Service design in the public sector is, as Lou says, 10% innovation and 90% archaeology, and never more so than when working in a great national institution in its 70th year. Realising I needed to learn more about the history of our National Health Service, I asked the Twitter crowd where to start. Here's what … Continue reading Anyone can use it: some NHS history links and reading
Three days in the spectacular Derbyshire countryside with a bunch of clever, skillful doing and making people. Lots to digest, but for now here's what I found in my notebook this morning..."simple single purpose things"learn > sell > make > record > learn >source > scale > repeatthe circus printerArtefact cards + iPad + Gorillapod + projector"do the … Continue reading Some things I wrote down at Laptops and Looms
Way back in June, as part of Andrew Wilson's wonderful HannaH Festival, a group of citizens fanned out from Wharf Street Chambers into the summer drizzle clutching maps to four quarters of our city. We briefed participants to look for evidence of Leeds' past, present and future. On returning to base we shared what everyone had found … Continue reading A found Leeds litany, raw notes from an afternoon walk
These past few years have been tough on Tetley's disembodied headquarters. First came the loss of the purpose for which it was built in the depths of 1930s depression - a human-scale head office for a family firm. The directors' boardroom was relegated to an outpost of the Carlsberg empire. Lutheran rectitude became the order … Continue reading The definite article, or lines written on the opening of a former brewery headquarters as contemporary art gallery
Andrew Wilson has Kickstartered something rather wonderful in the first HannaH Festival, which runs next week at venues across Leeds. My own contribution is a Friday afternoon stroll through the city's past, present and future. I do hope you can join me. Here's the plan. We'll spend the first hour in small groups on the streets … Continue reading The future, on foot
As a child I hated Cubs. All that running around and shouting, the church parades, and camping on a damp field at the edge of Danbury Common. But in a twist of fate I find myself parent to three boys far more enthusiastic than I ever was; my oldest recently got a badge marking seven … Continue reading Keep the campfire burning: a thread of whimsy from Baden-Powell to Berners-Lee
For the past four years a story has accreted on this blog. It's a meta-narrative, a story about stories. Looking back, I believe the arc began with the partial collapse of Leeds' Temple Works. That's what led me to encounter the people who made this city, and then to talk about them in pixels, in … Continue reading How’s it going to end?
Notes from my presentation at Bettakultcha, Leeds Town Hall, on Wednesday 9 January 2013. What an amazing venue. I could spend the next five minutes just talking about this building. I could tell you how the Leeds Corporation raised a special tax and set a budget of £35,000 to build a grand new town hall. … Continue reading Five minutes, one year, two buildings, a thousand stories
For my wife's family it is the crockery. Staffordshire-raised, they can't resist upturning plates and bowls to check their makers' marks - Doulton, Wedgwood and what-have-you. And my own father grew up near Sheffield, so in restaurants I also study the knives and forks - David Mellor was a Noughties Brit cuisine staple. But Leeds, well … Continue reading Three machines made in Leeds
It's Ada Lovelace Day, an international day of blogging to celebrate the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths. In previous years I've written about Elizabeth Montagu, Lizzie Le Prince and Laura Willson. This time I want to highlight the unique achievements of Eleanor Coade, creator and entrepreneur behind one of the most durable … Continue reading For Ada Lovelace Day: Eleanor Coade, technology entrepreneur of the 18th Century
On opening the great arch at London Bridge, by throwing two arches into one, and the removal of a large pier, the excavation, around and underneath the sterlings of that pier, was so considerable, as to put the adjoining piers, that arch, and eventually the whole bridge, in great danger of falling. The previous opinions … Continue reading Mr. SMEATON IN UR RIVR FIXIN UR BR1DGE
The fantastic culmination of James Burke's talk at dConstruct last week set me thinking about a misleading trope that seems to recur with regularity in our discourse about technology. Through his 70s TV series James was a childhood hero of mine. I wrote about his talk in my summary of the event, and thanks to … Continue reading A {$arbitrary_disruptive_technology} In Every Home
Douglas Rushkoff nails my unease at the patenting of gestures, a critical front in the commercial war being waged through intellectual property. At stake is how far governments should grant monopoly rights over something that belongs to all of us: our shared language of words and gestures. US Patent #7,812,826, though limited and not at stake … Continue reading Apple’s real innovation: a gesture made with two fingers
And Science — we have loved her well, and followed her diligently, what will she do? I fear she is so much in the pay of the counting-house, the counting-house and the drill-sergeant, that she is too busy, and will for the present do nothing. Yet there are matters which I should have thought easy … Continue reading And Science — we have loved her well
As a follow-up to the 1951 'No Idle Words' booklet, comes this gem of a letter about writing letters. Its author was Charles Hill, a doctor turned broadcaster and politician who briefly held the office of Postmaster General. Note also the lovely simplification of the royal coat of arms - just remove all the fussy heraldry … Continue reading “Please join me in a drive for better letters”
Matt Edgar writes here 