Snook at #themeet140
Last Updated on Friday, 20 August 2010 11:25 Written by Kirsty Friday, 20 August 2010 11:15
Yesterday evening found me venturing out on my own, to #themeet140 hosted in the Landsdowne
by the lovely @markofrespect and @allanbarr.
The idea of a sudden spring-up of Twitter users in the ‘real world’ was an intriguing one – I noticed throughout the evening that people were speaking as if using the website, subconsciously gesturing to tabs and buttons as they described them in their stories, a great blur of physical and digital.
I was pretty unsure of what to expect, I have been a Tweeter for about a year, using it to connect with other designers, see what they are up to and find it a great tool to ask questions to the online community. Realising that there is a growing group of Tweeters in Glasgow, from such wide-ranging backgrounds brought a new intrigue into the evening – I wanted to find out who they all are and how Snook can connect to this brilliant, growing, active, online community.
Themeet140 promises the chance to chat, informally, with a whole host of Tweeters at once. I liked the idea of the ‘unofficial’ atmosphere, but it did make it a little difficult to find people. Perhaps this was because I’m not yet familiar with the Glasgow twitter pool, and the individuals operating within it.
This was the second #themeet140 branded event that Glasgow have hosted, and it proved far popular the second time round! There were easily 80 – 100 people chatting, exchanging Twitter stories and other people to follow.
I think both Mark and Allan did a great job with the organisation, but I think that the sheer number of people there was a little difficult to manage. With so many people arriving from a different areas, introductions and finding those that would be useful to chat to was tricky.
Speaking to some fellow Tweeters, we would love to see the interactive element playing a bigger part at the next event – perhaps a rolling stream on a big screen to help people connect and depict the conversations going on within the room.
Overall, intriguing conversations, a couple of cards swapped (sorry Mark) and the message of Snook spread a little bit further. It would be great to further those conversations from last night – coffee anyone?
Logging on today and seeing the extensions of conversations and connections being made back in the digital realm is pretty exciting! The web within Glasgow is growing and strengthening – I think there’s a huge potential here for a vibrant online an offline community.
(Photo by Markofrespect, thanks!)
Kirsty's Snook Adventure
Last Updated on Thursday, 05 August 2010 16:27 Written by Lauren Thursday, 05 August 2010 00:00
We would like to welcome Kirsty Joan Sinclair to our team! Kirsty is a lively designer from Edinburgh who just graduated from Glasgow School of Art's Product Design Course. She makes us think about things differently and makes beautiful stuff that adds magic to our day - such as our amazing Snook Bags!!
Kirsty is someone we have been watching from afar since we began our own Snook adventure ; if you want to know about storytelling, sketching, sewing or baking key lime pies you should follow her on twitter and read her blog.
The Future of Conservative Thinking
Last Updated on Tuesday, 27 July 2010 10:06 Written by Lauren Saturday, 24 July 2010 12:32
On the 15th of July Snook attended The Future of Conservative Thinking at the Institute of Government. There is now a podcast available on their website, and a write up of the happenings. The panel was made up of Lord Bichard, Nicholas Boles, Phillip Blond, James Forsyth and Jonty Olliff-Cooper.
Jonty Olliff-Cooper kicked off and made it clear he genuinely believes design is a new important direction for our new government. Examples such as Nesta's Big Green Challenge and a Wiki that has been set up for people serving in Afghanistan were highlighted questioning what role the government plays in such things.
Something that really struck a cord which us was Jonty's admission that the public hate politicians, the new government is sensing the extent of distrust and apathy. It seems we have two types of problems in society; expert problems ( such as laying roads and performing heart surgery ) and human problems ( such as obesity and asbo's ) Jonty proposed we need an expert approach to human problems, the future is all about soft knowledge and tacit understanding. But creating a society that can deal with these human problems will be no easy feat!
So what does the big society even mean and does it matter? Do people want to help themselves? This talk hasn't given us the answers, but it did show us that the politicians are asking the same questions. Jonty echoed one of our main messages in our recent involvement with the Coten Project, where we talked about designers designing themselves out of a job;
"It's not really about what we think, it's about how we can design ourselves out of a job"
James Forsyth talked about localism being made much harder by the BBC culture and in his eyes the Big Society is all about dissolving power. The key question from James;
"Can you take ideas from think tank reports and implement them in the government?"
Nick Boles talked about the the culture of our country and reinforced the whole point of the big society is that people make it for themselves. Phillip Blonde told a simple truth that a 'non state civic grouping just means folk chatting having a cup of tea!' His focus was on relationships and networks, referring to Zappos and Ebay and the levels of trust in a community.
Our ears pricked up when a member of the audience from the University of Edinburgh raised the notion that the whole event had been a "terribly English conversation"... we were satisfied with Nick's answer that infact this whole thing started in Scotland with the Scottish Enlightenment, so let's hope they "can show us how to go back to that way." The panel seemed a bit flummoxed by "The Big Scottish Question" as they dubbed it...
So the conclusion is our government want to reduce the demand for the state, not the supply of it and this panel seemed to get the importance of light touch, simple services such as 'I love lewisham'. The session ended by the panel telling us they don't want to be in the news in the Sunday times, or in the politics section, they want it to be in the society section.
Snook's Hat-trick
Last Updated on Friday, 16 July 2010 08:13 Written by Lauren Wednesday, 14 July 2010 13:08
Day one is about Service Design making a difference with Sarah presenting GetGo Glasgow . Day Two is about gathering insights from professional and academic Service Design, with Snook keynoting MyPolice. In the afternoon, Lauren will present a design challenge around Making Service Sense.
We have lots of little ideas and some big ones too! Be sure to let us know if you are going so we can arrange for you to be #snooked.
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