Weeknotes 005

A temporary lull in the weeknotes means that Weeknotes 004 will be forever known as the lost week. Easter weekend in Suffolk led to reception only available with your hand in the air stood in a conifer hedge. Result: relaxing easy and updating a blog, well, challenging.

As you'll see from the list below, the back-to-back workshops have finished and work time has become a little less heavily scheduled.

The edited highlights of the last two weeks...

  • A trip to see Jack Chestermans exhibition at Dean Clough - art and printmaking I'm happy, paintings of boats in boat sheds Johnny's happy.
  • London for the 'still top secret' project kick off with the developers
  • Deep discussions over refreshments with herbs in - Rosemary and olive oil cake (?!) and Pear and Thyme Collins (Double ?!)
  • Coming up with questions for the project evaluator to ask me. My new conversation starter -  'what questions do you think I should ask you?'
  • Answering positively to an email asking if I can source floral arrangements for this event made entirely of weeds found in skips/ditches etc
  • Putting the newly re-established Leeds Savage Club in touch with Barwick-in-Elmet Historical Society who are researching the Victorian Leeds Savage Club.

The next week looks set to be one of application design and specification for the Microsoft Surface tables and writing the report for the research.

The question I'll leave you with, and what I think we will have  to decide on by the end of this week is -  interpretation provided by the group members - should this provide insight the object that inspired them or the object they created.

Sunday 11 Apr 2010 by Lindsey | No Comments
Filed under: weeknotes

Weeknotes 003

The past week has been a story of two projects.

Project number one. About two hours ago we got a verbal green light. I'm impossibly bad at keeping secrets but I have been currently sworn to secrecy until the contract is signed. Needless, to say it's been very exciting and possibly the fastest "Yes, let's do it'' I've ever been involved with.

The second project is Leeds Museums iTransform which is now into the third phase - design and delivery of the group content onto the tables. You can see a discussion I posted earlier this week.

One of the strands, is based on the research by a local Historical Society around the local Savage Club. This group has, for me, provided the most worries -  mainly due to my lack of awareness about historical research methodologies and the fact the project is based around an object belonging to the group rather than the museum. With this in mind, it has been the group that's taken the longest to get going.

This week, however the group had two sessions. The first, with Sara Ayad on carrying out picture research. The second with A Different Drum Productions to begin the creative development for an animation to introduce their work. The project has suddenly come alive. The groups enthusiasm and eagerness to tell the story has been infectious. A lot less formal in the workshops/learning, the project is flowing in a way I hadn't expected. The groups are now at full steam of their research and pro-actively partnering with ourselves and the artists, making suggestions and connections to make the best work they possibly can.

It's working so well it has me thinking if this is the way to be working with adult learning groups all together. And that leads me to thinking - why does this always happen half way through a project?

We also went back to the Families in Museums research this week, with fresh eyes. Over 50 people have asked us to see the results now, which is great - but has distracted us a little from the main aim. When we started, we wanted to know - do families who don't visit museums regularly use smart phones and if so can the technology help them navigate the space. Having access to loads of data and lots of people to who were interested meant we started to delve too deep but miss answering our own core premise - the results were in danger of becoming a little vanilla in the present form. No one likes vanilla research... so we're changing it and the results will appear on April 16th.

Monday 29 Mar 2010 by Lindsey | No Comments
Filed under: collaboration and partnerships, post digital design, weeknotes

Ada Lovelace Day

Emma Cooper wrote to me the other day about Ada Lovelace day. There is an event in Sheffield, was I going?

Ada Lovelace day is about celebrating inspirational women in technology.

I'm not normally someone who gets involved in 'days'. I'm also in the camp that sees technology as a tool rather than a definable sector. I'm adverse to event/organisations who focus only solely on placing boundaries around technology. I like to think of technology as something that is integrated into our lives and serves as a tool rather than a medium. It sometimes feels a little like celebrating the use of a stationary cupboard or having a conference on the theoretical use of the monkey wrench.

So, it looks like I'm not attending right? Well it turns out this is neither of the above cliches. It is about writing a post on women who inspire me and use technology. Much to my shame, I've this hard and I've really struggled to name a woman who is high profile and 'in technology'. I can name numerous men, one after the other - but not women. The fact I struggled told me several things but most importantly - Ada Lovelace day is needed and we should be doing more of it.

When I focussed on my own sector, many of the most significant people in the industry are women, who use technology as a tool in super smart ways and inspire me to try an do the same.

I've come up with what I will call 'my post-digital list of women I admire in technology with museum edge' (a snappy title huh?):

Nina Simon from Museum 2.0 - Nina spotted the link between how people use social technology and how that applies directly to the museum experience. Her exhibition designs use technology but are rarely defined by it. Her blog challenges my assumptions and encourages me to reflect on my own practice.

Nancy Proctor from Smithsonian and MuseumMobile- I worked with Nancy at Antenna Audio and can confirm she is a whirlwind of ideas and energy in an often slow moving industry. I am constantly in awe of her tireless approach to promoting the smart use of mobile in museums and her abiltiy start intellegent debates within the industry.

Dr. Jane Magill - I met Jane at a creative science and learning lab for PAL in 2005-6. At a time when I was becoming dissolutioned with my own work, Jane was the person who inspired me to look at the creative physics of chips and bytes. Her positivity and motivation to 'apply and do' is something I aspire too.

It feels really positive to be discussing such great women who've had an impact on my practice and in a way it's sad that I don't write more things like it. Maybe it's time to start and not make it once a year.

So, let's hear it for the ladies and here's to a Happy Ada Lovelace day. Thanks to Emma and I'll be at the bar at showroom to raise a glass.

Wednesday 24 Mar 2010 by Lindsey | No Comments
Filed under: cracking ideas, mobile experiences, post digital design
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