Category: Blog (the archive of everything)Page 7 of 12
Once upon a time the offer of 1000 songs in your pocket – the slogan for the iPod – was so enticing. But in 2014 Apple discontinued the…
On Saturday at the Hazel Hill Autumn Conservation weekend I ran a systems design workshop as a wet-weather activity. Here are my notes and observations from the session….
On the surface I feel like it is business as usual in the construction and engineering industry. Like a polluting ferryboat travelling full speed ahead towards the storm…
Changing the key system is a technique I teach to help people develop new ideas when their thinking has become stuck. It’s one of my techniques for ‘turning…
What if you could present only using questions? Why might you want to? Well, do you want your answer to listen or to think? What is the most…
I’m sharing today my notes on the fuel crisis and what it reveals about how the government is acting in the wider context of climate breakdown. Defending fossil…
I have been spending more time at the allotment as a stimulation for thinking about regenerative design. Notes from yesterday’s visit.
As I wrote in my last post, this summer I have been thinking about regenerative design, and what it means for engineers. In the context of climate breakdown,…
I have had the great fortune of having spent three weeks in France, a good portion of it cycling. Touring is a great way to leave behind your…
The disputable brief is a term I’ve coined to describe the bits of the brief that make your project worthwhile and different. It is easy to write a…
How do you run a great workshop or training day that really makes a difference to the way people work? The keys are ownership and reflection. In my…
On other people’s wrists, on clock towers, outside the jewellers, inside shops, at the station, on the scrolling news, from the position of the sun. Ask someone or…
I once worked for a client who said his ambition for his firm was that it should become a learning organisation. That thought stuck with me. What if,…
Take out a piece of paper and draw a sketch of what you can see. You will notice more than you ever would by taking a photograph. Sketching…
There’s a gap between certainty and doubt, and that is being happy not knowing. In this gap is space for discovery, serendipity, delight and the opportunity to grow…
Print out photos of your friends. Stick them on your wall. What are they doing? How can you support them? A regular reminder to give them a call….
Songs to pass the time. Songs of celebration. Songs of nostalgia. Songs that mark the seasons. Songs of work. Travelling songs. Songs that tell a story. Songs of…
Ways of finding north. The position of the sun. The angle of solar panels. The prevailing wind – either live or frozen in the bent and twisted shape…
Anywhere versus somewhere. Contactable versus findable. Interchangeable versus valuable. Stranger versus friend. This analogue skill first emerged for me from asking a simple question. If you have left…
How driving an e-car has changed the way I think about driving, cycling and our relationship to the landscape through which we travel. I have recently started driving…
One day I hope this article will be printed in a book. But until then I can be fairly sure that you will be reading it on a…
Today I thought I’d share some of my motivations for the Analogue Skills project. 1 – An engineer’s fascination I am not anti-technology. I’m an engineer. I’m fascinated…
Watch the clouds. Streaming now. Telling a story of past, present and future. Of up there and down here. If you also live on the lump of rock…
What is real-world search, and why might it serve us in the digital world? The promise of a fully connected, digital paradigm is access to all the world’s…
Your loved ones. Your best friends. Your colleagues. Could you call them if you needed to? — This skill is an enabler for leaving the house with your…
Deleting apps and leaving your phone at home could be analogous to dismantling urban highways. I read earlier this week about the research that established a direct link…
Go to the station. Stand in the queue. Look at all the people and wonder where they are going. See leaflets in the rack for places you hadn’t…
This morning I’m writing about how action in the context ecological crisis will sometimes feel a long way from anything to do with nature. I wrote this week…
I originally wrote this post for the ‘Training on what to do After Declaring a Climate Emergency‘ alumni network, and I’m sharing it here too. For some start-the-week…
For years I have toiled to get bathwater out of the bathroom and into the garden to help reduce our water footprint. For many years, gravity wasn’t on…