Developing entrepreneurs for the 21st century
We recently sat on the Education and Talent Development panel at the Barbados Entrepreneurship Summit 2011. The conference is organised by the Barbados Entrepreneurship Foundation (BEF), a charity set up to make the island the world’s #1 entrepreneurial hub by 2020. The BEF has also initiated the drive towards free Wi-Fi across the island which is now at around 60% coverage. ... Read More
From Rum Shop to Bus Stop: putting Barbados on the business map with island-wide free Wi-Fi access
We’ve all seen those photos: the person working from their laptop on the beach, freelancing whilst surrounded by sun, sea and sand. Well that may be achievable in the not-too-distant future in Barbados. Friday (11.11.11) was their target date to become the first Wi-Fi-wide island. The initiative, championed by the Barbados Entrepreneurship Foundation (BEF), is just one in a range... Read More
Tea with… Hydar Dewachi
Just as we were about to leave the cafe after lively chat and a cup of tea, Hydar Dewachi said: “I prefer to collaborate with others because it brings out the best in my creativity”. It seemed like it was time to get the notebook out and stay a little longer. We spoke about collaborations, creative skills and the idea of “minglism”. Hydar has been a freelance photographer... Read More
Sharing our Vision: the role of visual facilitation in the collaborative process
Over a tea in the Wellcome Collection cafe, we had a chat with Emily Wilkinson from Mindful Maps (who we’ve worked with before on our BracketLab project) about visual facilitation and creative collaboration. We realised that our disciplines had a lot to contribute to the other and decided to pull our thoughts together. Read More Read More
Being human in digital communication
Last week two great events, although unrelated, both touched upon the human side of technology. On Friday, as part of their Out of This World series, the British Library hosted “The Age of Entanglement: are we too intertwined with technology”. They invited a panel to look at the current issue of how we deal with the increasing impact of technology on our lives. Earlier... Read More
The office-less organisation?
Last month, we attended “How is London working? Innovation in the Capital’s workplaces” – a discussion about how (and whether) the way employees work in organisations is changing in line with technological developments. Although the web is allowing people to connect with others despite time and their location, many companies still seem to be sticking to the notion of the... Read More
Practice (and play) makes participation
This is the second post inspired by the OK Do talk that took place during the London Design Festival on ‘Strategies for Participation’. The talk brought up lots of questions on how we decide who to collaborate with. We really liked the point that Celine Condorelli and Ulla-Maaria Engeström were making – that we choose who to work with based on our values, but... Read More
Partnerships for the future – social enterprise and collaboration
A couple of weeks back, we attended Red Ochre’s one-day event “Social Enterprise and Commissioners – a partnership for the future?”. Red Ochre is a business support organisation for social enterprises, and the event was a response to the potential opportunities arising for its clients to respond to public sector tenders. One of the breakout sessions was Developing Successful... Read More
Dealing with conflict
When choosing collaborators, we tend to gravitate towards those that are like us and who agree with us. Naturally, we’d rather spend time with people we agree with rather than those we don’t. But sometimes it’s those that have opposite views that we can be likely to learn from most. Maybe the reason we avoid collaborating with those with different views is because of... Read More
RewireLondon – creativity, connections and Courvoisier punch!
Last month, on 8th June, the first RewireLondon event took place, at Rich Mix in Shoreditch – a collaboration between Bracket and 8Fold. RewireLondon was an unconference for the creative sector, an interactive and flexible event where the attendees were the driving force. This meant that rather than curating the schedule completely with invited speakers, it was mostly left... Read More