Hello Friend 👋
Here are Seven Things I was curious about this week:
AI for Good: As a designer, I find it interesting to hear ‘technical’ people call out human problems: Along with generating insights from data, one main challenge remains to make those insights actionable while telling compelling stories (I wrote about this before in more detail). This week, Re-Work hosted a technical and excellent webinar on AI for Crisis Prediction. The event included talks on assessing crises using photos shared on social media, predicting the spread of wildfires, and more. You can watch the full webinar on the Re-Work YouTube page. It also reminded me of a project that looked at how AI can help NGOs to respond to disasters faster.
Data visualization: Want to hear a job title I had no idea existed before? Guerilla Geographer. Dan Raven’s work combines two of my favourite things - walking and DataViz. His video UK in 100 seconds captures all the UK’s landscapes in proportionately long snippets of film. Currently, he’s working with thousands of volunteers to create a network of walking routes that connect all of Great Britain’s towns and cities as well as thousands of villages.
Product development: Last week I mentioned some insights Basecamp founder Jason Fried shared at a conference, such as planning work in terms of appetite instead of effort. It turns out, they wrote a book about those lessons and more. It’s great and free and you can read it on their website.
Team health: The Squad Health Check model by Spotify R&D is a wonderful resource for assessing and improving the health of any group of people working together. Workshop materials included.
Tech: Watch a documentary about “the most important company you’ve never heard of”: General Magic. The film about the company that invented the smartphone and ‘failed‘ is well worth the few quid on Prime Video or iTunes and - if you want to look at it that way - teaches some important lessons about the importance of product management, AGILE ways of working, and everything else it takes for a team to succeed, beyond ‘just’ talent.
Your thing: If you’re a fan of design and American muscle cars, I think you’ll enjoy Andrew Davies’ renditions of his favourites on his Dribble account.
Activity: Going down the list of possible lockdown activities, we turned to a Kintsugi kit I received last Christmas. Beyond just being fun, the Japanese practice of mending what’s broken in beautiful ways gives much to ponder: “In an age that worships youth, perfection and the new, the art of kintsugi retains a particular wisdom – as applicable to our own lives as it is to a broken tea cup. The care and love expended on the shattered pots should lend us the confidence to respect what is damaged and scarred, vulnerable and imperfect – starting with ourselves and those around us.” And our communities?
Here are a few snaps I took:Thank you for being curious with me. Please do me a favour and forward this newsletter to a friend. If you haven’t yet, you can subscribe here.
Disclaimer: Any opinions expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of any current or previous employers.