Week, gone, so fast. Must make more time. Maybe multiply myself. Is human dolly possible yet?
School of Good Services
Finished my last personal training course for the year on Agile Service Design. Spent day three looking at buy-in, navigating how organisations make decisions and de-bunking what we mean when people say ‘stakeholder’. Hello to that word needing to be redundant now anyway.
I lent on this slide again I made for Lou Downe’s talk at Service Design Network last year. Sometimes, we need to remember, being in the ‘service design’ role or trying to make it happen works against many organisations model or structure and it can be frustrating to work in this way. Day three of the course, mostly feels like a hug for people, a ‘you got this’ and, it’s not you it’s them.
A good reminder also, that even though you have the job title service design, doesn’t mean the organisation at large has bought into it.
I published Dead Ends podcast episode on luxury. This really is a labour of love. Recording is like 2 hours, but preparing and editing takes it’s time. What takes more time is the socials work, and we’ve been making little animated squares to go with each launch. So I’m spending a day before Christmas consolidating our social media branding/assets to make lighter work. Still, been a joyous experiment this year and we’ve had some nice feedback on our yarns.
Also edited and published our Getting into Service Design video. It’s worth a watch, especially the advice from Stephen Mccarthy and Sofia Kakembo on applying for jobs. Top stuff. I’m super grateful for their time.
We planned some more USA/Canada trip which is coming together nicely. Going to be in and around for 2 weeks between Chicago, Toronto, Washington (we think) and maybe Vancouver too. Public courses to come out on those time zones too. Stay tuned.
Sing Wild Seeds
I’m working on the proposal for how we do public co-creation/singing and songwriting with imagining in a digital experience. It’s been fun to dream but struggled a little for time getting it down into something concrete to take the client Earth Percent through. Still, I have more time, and I’ve got some good ideas about a story based scrolling website and a 3rd party piece of tech for recording in browser.
It’s an experiment for learning, but I do still, with minimal time, want it to look good and be immersive in some way.
Started wireframing proper, went back to sketching. I find it so much more free-ing than designing in a screen. It’s quicker, more explorative and really what I was doing was checking and researching supportive tools to create and render the content I want to host in it, rather than specific layouts at this stage.
Led me to check out Vev as an interactive storybuilding platform with code building. Feels like a nice platform for this experiment.
So many other things
- Checked out a grade on a film I’m editing from my friend Rouben
- Wrote a proposal to support a next stage of communications development for a public sector project
- Sorted out some scheduling for my documentary
- Reviewed and added content to my course
- Talked about some Australia and Japan trip plans, moving closer to dates
- Went to the launch of Screen Devon
- Filling in a last minute spot for a keynote in Montenegro required some mega travel hustling for this week. Keynote talk to make now
- Worked up plans/met speakers for a session I’m running at Loch Lomond and National Park this week on the Green Economy
- Helped Exeter Pride wireframe a new website and talk patterns for the layout
- Hung out with some friends. Lovely to welcome Emma Parnell down to Devon and get her back post storm in one piece
Fun
So Paul Maltby put together a sample club based on a conversation that accidentally bottomed out from Rachel Coldicutt talking about a drum kit in her house. Somehow, without much direction we all made short songs sampling a talk by her. Not going to lie, time has been so short this month but with my new Polyend Tracker + it was a good deadline to just make and export something.
Caveat this as I’ve never used this bit of hardware before, nor is any of it treated etc, but for a couple of hours playing, not too shady.
Renovations
It takes so long to do DIY. But we finally straightened up a platform for built in wardrobes. We have so much else to do but a large amount of painting has been done. It is hard, and we are having to regularly remind ourselves, this is worth it!
Had structural engineers and cob experts around to investigate the state of our ‘cider’ barn we’re hoping to restore over time. Genuinely whipped out the MoSCoW framework to help us prioritise what to reinforce, what to fix and what can wait a while.
It felt good, to be honest, a relief to start going, this isn’t as bad as it looks. Going to be propping some beams for the next 3-5 years until we can hopefully move forward in replacing the roof.
Long term planning is a THING, and when you own an old building, it becomes so stark day to day when it’s changing. Learning how to balance the short term everyday with the longer term planning.
Listened
So many videos about the Polyend Tracker+
Watched
Sort of watched, went to the opening of the Radical Dartmoor exhibition at RAMM in Exeter on an open late night. High recommend, especially as Richard Long work is on show
Read
Opening Up Vocational Pathways Into Nature-based Green Jobs work stuff for the National Park
Movement
We have X-Ray letter, which means, finally next week I can hopefully put to rest this foot and get to work on it, if it is not stress fractured. I haven’t really moved/walked, done anything for 5 weeks and my body feels like it is seized up and falling apart a little. If we can identify foot situ, I can start to get to work again… fingers crossed.
