Acuity Design

This is a rough guide to the facilitation workshop we’re planning before the assembly. It is for anyone wanting to volunteer and be at tables or just in the room on the day. This is just few ideas and techniques that I’ve used in other assemblies and with other volunteers. Active listening Active listening is […]

I’m writing a talk for Lean Agile Conference in Edinburgh at the end of October. It is about seriousness. I have been thinking about this topic since I accidentally used it as an engagement tool during a civic assembly. This post is just me sorting thru some ideas, diagrams and phrases for the talk. Play […]

Stopping is a hard design and policy issue as people are fundamentally driven to keep going. However, both people with good purpose and people who are completely lost move forward and it’s impossible to differentiate them. They both create datasets of action. They both can answer that they are doing what seems best solution to […]

It is easy for the goal of a workshop or the product of an exercise to become the bit that matters. It is the part that organisers request as an Outcome and workshop facilitators know needs an Output. However, every group of people will need to find some sense of alignment to work together. That […]

I wrote about StoryEnding lately. The problem of past manifesto promises or innovative design fictions damaging the present and future. The need to take responsibility for the stories we tell but then abandon. I was talking to a client this week about this. They are running a 10 year programme around climate change and new […]

What is the future sense of Living? I know this seems an odd semantic question but it’s a weird hole in talking about human-centred design. Lived I get Lived Experience – the durée of having lived in places/communities/body since birth. That’s the Past. Living I get Living Experience – the perception of this time and […]

The problem of too much storytelling by polticians and corporations who never take responsibility for ending the tales of hope and change they tell. The power of stories Stories are powerful and yet organisations push them out thru media and workshops without really thinking about what happens to them. Politicians and CEO’s like the rush […]

I’m just back from Stroud Valley’s Woodcraft Folk annual camp. It was very hot this weekend and lots of young families with kids were there. All worked out well. One thing I do every year is make a new game to play at the afternoon community fair (the Pea Fair where the chickpea is currency). […]