Posted: April 2nd, 2010 | Author:Sebi | Filed under:Diary | Comments Off
Then came the presentations skills workshop, held by my colleague from Futurice, Ville Saarinen. Ville is a very good presenter himself, and he taught us the basic principles of preparing a slide set. After a short presentation, Ville gave the students an exercise, which covered the rest of the workshop.
I think it’s safe to say everyone had a great time, and learned a few things about making good presentations.
Posted: April 2nd, 2010 | Author:Sebi | Filed under:Diary | Comments Off
Wow, some time has passed since I’ve updated the blog. I guess with so much interesting stuff going on, this became a second priority for a while. But here are the updates now…
First, we had the research workshop. We learned various ethnographic research methods – some of which I knew from D school, some of them inspired by IDEO’s toolkit.
The mood was informal and playful:
…But we also got to the serious business:
After a short exercise of interviewing each other and analyzing the process together, the teams were getting ready to interview old ladies, futuristic clients, and Hub users, each according to their own team’s challenge.
Today was amazing! With 2 days before project kick-off, everything seems to be coming together nicely!
First, I met with Jan-Henrik Johansson and Christine Chang, from the EU-funded BASAAR project. They had some very interesting problem case ideas, around immigration, globalization and future scenarios. They’ll be coming to the project kick-off on Thursday to introduce their ideas.
Next, I met Anne Badan and Anki (don’t have full name) from Aalto Social Impact, a project very similar in philosophy and desired outcome to this one, being set up inside Aalto University. We discussed about each other’s projects and about possibilities of joining forces in the future. Anne is quite inspiring!
Finally, I attended the Social Innovation event organized by Syy at the Hub. Not only did we get a few more sign-ups for the project, but we also finally found a “client” for our senior-citizens area! Tiina Kuisma from Palvelukoti Sofia will also be coming on Thursday, to talk a bit about her organization and possible senior-citizen cases we could help with.
Not to mention, Janne from Hub Helsinki will also be chipping in a problem case, called “Hub Helsinki / Where unlikely allies meet”. More about it on Thursday.
To summarize, we’ve got a pretty good selection of real cases, and also some very enthusiastic people to start working on them. I’d say we’re good to go!
Posted: March 12th, 2010 | Author:Sebi | Filed under:Diary | Comments Off
I’m at the library right now, and just got an idea. If we don’t get any contacts to seniors through our more official efforts, this could be a great place to find seniors to interview and such!
(Context: senior citizens will probably be one of our cases in the project, and we were looking for related clients)
It’s amazing how many interesting projects you can learn about just by being in the middle of things.
I had no idea about The Public School before today. And especially about The Helsinki Public School.
Makes me think…Cool things are happening everywhere. It’s just a matter of connecting and promoting all of them
The Friday meeting was a good one. Only part of the people were there (the time of the event was a challenge for the rest), but we had a good atmosphere, and discussed quite a bit about what social problems to approach. We also decided to start splitting tasks a bit, especially the getting-in-touch-with-potential-stakeholders part.
This Friday, at the Helsinki Hub, we will have a chance to discuss the School of Social Innovation project a bit, so that everyone gets to understand a bit more just what it is about.
For anyone who doesn’t use Facebook, here are the details:
Date:
Friday, March 5, 2010
Time:
2:00pm – 4:00pm
Location:
The HUB, Aleksanterinkatu 16-18 00170 Helsinki
The location is on the right side just a bit passed the White Church, as you come down on Aleksi form the center. There’s a courtyard and a door that says Hub in there.
Call 0407740124 (Sebi) if you get lost.
If you’d like to attend but the time doesn’t suit you, let me know! Maybe we can figure out something.
Vva (in Finnish, Vailla Vakinaista Asuntoa; in English, No Fixed Abode) is an organization for homeless or ex-homeless people in Helsinki, aiming to find a permanent place to live for everyone, and providing different kinds of assistance and fun activities in the meanwhile.
On Friday I met Sanna, Carole and Keijo from Vva (for the first time). They were very excited about the idea of the project, and decided already then that they wanted in! Now it’s just a matter of deciding the details of their participation.
This is great news, and it was great talking to them and seeing their dedication to what they’re doing! I look forward to seeing them again!
Last Monday I visited the Helsinki HUB for the first time, and got everyone’s support for running the project in the Hub premises. It was a big step for the project!
The ironic part is, the first thing I saw on the Hub walls were materials that had obviously come out of a design process, not unlike what I will be teaching during the workshops. I asked about them and was told that Ideo had run a 2 day workshop there last autumn! I thought it was a nice coincidence, and maybe a sign that our concepts will turn out at least as good as Ideo concepts
