Varya Shaw

This was a labour of love - a research brochure for University of East London, showcasing the brilliant work that goes on there. I was in and out of academics' offices hearing these wonderful stories about what they were discovering. My perfect job! It took a long time to produce but it's finally arrived - check it out here . My contributions are Cornelia Boldyreff Ashok Jansari John Strawson Derek Moore Caroline Edmonds Volka Thoma.

I've just written a piece for PLC , the leading legal information service. My brief was 1) explain the NHS and 2) explain where commissioning has come from and where it is going. My audience was local authority lawyers who may not be familiar with either of these topics. So it was one of the most ambitious pieces of work I've done for some time. It was also the longest for some time, at 5,500, although this is a tiddly wordcount for the subject matter. I suspect an MRI scan would find certain parts of my brain have grown during the course of writing it like a cab driver learning the knowledge! Anyway, here it is if you want to take a look: Health and Social Care Bill: commissioning and the health care market in the post-reform NHS . The more I look at health reform the more fascinated I am. It will, in its own way, be co-created by government, public sector staff, communities and the private sector. Just how it will come out is anyone's guess. There is such a mixture o

Have just written a piece for Construction News about construction (surprisingly) in New Zealand, Canada and Australia. I love trade journals. Geeky I know but I do. You get a privileged lense through which to examine things. New Zealand is all about rebuilding Christchurch, devastated by three earthquakes in 2010-11. It is the chance to construct a brand new city centre - pretty damn unusual. Australia is all about huge, vast, glitzy projects like the Barangaroo waterfront development with a floating hotel - their economy is booming. In Canada it's much more rugged and austere - mining the oil sands, building hospitals for their lovely free healthcare system.

Just ghosted an opinion piece for CIHM which has gone up on Guardian professional. Do we really want patients to think of themselves purely as customers, with the potential for footstamping and tantrums that entails? It may have some short-term benefits but ultimately it encourages mindless individualism, the last thing the NHS needs. What is needed is true patient engagement and consumerist discourse works against that. Check the full argument out - by CIHM's brilliant Becky Malby and Irwin Turbitt - here .

My friend and former colleague Suzanne Simmons-Lewis has just qualified as a career coach. She has launched a brand new website which gives you a flavour of this entrepreneurial woman and her insight into people. She's not just a career coach - she's also a comms consultant and journalist. Find out more at www.suzannesimmonslewis.com

Went to a riveting beyond riveting beyond riveting seminar at Birkbeck on bullying at work. Psychoanalytic approaches to bullying-galore. Unitary self? Pah! Which means if you think you do only what you mean to do, and for reasons that you are fully conscious of, you are rather in the dark. One academic likened looking at bullying to looking at the sun - you can't do it directly. Another said trying to eradicate bullying is like eradicate love. Anyway, I've got my first commission for a feature on this work looking at how bullies often emerge because they are vulnerable, the relationship between bullies and victims, and how work coaches can reduce, remove and even prevent these unfortunate dynamics in the first place.

My Stories of the World feature has appeared in Museums Journal but it's behind a paywall so no link is possible. Museums are exciting for most people over 30 but if they connect with young people that's really something to shout about. I was pleased with this article because it shows why worthy is not so dull - this is the way we inch ahead as a society.

Ghosted this for CIHM but obviously all about their brilliant ideas.

My Stories of the World piece has now appeared in Society Guardian. The article focuses in on the Foundling Museum project, where looked after children met abandoned children, now in their eighties, who had been in care at the Foundling Hospital. There is also a picture gallery of the young people's work - not the best quality pics unfortunately, but it tells a moving story. The Guardian did a strange edit on the first half so if you think any of the sentences in the first half look odd - as my dad did, it seemed to be all he noticed! - that's why. But I still love you Guardian.

I'm interviewing academics at the University of East London for a research brochure. The other day I met someone called Barbara Taylor. "So what's the real world impact of your book going to be?" I asked chirpily. "Well, it's going to be published by Penguin," she replies. "It's about mental health, a mixture of historical study and memoir as I've spent three years researching the asylum system, and I was in Friern Barnet hospital in the 1980s. Books like that tend to attract a lot of attention." She's only The Barbara Taylor - world famous historian of feminism! Actually I've never heard of her, but one has a way of noticing when one is the presence of brilliance and a quick google afterwards confirmed I had been. The book is about how we look after each other - everyone needs looking after, mental health is just one example of that. She says that question is nothing new, it's always been a preoccupation of feminism. But th

Been writing about public health for HSJ. Compared to the NHS white paper, which was a gripping if frightening read, the public health white paper is quite frankly boring. But that is partly just style. What is actually happening is fascinating - public health is returning to its ancestral home in local government. Power tussles are taking place between directors of social services and the new directors of public health. Health improvement and public health commissioning advice are opening up to any willing provider (or any qualified provider). Most strikingly, this localist coalition is setting up municipal public health with lots of responsibility, very little money and virtually no national legislative support. Health and wellbeing boards could make up for this by being powerful entities that ensure decision-making is high profile and in the public interest, and can challenge central government. But if they are not, the future doesn't look so bright.

I met Sebastian St John-Clarke of Paper Plane Communications the other day. We were shooting the breeze about social media as you do and he was complimentary about my social media experience. It stood up ok, with one exception - I had only 4 followers on twitter! The final straw came when a friend told me everyone is leaving Facebook because it's "so noughties'. So find me at @varya1 , where I will be microblogging about ... well, I'll have to work that out as I go along!

Have just written an article for Construction News on property vehicles. It's the news analysis, State property revolution looms large . The government wants to secure huge savings by managing its built estate more efficiently. Fantastically interesting - partly around the complex deals that already exist and will have to be worked through, partly around the new styles of partnership that could emerge. But where I was particularly grabbed was around the culture change that may need to take place on the supplier side. Can construction firms and contractors champion government goals around efficiency, can they battle civil service inertia on behalf of the executive? It's not what they normally do!