Oh quick quick this week has got so busy so this is a rushed weeknote.
Last week I did lots of bitty things, so it seemed to just go like that, which is what this week looks like.
Been on Bluesky for a while, nice to see an influx of people leaving ‘that place’. I’m here on it, come join us.
School of Good Services
Day two training my agile service design course. Spent the morning just looking at what the different flavours of Service Design are from tweaking existing service models and their design to transforming how we deliver something (and what we deliver as an offer / value proposition to users).
Then a deep dive into how we prototype services and the difference between designing the what (the offer) and designing the how (how something is delivered). This is really my sweet point of skills, how to define what you’re testing, the right test then getting creative about how you do this.
Long day training, but had some nice feedback from a few folks, looking forward to the final day this week.
Had a notion reflecting on this that there is a kernel of a talk idea about the loss of experimentation in design aligned with a quote I read the other day on the introduction of smart phones and new technology to the post millennial generation who ‘who might never know what it’s like to be lost’. Going to stew on that for a while, is there a correlation or a nice narrative there about getting lost in order to explore. We seem so A/B test, definite these days in design because we’re so hampered by the organisational structures many of us are designing in now.
Makes me think of this Bootsy Collin’s quote about how to play funk bass. Know what the 1’s are on the beat, then you can play any notes you want to on the 2,3,4th beats. Could we make design more jazz? Ok, typing this out, there’s a talk in there somewhere…
We planned lots, our USA trip is confirmed and spoke to some nice folks including Rachael Dietkus over there to plot some live podcast recording an
Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park
Went to a chairs and executive meeting. Updated the exec on the next Future Group session we’re running in November on the Green Economy and working on speakers to come talk about green skills, community wealth and the larger economic picture.
Narrative Consulting (curent project)
Nice catch up to end off part one of supporting someone who’s been doing some prototyping in a public service. Getting must have plan in place which includes a communications strategy for the work.
I really think we miss this opportunity to frame and share work in an interesting way at the end. There’s so many reports and decks out there that miss the mark or are in a format that just doesn’t peek interest. I was glad to be asked to help here, although kudos to them for knowing they needed to look at the wrap up of what they’ve done in an interesting way.
Preparing a short second proposal and we might make a podcast of their work for other designers to learn from, which is a cool format to share learnings.
DeadEnds Podcast
After a two month hiatus because we both separately got sick and lost our voices, we recorded a new episode on Luxury. Finishing the edit and will be out this week. Introduced a new clapping rule to make it easier to edit when we mess up.
Life
Went to a superhero party dressed as our special super power skills. Captain Strategy and Lou was Captain Special Interest. I handed out small A6 strategies. It was fun.
Listened
Listened to myself. I set up some of my music kit the other day. Renovating for a few years now and moving from room to room has been tough for just getting going so I took an evening to myself and enjoyed setting it up. Nice to have synths/drum machines and other stuff playing into Ableton again in sync.
Thinking aloud, tech works via Clara Greo
The unseen labour of all this digital stuff we consume, important listen.
Read
How do small organisations get locked out of procurement processes?
Brilliant work from Fractals Coop on testing procurement. It’s a big frustration for me so glad someone has come up with one way to fix the procurement challenge.
Movement
Waking again, was like, oh hey foot is feeling better. Did some stretching, foot hurts again today. Really need to sort out Xray, got to find the cracks in the system to manage to hit the right person at the right moment to get it organised. Must sort this week, lack of exercise and movement since being ill is not a good thing.
