Category: people
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More time than reasonably expected
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Reflections on the quote from magician Teller – “Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect.” – and how it applies to community work.
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Hanging with your prosthetic selves
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This week I read Zoe Scaman’s latest report on communities; there probably aren’t many (if any) people paying as much attention at the intersections behind brands, agencies and whatever community is in these conversations today. If that’s your bag, do check it out. It did spur one particular thought in my mind; are we still…
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Salad days in the layers of Leather Lane
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I’ve been in London and Brighton recently, getting back out into the world. I’ve been uploading a bunch of pictures over here on Flickr, just gathering a bunch of things I’ve noticed in the layers of these places. It’s not ‘the new normal’, but a walk through a city today can be instructive in terms…
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A blacksmith makes their own tools
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This week, I gave a talk (with a little bit of workshopping) as part of the third module of IPA Excellence Diploma. This was a course I did back in 2007/8, and without doing it, I probably wouldn’t be doing what I do now, and definitely wouldn’t be thinking about things in the way I…
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How many bags do you think that is?
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I’ve noticed that there’s a fascinating little exchange at the end of the Ocado process. After you’ve received all your shopping, the delivery driver will ask ‘have you got any bags to return?’. It’s the bag recycle scheme they’ve been doing for a few years, where they give you 5p for every bag you give…
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On not writing books
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“You should write a book.” Sometimes I say this to other people, sometimes other people say this to me. It came up again this week. Anjali and I had lunch, and spoke of our mutual delight on Neil announcing he’s writing a second book. The first book is a super useful read, a manual to…
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The Pattern Problem
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I was delighted when Neil Perkin invited me back after six years to speak again at Firestarters last night. The theme of the evening was on behaviours. Richard Shotton was up first, and gave an excellent talk on three of the lesser known biases in behavioural sciences. In particular, I was interested in one of his…
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The Chair Game – Live at the V&A
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“This is the year of The Chair Game“, I said to Rob, over a pint after an evening’s play in London Bridge. He’d just spent two hours running the game for all of us who were new to it, save for Clarisa. It was her fault, apparently. She’d been in a workshop Rob was doing…
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“The best for the most for the least” – 2016 Projects
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Every year, we set three internal projects for Smithery; things we want to work on that will improve our own practice, be fun to explore, and originally to occupy a little downtime too. As perhaps evidenced by the performance on last year’s projects (see 2015 project write-up), we seem to have a bit less time…
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Conceptual Strategy for Intranets
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I know, that’s a rock and roll blog post title, eh? A short video, explaining something that Chris, Mark and I worked on a while ago for a client, but that came back round again today when someone asked ‘any thoughts on setting up intranets?’. Rather than a long blog post, or a detailed email,…
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Where Does Responsibility Lie?
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(A foreword, in the style of Samuel Pepys) Late to bed, but not before receipt of an electronic mail from Mr. Fitzpatrick of Boston, a most good-humoured fellow of curious and sharp intellect, to whom I promised action of a distributary nature come the morning. He asks for assistance in the pursuit of data for…
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A Sonic Screwdriver For Thinking
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Tools are becoming the theme of the year for me. From Dan Dennett’s “Intuition Pumps and Other Tools For Thinking“, to the rediscovery (via Faris) of the McLuhan idea that “we shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us”, it seems in reflection that the work Smithery is doing has a universal tool to…
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