A selection of recent projects

☣️ Leading a global study on teen safety online for a technology platform. I haven’t spoken to so many teens since being one myself.

The sheer weight of scary s**t online (on every platform) is something I’m grateful I never really experienced as a young person. I worry about how young people can get any clarity on how to judge what’s toxic and what’s not. I worry about how they can regulate their reactions and form ethics with such strange and violent juxtapositions appearing in feeds on a daily basis- What is serious? What is threatening? What is real? As always there was a lot to be optimistic about as well. The young people we spoke to valued common sense, kindness and safe spaces online. Some are working as moderators and bot developers to facilitate and expand these experiences. Tech companies an learn a lot from these young users, navigating the Wild West with their own ways and means.

What I'll take with me - that no technology is ‘neutral’ and ethics are a matter of design as well as policy. Safety can be so broadly defined and in general a safer experience is a better one.

🚎

Facilitating Speculative Design workshops as part of UVA’s professional Masterclass on Future of Transitions. I love this opportunity to work with professionals from public sector, government and city planning. Arriva (bus company) joined as our ‘future client’. As usual the rapid prototypes were playful but the implications they surfaced were profound. Could public transport become a desirable space for social connection? Could we repurpose empty buses for mobile key services? Could we adapt to the extreme rainfall projected and make use of this new climate reality?

What I'll take with me - speculative and critical design methods are empowering in times of crisis. We can use them to explore what we can make and envision when we escape the short-termism of business and political cycles. Urgent action is needed but sometimes you need to spend some time in the future to make the best strategic moves today.

💸

Co-researching and writing Protein’s Dirty Words report on Ownership along with colleagues and contributors. It was a lot of fun to investigate cultural ideas and shifts outside of a client brief to share with a really broad audience. Particularly getting my head around some corners of the emergent internet (Web 3.0, decentralised orgs) and seeing how a lot of it is driven by the same human impulses and politics that drive old fashioned coops and unions.

What I'll take with me - that ‘THE SYSTEM’ is being hacked, modified, recoded all the time, and it's up to each of us to get stuck in - the tools are there to change the status quo. Also, that we need to work hard to resist the temptation of replacing one rigid ideology with another. That being critical isn’t the same as pessimism. And recoding systems is a constant adaptation, a negotiation (a la nature) it’s not (always) about cries for revolution.

🍂

Understanding the perceptions and behaviours around climate change of the elders in the Bude area of North Cornwall for Bude Climate Partnership. I have roots in the area and relished the opportunity to work on an urgent topic for the direct benefit of an under-studied and underserved community.

Spending hours (along with the brilliant Siobhan Canavan and Shaunie Brett) on the phone, in front gardens and village halls with a cast of characters including preachers, community shop volunteers, bikers, surfers, ramblers, farmers, heritage officers, car boot sale organisers, grandparents and gardeners was totally eye-opening and insightful. Doing our own recruitment, working with folks with no internet, downloading PDFs of parish newsletters and getting around an area with no train station was all part of getting under the skin of context.

I'm looking forward to upcoming communications in the local community and opportunities to inspire similar engagements in other remote communities.

What I'll take with me - that intergenerational relationships are strained by cycles of news and limiting demographic terminology. Wisdom can flow both ways if we let it. That while we wait for industry giants and governments to do something, communities are ready and equipped to act, and they know what's best for their context. We just need to hear them, share across and fund them.