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!

How It Is

How It Is is a huge dark chamber with a steel exterior exhibited by Miroslaw Balka in the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern at the moment...

Balka explains it far better than I can:

" 'How shall I move forward?' you might ask yourself as you stand at the threshold, confronted by the darkness ahead. The unknown can be terrifying, especially if it is also without light. How you approach it is unique, as your first encounter with anything can only ever be as an individual. Staring into the black void may make you wonder whether to move ahead at all.

'It's fine' you reassure yourself, 'what can actually be inside?' How It Is is only complete when you, the viewer, enter. The container focuses you inwards, both physically and psychologically, deeper into the darkness. In choosing how to move ahead - to march in fearlessly, or to skirt along the walls - you create your own journey. But as you bump into others, or mistakenly grab a stranger's shoulder, your trepidation eases and collectively you navigate the void."

I began by entering the box in the center - no walls to hold on to, but I soon was exaggerating my steps and treading carefully (it feels like you are in a dream) and as I got further, was grabbing for my Dad's arm. Maybe thats it: I like to seem fearless, but in fact am not. Even a bit.

Walkies

The only item that featured on my brother's christmas list this year was a Husky puppy. Unsurprisingly, Father Christmas did not grant him his wish (he'll have to be nicer next year). He therefore refused to come on the Boxing Day walk (top 2 photographs) as it was apparently "pointless" as we didn't have the dog to walk.

That we bought him a Husky calendar and a pin badge was not taken in good favour either: "rubbing it in".

Anyway, enough of the dog loving... cats are much nicer. (3rd photograph is Phoebe, my Auntie Hilary's cat)

Christmas creations

Here are some christmas presents I made...

From the top: gingerbread stars for my Granny, aunties, cousins and the Timmins family; a IN/OUT timer for my Mum, who never knows when to take her creations out of the oven (she refuses to use the timer on the cooker); an A3 poster of the A-Z of Professions for my brother who is fairly clueless as to the direction he should take in life; a seasons chart for my lovely friend Ally, who works in fashion and yet does not understand the seasons!