephen Hance is National Lead for Evangelism and Witness for the Church of England. He has written a fascinating Grove Booklet arising from his research in his current role, Seeing Ourselves as Others See Us: Perceptions of the Church of England. I was able to ask him about his research and its implications for national and … Continue Reading

Are clergy becoming dull conformists?

I have long been interested in the question of psychological profiling for two particular reasons. First, as a Personnel Manager working in a blue-chip manufacturing company, psychological profiling and psychometric testing were a stock in trade. In recruiting people for our National Office, I used a US-developed psychological profiling interview which looked for traits that … Continue Reading

How to capture text from Google Books

Google is a great place for searching for things and doing research—not just for the trivial, but also for serious academic research. Google Scholar will give you academic articles and books, and also show where books and articles have been cited elsewhere. And Google Books can give helpful access to books which might be out … Continue Reading

What’s the use of Facebook?

I am half way through watching The Social Network (with my daughter…!) and can already see why it has won awards. So far the most interesting observation is that Mark Zuckerberg aimed to replicate online the sorts of social things that people do in real life. In the film this arises from a conversation with his friend, who is wondering who is in a relationship with whom, from which Zuckerberg adds the ‘In a relationship’ feature to his programme.

So what are the kind of ‘human relating’ things that we can use Facebook for? Here are examples of how I have used Facebook in the last few weeks. What about you?