short cut

My friend Kitty and I live really close. However, the Bridgewater Canal between us adds 20 minutes to the journey because of the position of the bridge. We will therefore be building a RAFT to solve the problem!

... if you would like to help us, or build your own raft, please come along!

Meet in the non-tarmaced area of Grappenhall Village Sports Club's car park (WA4 3HQ) at noon on bank holiday Monday 30th August with raft building materials and a picnic.

For further info, you can email me at hello@libbyscarlett.co.uk / call me on 07825180124.

Safety first

Last night I went to the opening of Sur Place at Mediamatic, Amsterdam. They had built a bike track around the gallery, stretching to the walls so guests had to climb over the track inbetween boys speeding past on their fixed gear wheels.

There were only a few crashes into the audience: safety first. This would never get past health and safety in the UK!

God save the (Netherlands) Queen

31st April sees The Netherlands celebrate their queen's birthday: QUEEN'S DAY! it would seem that she has a far more fun day of birth than old Elizabeth. Britain take note: here is how to make royal events fun.

The root vegetable bashing/cutting games were pretty genius.

Moolah

Colors is a magazine, a website, CD's, documentaries and exhibitions that are part of the publishing activity of Fabrica, Benetton's communication research centre in Italy. It was established under the premise that diversity is positive and all cultures have equal value.

My lovely Italian friend, Daniela introduced me when she lent me her Colors issue 73 on money...

For the issue, Colors had money analysed in a lab and found substances such as oil, faeces and gold. Each section of the issue therefore corresponds to one of them and represents Fabrica's idea of it. The substances make up not only the chemstry of money but also its very exsistance - metaphors for non-conventional payments, inheritances, savings, transactions, bankruptcies and loans.

In several places in the world, people keep their savings in their mouth, as the man with gold teeth shows!

Basically, it is really interesting: I am signing up for a subscription.

Pig 05049

I was introduced to Pig 05049 at Nijhof & Lee.

After its death, Pig number 05049 was shipped in parts throughout the world. Some products remain close to their original form and function while others differ dramatically.

The artist and author, Christien Meindertsma spent three years researching all the products made from a single pig. Amongst some of the more unexpected results were: ammunition, medicine, photo paper, heart valves, breaks, chewing gum, porcelain, cosmetics, cigarettes and conditioner. 'In an almost sergical way a pig is dissected in the pages of the book - resulting in a startling photo book where all the products are shown at their true scale (1:1).'

I'm so fascinated with this book and love the amount and thoroughness of research in it.

Scheepstimmermanstraat

On recommendation of my architect-in-the-making friend, Kathryn, I went to see the street in Amsterdam where each house is designed by a different architect. Nice walk accompanied by Beruit. House with a tree growing through it wins...

Copenhagen Street Style

So, this is the Copenhagen winter attire. I feel this is the exact outfit I need for cycling in the snow (not quite so far north, but it is bloody cold all the same). Am obsessed with the beautiful backpack too.

Copenhagen Street Style blog is super nice to browse through.

Amsterdam beginnings...

This post is mainly for the benefit of Lucy, Kathryn and Mummy bear. So if you don't want to see my street, front door envy, actual front door, bedroom, bike, basket envy and place of work really don't bother to read any further.

This is my street...

all the doors on my street look like this...

... except for mine, which looks like this (nice to see!)

this is my bedroom - which only looks like this due to my new obsession with Zara Home (the doors go on to the balcony)...

here is my beautiful new (but old) bicycle...

... this is a girl who lives down my street's bike. I have serious basket envy...

and this is my new work place...

Tea all live in a yellow submarine

I have wanted a lovely tea strainer so I can use tea leaves for ages now. Look at this one the I found on Frankie. How cute?

Officially part of the team!

My name is officially on the Droog 'Luxury of The North' project team list! Its really happening.

Substitute the 'Welcome' for Goodbye

So, today was my last day at Uscreates (substitute the 'Welcome' for Goodbye). We had a little party, that was more of a studio-warming than in aid of my departure, but I'll pretend I made that much of an impact in two weeks!

I really loved working in the small team that Uscreates are - I was so much more involved and included than at other larger places I have had experience at.

This afternoon, I presented my final findings (which can only be described as inconclusive about productivity in relation to hot desking!- I did not have enough time to measure in sufficient detail!) to the ladies over beers and then was involved in a brainstorming session.

Anyhow, a lovely couple of weeks, where apparently, I "restored their faith in interns."

Hot Desk Hot 7

I just presented my findings on measuring the impact of Hot Desking to the team at UsCreates... it went rather well, despite that my results are somewhat inconclusive.

They show that people think Hot Desking is beneficial to them in terms of creativity, inspiration and productivity. But this is is simply how they feel as opposed to concrete evidence to show that they actually are more/less productive/creative/inspired at certain desks. Does the fact that individuals psychlogically prefer desks mean they will perform in accordance with their feelings?

So that is the next stage: measuring how productive/creative/inspired individuals actually are. So much measuring, so little time! (Well, 4 days)! Whatever experiments I concoct, they have to be extensive enough that individuals could be having an off-hour/day and it will still measure their overall performance at that desk.

So there we go: thats my weeks work. Wish me luck!

Archer Hairline

I saw my friend Lucy had taken the Pentegram 'What Type Are You?' test. I had my fingers crossed I would be something as beautiful as her... and I was! We are both Archer Hairline. Isn't it lovely?

Its my party and I'll cry if I want to

I only shed a little tear at my leaving gathering last night. Lots of lovely friends came together to eat chilli, play Articulate, marvel at the wonder that is Beyonce and say goodbye to me for six months. Although by the sounds of things, I'll see more of them in another country than I do at home.

On the 1st February, I am heading to Amsterdam to do an internship with Droog Lab, which appears to be perfect, so I'm packing up for a while.

I received a lovely VICTORY card from Brig (lets hope she hasn't spoken a little too soon!), a beautiful travel journal and Love You bracelet made from sweets from Hannah and guide book and extensive map from my parents (they have little faith in my sense of direction).

The Selby

Whilst staying with my friend Eddie last week, he introduced me to Whitechapel (particularly enjoyed our Sainsburys trips), his new Lanvin trainers and The Selby. Very beautiful homes of very beautiful people.

Measuring Impact

Monday saw me as the new kid once again. This time, at behaviour change consultancy, UsCreates. After a first-day mishap of my knickers falling out of my bag whist trying to move a weeks worth of clothes off the top of my laptop (they were clean, I might add), I have settled in quite nicely and have discovered a love for chamomile tea made with dried chamomile flowers (instead of a tea bag) - the colour rather resembles your wee first thing in the morning!

Anyhow, as opposed to the usual dogs-body jobs, I was given a project of my very own to do... How do you measure impact?

Harder than you think. So I have spent the week coming up with what to measure, centered around UsCreates and then experiments and ideas of how to measure these.

At UsCreates, they hot desk, so I decided to begin by trying to measure the impact that hot desking has on UsCreates. The experiments ranged from the mundane (questionnaires; comments box; group discussion) to the slightly more interesting (playing musical chairs accompanied by David Bowie's 'Changes', with stickers and a chart to fill in at each stop; a paper tape measure for each individual to measure how far they were from everyone else in the room and then write that person a note at the measurement on the tape measure about anything they wished, using rosettes ranked 1 to 7 to award each desk in the office to show preference).

Hopefully the team think the breaks from work are light relief as opposed to a waste of their time.

I am in the process of evaluating the results, so I'll keep you posted.

Fingers crossed for the parcel's success

So, for the past few weeks, I have been working on a brief set by the RSA called Independence Days (looking at services provided for people who suffer from a chronic illness and seeing how these can be improved/develpoed). I focused on teenagers with diabetes and with a little team of willing patients and carers learnt a lot about the condition, the difficulties faced, opinions on what is currently available and how this could be improved and co-designed my response with them.

From this, I developed a pairing scheme whereby teenage sufferers of a similar age would be matched. It would be an opt-in scheme, where diabetes clinics would be in control of making appropriate pairings; ideally a patient managing their diabetes well with a patient struggling. Both parties would benefit from having a point of contact outside of their medical team: a person to talk to about the condition and hopefully forge a friendship outside the realms of diabetes.

I will post the project properly on my website shortly.

So here is the parcel which has now been sent and will soon be under the RSA's judging eyes...

Who knew such perfect A3 bubble-wrap envelopes were available?!

No day but today...

I was going to do a ''my favourite/not so favourite parts of 2009'' post, but didn't want it to be some dire form of ''I got a 1st, went traveling, still don't understand boys'' effort. So I'll just say 2009 was generally very nice and I am ready for 2010 to be even nicer.

The resolutions for the new decade go as follows: 1. sweat baby sweat 2. don't stop believing 3. hold on tight to your dreams 4. move out 5. do things to make people's lives a little better-volunteer, projects 6. end the year with a glowing CV and a PAID job in something I want to do 7. eat mainly things that are green on the wheel of food fortune... 1 and 7 have already been broken (what can you do if its raining and you have a hangover to feed?!)

Anyway, the point of this was to say that I found the image above (on www.hellosubsist.com), and think the 'NO DAY BUT TODAY' notion is good inspiration to be all the things my resolutions hope. Not so much the 'my only goal is just to be' though - I can't do that. Proactive is the only way.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!