I am reading Rhiannon Firth’s Disaster Anarchy. It is a study of community reactions to disasters like Hurricane Sandy and Covid. This quotation comes from the Conclusion. However, as the state withdraws, spaces are created for experimenting with new values, economic models, forms of life, etc. Utopias help us to transgress hegemonic ‘common sense, pointing […]
Author: Alastair Somerville
Hope, in the past and future
Talking with prospective client about some workshops about Hope, resentment and public engagement. The above image is just a sketch of two ideas needed to enable hope. Well Grounded There must a solid grounding in the past. A respect for traumas and regrets that burden at the start. There is a need to go backwards […]
AI as the perfect product for Product Management
As User Experience (UX) died away, Product Management took over and as it progressed any idea of Human Centredness fell away too. Human Centred Design was always hard for organisations to deal with: it centred control and meaning outside of the direct lines of management, it demanded listening to voices outside of the established systems […]
Walking back to Hope
I attended an Active Hope workshop yesterday run by Linda Aspey. It’s a theory I had not encountered before. I was looking for a clearly communicable story of positive hope. ‘Better stories’ is often mentioned when people worry about the current preponderance of doom or authoritarian narratives. What they mean by ‘better’ can be a […]
Sensory Maps – exploring accessibility together
A one or two day walking workshop around a museum, transport hub or visitor attraction with staff is a good way to develop a map of what is known to be problematic and what solutions are currently offered. Maps show value. The sensory map is a start. It provides a sense of place as perceived […]
One map is never enough
Thankfully I just lost a bid for some museum work. It was for a tactile map of a museum that opened a few months ago in London. The bid documentation was filled with red flags as a project. What it did remind me of was how important it is to tell organisations that one map […]
Resilience in crises and actively asking for help
I was reading a research paper on social identities during crises: Facilitating Collective Psychosocial Resilience this week. It makes interesting point about Active Bystanders. People who are present in the place and the time and activated to take action either because they perceive how their capacities become communal capabilities then or because they are asked […]
Presentology
Conversations lately about projects that are trying to build hopeful futures (one from a massive new infrastructure sense and one from a local community mutuality sense) has led back to some ideas from civic assembly and design in the climate crisis workshops. What concerns me is the Futurology bias of the processes. How the chosen […]
Boundaries and Welcomes: Designing for Human Connection
Designers often focus on creating visually appealing solutions and invitations but overlook some critical human needs: the desires for clear boundaries and meaningful welcomes. Humans are boundary-seekers. We all need to understand the edges of our environment to feel safe and oriented. Without clear boundaries, people become disoriented. Remember Doomscrolling: that endless social media scrolling, […]
Nobody wants to know the Theory of Change
Making expert competency explicit is good but that does not mean people want to know the specifics. Meeting today about climate collapse and community responses. The volunteers have created a system-based response to both loss of environment and of political structures. It’s very good. However, when trying to invite and involve new people, it’s too […]