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    <title>Sidekick Studios: A social innovation company</title>
    
    <link>http://sidekickstudios.net</link>
    <description>We use the internet to redesign public services so they do more, for less</description>
    <language>en</language>
    <atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/sidekickstudios" /><feedburner:info uri="sidekickstudios" /><atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="hub" href="http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/" /><feedburner:emailServiceId>sidekickstudios</feedburner:emailServiceId><feedburner:feedburnerHostname>http://feedburner.google.com</feedburner:feedburnerHostname><item>
      <title>Jointly weeknotes #3 - four notes for your Monday </title>
      <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sidekickstudios/~3/b6fo0yXcR_Q/jointly-weeknotes-3---four-random-thoughts-</link>
      <pubDate>Mon, 28 May 2012 09:51:43 +0000</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://sidekickstudios.net/blog/2012/05/jointly-weeknotes-3---four-random-thoughts-</guid>
      <dc:creator>Asi Sharabi</dc:creator>
      <description>
        <![CDATA[<p>
    <img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/152/post/Message_Screen2.png?1338198593'" /></p>


<p>
    The Jointly startup project with Carers UK is making good progress. While Nikki and Ian concentrate on building the MVP, I&#39;ve started to develop the commercial strategy (routes to market, pricing models etc.) Here are some random notes:</p>


<p>
    <strong>&nbsp;1. How to talk about care without talking about care.</strong></p>


<p>
    We previously noted how all, or most of our respondents, although clearly involved in caring tasks and responsibilities do not identify themselves as carers. This has a myriad reasons. The reluctance to admit to oneself that a loved one needs caring, or the need to maintain a mental distance from formal care workers and maintain one&#39;s identity are two of the more obvious reasons. So previously we made a decision to focus on Caring as an activity that someone is involved with, rather then focus on Carers as the people we design for. This presents a few challenges, especially around copy, naming and branding. How to position and market a tool that is designed to make caring a bit easier without overly talking about caring? Who knew that Care is such a loaded word?....This is a work in progress but the aim is to bring the product benefits to life in an intriguing way, generate awareness and create resonance without putting off potential users. The focus, we think, should be on the way it will help the people who share the caring to be better together. So &#39;better co-ordination&#39; &#39;stay in the loop&#39;, &#39;better informed&#39;, &#39;collaborative caring&#39; are the themes we explore now for the copy/comms.</p>


<p>
    <strong>2. Involvement of the cared-for</strong></p>


<p>
    This is a theme we initially overlooked. We are designing a tool to make better collaborative caring, focusing on facilitating better communication between everyone sharing the care. But there is of course a person at the center of the circle of care. Sometimes that person is still more or less independent, physically and mentally, sometimes they are not. Sometimes they are still very much part of the decision making process and participate actively in their care, sometimes they can&#39;t so the caregivers will make all the decisions on their behalf. But these things are never black or white. In many cases, even if the individual is still mentally capable, there will always be some private conversations between the people who share the care - it&#39;s only natural. Whether over the phone, group email or other means of communication, there are always going to be conversations where the cared for isn&#39;t involved (&quot;is it time for mum to move to a home?&quot; &quot;I think dad has been a bit confused recently&quot; etc) So what shall we do? We&#39;ve decided that in line with our decision to try to tap into natural modes of communication between individuals in a circle of care and to leave that decision for them. We&#39;re designing a tool that will allow the cared for to have as little or as much involvement as makes sense for the individuals involved. He or she can be an active participant in this tool or not at all. This is a sensitive area that we will learn more of only when people will start using the tool and give us some feedback.</p>


<p>
    <strong>3. Pricing models and the free economy.</strong></p>


<p>
    Here at Sidekick we are a firm believers in commercially sustainable digital busineses. We want to create products and services that people fall in love with and are willing to pay for. That&#39;s also a major objective for Sidekick School of which this project belongs to - to help charity organisation become more entrepreneurial, to create amazing products and to unlock new revenue streams by adopting the startup model/process. The case with Jointly is going to be an interesting one. There are a few similar tools in the market (not UK based businesses) and while ours is going to be significantly different - simpler, more intuitive, mobile, to name a few - on the pricing front we will have to look at what other tools are charging. An interesting case emerges. Of the three tools we are looking at, one is free, the other gives you 30 days free trial then charges you &pound;10 per month and the third is giving you 1 year(!) free trial, it then charges you $5 per month or $48 for an annual subscription. That&#39;s quite a big difference. Again, once we have put the product into people&#39;s hands we will get a better idea of when to start charging and how much</p>


<p>
    <strong>4. More than an MVP</strong></p>


<p>
    While I&#39;m all up for being lean and agile and &quot;ship first, iterate fast&quot; (we, too, like to quote Reid Hoffmann that once said &quot;if you&#39;re not embarrased by the first version of your product you&#39;ve launched too late&quot;) I feel that in this context we have to be careful. I&#39;m also a firm believer that in most cases you have one chance to get people to fall in love with a product. Jointly is designed for people who aren&#39;t your classic early adopters of techy products. If we look at the more natural, light-end of caring for an elderly parent, we are looking at 45-65 year olds that aren&#39;t as tech/apps aware as us. Surely we can find the 5-10 circles who are savvy enough with mobile applications but our plan is to get to 100 users as soon as possible and I want to give them the best possible experience. The solution in this case is to go lean and light on features, but to be as sleek as possible with visual design from alpha stage. The product, even if super simple, has to look and feel amazing. It will.</p>


<p>
    &nbsp;</p>


<p>
    More updates soon.</p>

]]>
      </description>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[
        <p>
    <img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/152/post/Message_Screen2.png?1338198593'" /></p>


<p>
    The Jointly startup project with Carers UK is making good progress. While Nikki and Ian concentrate on building the MVP, I&#39;ve started to develop the commercial strategy (routes to market, pricing models etc.) Here are some random notes:</p>


<p>
    <strong>&nbsp;1. How to talk about care without talking about care.</strong></p>


<p>
    We previously noted how all, or most of our respondents, although clearly involved in caring tasks and responsibilities do not identify themselves as carers. This has a myriad reasons. The reluctance to admit to oneself that a loved one needs caring, or the need to maintain a mental distance from formal care workers and maintain one&#39;s identity are two of the more obvious reasons. So previously we made a decision to focus on Caring as an activity that someone is involved with, rather then focus on Carers as the people we design for. This presents a few challenges, especially around copy, naming and branding. How to position and market a tool that is designed to make caring a bit easier without overly talking about caring? Who knew that Care is such a loaded word?....This is a work in progress but the aim is to bring the product benefits to life in an intriguing way, generate awareness and create resonance without putting off potential users. The focus, we think, should be on the way it will help the people who share the caring to be better together. So &#39;better co-ordination&#39; &#39;stay in the loop&#39;, &#39;better informed&#39;, &#39;collaborative caring&#39; are the themes we explore now for the copy/comms.</p>


<p>
    <strong>2. Involvement of the cared-for</strong></p>


<p>
    This is a theme we initially overlooked. We are designing a tool to make better collaborative caring, focusing on facilitating better communication between everyone sharing the care. But there is of course a person at the center of the circle of care. Sometimes that person is still more or less independent, physically and mentally, sometimes they are not. Sometimes they are still very much part of the decision making process and participate actively in their care, sometimes they can&#39;t so the caregivers will make all the decisions on their behalf. But these things are never black or white. In many cases, even if the individual is still mentally capable, there will always be some private conversations between the people who share the care - it&#39;s only natural. Whether over the phone, group email or other means of communication, there are always going to be conversations where the cared for isn&#39;t involved (&quot;is it time for mum to move to a home?&quot; &quot;I think dad has been a bit confused recently&quot; etc) So what shall we do? We&#39;ve decided that in line with our decision to try to tap into natural modes of communication between individuals in a circle of care and to leave that decision for them. We&#39;re designing a tool that will allow the cared for to have as little or as much involvement as makes sense for the individuals involved. He or she can be an active participant in this tool or not at all. This is a sensitive area that we will learn more of only when people will start using the tool and give us some feedback.</p>


<p>
    <strong>3. Pricing models and the free economy.</strong></p>


<p>
    Here at Sidekick we are a firm believers in commercially sustainable digital busineses. We want to create products and services that people fall in love with and are willing to pay for. That&#39;s also a major objective for Sidekick School of which this project belongs to - to help charity organisation become more entrepreneurial, to create amazing products and to unlock new revenue streams by adopting the startup model/process. The case with Jointly is going to be an interesting one. There are a few similar tools in the market (not UK based businesses) and while ours is going to be significantly different - simpler, more intuitive, mobile, to name a few - on the pricing front we will have to look at what other tools are charging. An interesting case emerges. Of the three tools we are looking at, one is free, the other gives you 30 days free trial then charges you &pound;10 per month and the third is giving you 1 year(!) free trial, it then charges you $5 per month or $48 for an annual subscription. That&#39;s quite a big difference. Again, once we have put the product into people&#39;s hands we will get a better idea of when to start charging and how much</p>


<p>
    <strong>4. More than an MVP</strong></p>


<p>
    While I&#39;m all up for being lean and agile and &quot;ship first, iterate fast&quot; (we, too, like to quote Reid Hoffmann that once said &quot;if you&#39;re not embarrased by the first version of your product you&#39;ve launched too late&quot;) I feel that in this context we have to be careful. I&#39;m also a firm believer that in most cases you have one chance to get people to fall in love with a product. Jointly is designed for people who aren&#39;t your classic early adopters of techy products. If we look at the more natural, light-end of caring for an elderly parent, we are looking at 45-65 year olds that aren&#39;t as tech/apps aware as us. Surely we can find the 5-10 circles who are savvy enough with mobile applications but our plan is to get to 100 users as soon as possible and I want to give them the best possible experience. The solution in this case is to go lean and light on features, but to be as sleek as possible with visual design from alpha stage. The product, even if super simple, has to look and feel amazing. It will.</p>


<p>
    &nbsp;</p>


<p>
    More updates soon.</p>


      <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/sidekickstudios/~4/b6fo0yXcR_Q" height="1" width="1"/>]]></content:encoded>
    <feedburner:origLink>http://sidekickstudios.net/blog/2012/05/jointly-weeknotes-3---four-random-thoughts-</feedburner:origLink></item>
    <item>
      <title>Buddy in the press </title>
      <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sidekickstudios/~3/f_RY4t9bDgQ/buddy-in-the-press-</link>
      <pubDate>Fri, 25 May 2012 08:39:54 +0000</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://sidekickstudios.net/blog/2012/05/buddy-in-the-press-</guid>
      <dc:creator>Asi Sharabi</dc:creator>
      <description>
        <![CDATA[<p>
    This week <a href="http://buddyapp.org/">Buddy</a> had a feature in the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/may/22/buddy-app-mental-health-patients-moods">Guardian</a> followed by <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2012/05/23/app-strengthens-links-between-patients-and-therapists/?mod=google_news_blog">WSJ Europe&nbsp;</a></p>


<p>
    <img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/150/post/Screen_Shot_2012-05-25_at_09.35.06.png?1337935013'" /></p>


<p>
    <img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/151/post/Screen_Shot_2012-05-25_at_09.35.43.png?1337935072'" /></p>

]]>
      </description>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[
        <p>
    This week <a href="http://buddyapp.org/">Buddy</a> had a feature in the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/may/22/buddy-app-mental-health-patients-moods">Guardian</a> followed by <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2012/05/23/app-strengthens-links-between-patients-and-therapists/?mod=google_news_blog">WSJ Europe&nbsp;</a></p>


<p>
    <img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/150/post/Screen_Shot_2012-05-25_at_09.35.06.png?1337935013'" /></p>


<p>
    <img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/151/post/Screen_Shot_2012-05-25_at_09.35.43.png?1337935072'" /></p>


      <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/sidekickstudios/~4/f_RY4t9bDgQ" height="1" width="1"/>]]></content:encoded>
    <feedburner:origLink>http://sidekickstudios.net/blog/2012/05/buddy-in-the-press-</feedburner:origLink></item>
    <item>
      <title>Sidekick School: TakeCare (now Jointly) weeknotes #2</title>
      <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sidekickstudios/~3/ikecp3NHHL4/sidekick-school-takecare-now-jointly-weeknotes-2</link>
      <pubDate>Tue, 15 May 2012 11:20:35 +0000</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://sidekickstudios.net/blog/2012/05/sidekick-school-takecare-now-jointly-weeknotes-2</guid>
      <dc:creator>Asi Sharabi</dc:creator>
      <description>
        <![CDATA[<p>
    [co-written with Nikki (design lead) and Ian(technology lead)]&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p2">
    We&rsquo;re now just over 4 weeks into the CarersUK-Sidekick School project so we thought it&rsquo;s a good time for an update. In the past few weeks we focused on user research. As suspected, it is hugely challenging to find &#39;typical&#39; instances of caring. This is due to the fact that there are so many variables that come into play (as we outlined in our first weeknotes). We now know that creating a product that will answer all of carers needs is practically impossible. We have to make some decisions.</p>


<p class="p2">
    <strong><span class="s2">Don&rsquo;t call me a carer</span></strong></p>


<p class="p2">
    One really interesting theme that emerged from talking to people caring for a loved one while working full time is the fact that none of them considered or identified themselves as carers. This is due to myriad of reasons but predominantly the resistance (one would argue a denial) to label oneself as a carer. No matter how much disruptive to their everyday lives, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m just looking after mum&rdquo;, &ldquo;this is what I signed for when I got married&rdquo;, &ldquo;this is just part of life&rdquo; where quite common reactions. Additionally, the reluctance to accept oneself as carer was even more common where some form of formal/professional care was in place. The main implication for us is for customer development, comms and marketing - how to market a product designed for working carers who don&rsquo;t identify themselves as such? We are looking more into this and made a decision to treat caring as a verb rather as a title - something that you do, not something you are. The first thing we did when we realised that people don&#39;t identify themselves as carers was to change the codename of this project from TakeCare to &#39;Jointly&#39; to reflect our focus on caring coordination.</p>


<p class="p2">
    <img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/146/post/jointlypic.jpg?1337080146'" /></p>


<p class="p2">
    <strong>What (working) carers need/want?</strong></p>


<p class="p2">
    The fact that 1 in 6 of working carers end up leaving work because they cannot keep juggling between these two demanding worlds. When we tried to understand the reasons it is wonder that this figure isn&rsquo;t higher.&nbsp;</p>


<ul>
    <li class="li3">
        <span class="s1">Lack of awareness and support at&nbsp;work</span></li>
</ul>


<p class="p3">
    <span class="s1">While pretty much every one of us will find him/herself looking after a loved one at some stage (most probably caring an elderly parent), there is still lack of employers&rsquo; awareness and support. Working carers tend to &lsquo;hide&rsquo; the fact that they juggle work and care, and take sick leave as a default. &nbsp;</span></p>


<ul>
    <li class="li3">
        <span class="s1">Lack of support outside of work</span></li>
</ul>


<p class="p3">
    <span class="s1">We&rsquo;re starting to understand what CarersUK mean by the social care time-bomb. Social care seriously lacks the awareness, policy and resource to support working carers even though they save over 100 billion(!) pounds in providing care for their family and friends. </span><span class="s3">Caring can take its toll on your finances, your health and your career and your social life. Carers can fall out of paid work and many rely on low-level benefits, forcing them into poverty.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p2">
    <strong>Making caring a bit easier by making it a lot more organised</strong></p>


<p class="p2">
    In order to have a starting point from which we could make assumptions, ask questions and develop hypothesis for testing we talked in-depth with lots of people who care for a loved one while juggling a full-time job. Some interesting and &#39;fuzzier&#39; themes began to emerge from these conversations:</p>


<p class="p3">
    <span class="s1">- how the dynamics between family members impact on the circumstances of looking after a loved one and how it affects juggling work/care.</span></p>


<p class="p3">
    <span class="s1">- the involvement of neighbours and friends in a wider circle of care&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p3">
    <span class="s1">- gender-driven attitudes to divisions of labour</span></p>


<p class="p3">
    <span class="s1">- the varying number of formal care givers involved and the impact this has on the caring experience&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p3">
    <span class="s1">-&nbsp;</span>the impact of the relationship and consistency of interaction (if any) with formal care giving individuals&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p2">
    We are currently sticking to our focus on &lsquo;circles of caring&rsquo;, i.e. looking at caring as a group activity and therefore as a communicative and emotional context. In a recent survey by Carers UK, 77% of working carers reported that they receive some kind of help, support from relatives, friends or neighbours was the most common form reported. Very rarely does one individual acts as a sole caregiver while working full time - this is admittedly an impossible situation. We found that sometimes being completely on your own is a less a lack of circle and more a uneven division of responsibility that contributes to the sense of having no help at all.&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p2">
    Our hypothesis is that still that where a group of people involved, co-ordination of care through better communication can make a big difference to the stressful life of working/caring.&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p2">
    <strong><span class="s2">Circle Personas&nbsp;</span></strong></p>


<p class="p2">
    Based on everything we had heard we invented some circle-personas. We chose to illustrate 3 different scenarios:&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p2">
    The first looked at the very hands on &#39;heavy end&#39; caring duties, e.g. feeding, dressing, maintaining personal hygiene.</p>


<p class="p2">
    <img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/147/post/Profile1.jpg?1337080224'" /></p>


<p class="p2">
    The second looked at the lighter end of caring duties e.g. emotional support, picking up shopping etc.</p>


<p class="p2">
    <img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/148/post/Profile2.jpg?1337080307'" /></p>


<p class="p2">
    &nbsp;</p>


<p class="p3">
    <span class="s1">The third looked at a crisis situation whereby someone finds themselves in a situation of caring overnight due to something unexpected and often traumatic like an accident injury or sudden illness.</span></p>


<p class="p2">
    <img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/149/post/Profile3.jpg?1337080689'" /></p>


<p class="p2">
    These have helped us more clearly define and visualise what we mean by terms like &#39;circle of care&#39; and &#39;caring duties&#39; and they give us a useful reference point for conversations with external parties as well as among ourselves.</p>


<p class="p2">
    Next - we&rsquo;re starting to build something. We aim to have a working MVP in 6 weeks and start validate our hypotheses with a working prototype as soon as possible.&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p4">
    &nbsp;</p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">To be continued...</span></p>

]]>
      </description>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[
        <p>
    [co-written with Nikki (design lead) and Ian(technology lead)]&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p2">
    We&rsquo;re now just over 4 weeks into the CarersUK-Sidekick School project so we thought it&rsquo;s a good time for an update. In the past few weeks we focused on user research. As suspected, it is hugely challenging to find &#39;typical&#39; instances of caring. This is due to the fact that there are so many variables that come into play (as we outlined in our first weeknotes). We now know that creating a product that will answer all of carers needs is practically impossible. We have to make some decisions.</p>


<p class="p2">
    <strong><span class="s2">Don&rsquo;t call me a carer</span></strong></p>


<p class="p2">
    One really interesting theme that emerged from talking to people caring for a loved one while working full time is the fact that none of them considered or identified themselves as carers. This is due to myriad of reasons but predominantly the resistance (one would argue a denial) to label oneself as a carer. No matter how much disruptive to their everyday lives, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m just looking after mum&rdquo;, &ldquo;this is what I signed for when I got married&rdquo;, &ldquo;this is just part of life&rdquo; where quite common reactions. Additionally, the reluctance to accept oneself as carer was even more common where some form of formal/professional care was in place. The main implication for us is for customer development, comms and marketing - how to market a product designed for working carers who don&rsquo;t identify themselves as such? We are looking more into this and made a decision to treat caring as a verb rather as a title - something that you do, not something you are. The first thing we did when we realised that people don&#39;t identify themselves as carers was to change the codename of this project from TakeCare to &#39;Jointly&#39; to reflect our focus on caring coordination.</p>


<p class="p2">
    <img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/146/post/jointlypic.jpg?1337080146'" /></p>


<p class="p2">
    <strong>What (working) carers need/want?</strong></p>


<p class="p2">
    The fact that 1 in 6 of working carers end up leaving work because they cannot keep juggling between these two demanding worlds. When we tried to understand the reasons it is wonder that this figure isn&rsquo;t higher.&nbsp;</p>


<ul>
    <li class="li3">
        <span class="s1">Lack of awareness and support at&nbsp;work</span></li>
</ul>


<p class="p3">
    <span class="s1">While pretty much every one of us will find him/herself looking after a loved one at some stage (most probably caring an elderly parent), there is still lack of employers&rsquo; awareness and support. Working carers tend to &lsquo;hide&rsquo; the fact that they juggle work and care, and take sick leave as a default. &nbsp;</span></p>


<ul>
    <li class="li3">
        <span class="s1">Lack of support outside of work</span></li>
</ul>


<p class="p3">
    <span class="s1">We&rsquo;re starting to understand what CarersUK mean by the social care time-bomb. Social care seriously lacks the awareness, policy and resource to support working carers even though they save over 100 billion(!) pounds in providing care for their family and friends. </span><span class="s3">Caring can take its toll on your finances, your health and your career and your social life. Carers can fall out of paid work and many rely on low-level benefits, forcing them into poverty.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p2">
    <strong>Making caring a bit easier by making it a lot more organised</strong></p>


<p class="p2">
    In order to have a starting point from which we could make assumptions, ask questions and develop hypothesis for testing we talked in-depth with lots of people who care for a loved one while juggling a full-time job. Some interesting and &#39;fuzzier&#39; themes began to emerge from these conversations:</p>


<p class="p3">
    <span class="s1">- how the dynamics between family members impact on the circumstances of looking after a loved one and how it affects juggling work/care.</span></p>


<p class="p3">
    <span class="s1">- the involvement of neighbours and friends in a wider circle of care&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p3">
    <span class="s1">- gender-driven attitudes to divisions of labour</span></p>


<p class="p3">
    <span class="s1">- the varying number of formal care givers involved and the impact this has on the caring experience&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p3">
    <span class="s1">-&nbsp;</span>the impact of the relationship and consistency of interaction (if any) with formal care giving individuals&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p2">
    We are currently sticking to our focus on &lsquo;circles of caring&rsquo;, i.e. looking at caring as a group activity and therefore as a communicative and emotional context. In a recent survey by Carers UK, 77% of working carers reported that they receive some kind of help, support from relatives, friends or neighbours was the most common form reported. Very rarely does one individual acts as a sole caregiver while working full time - this is admittedly an impossible situation. We found that sometimes being completely on your own is a less a lack of circle and more a uneven division of responsibility that contributes to the sense of having no help at all.&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p2">
    Our hypothesis is that still that where a group of people involved, co-ordination of care through better communication can make a big difference to the stressful life of working/caring.&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p2">
    <strong><span class="s2">Circle Personas&nbsp;</span></strong></p>


<p class="p2">
    Based on everything we had heard we invented some circle-personas. We chose to illustrate 3 different scenarios:&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p2">
    The first looked at the very hands on &#39;heavy end&#39; caring duties, e.g. feeding, dressing, maintaining personal hygiene.</p>


<p class="p2">
    <img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/147/post/Profile1.jpg?1337080224'" /></p>


<p class="p2">
    The second looked at the lighter end of caring duties e.g. emotional support, picking up shopping etc.</p>


<p class="p2">
    <img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/148/post/Profile2.jpg?1337080307'" /></p>


<p class="p2">
    &nbsp;</p>


<p class="p3">
    <span class="s1">The third looked at a crisis situation whereby someone finds themselves in a situation of caring overnight due to something unexpected and often traumatic like an accident injury or sudden illness.</span></p>


<p class="p2">
    <img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/149/post/Profile3.jpg?1337080689'" /></p>


<p class="p2">
    These have helped us more clearly define and visualise what we mean by terms like &#39;circle of care&#39; and &#39;caring duties&#39; and they give us a useful reference point for conversations with external parties as well as among ourselves.</p>


<p class="p2">
    Next - we&rsquo;re starting to build something. We aim to have a working MVP in 6 weeks and start validate our hypotheses with a working prototype as soon as possible.&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p4">
    &nbsp;</p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">To be continued...</span></p>


      <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/sidekickstudios/~4/ikecp3NHHL4" height="1" width="1"/>]]></content:encoded>
    <feedburner:origLink>http://sidekickstudios.net/blog/2012/05/sidekick-school-takecare-now-jointly-weeknotes-2</feedburner:origLink></item>
    <item>
      <title>League of Meals: weeknotes #4 - Getting the message right</title>
      <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sidekickstudios/~3/YCH8KaHoGyY/league-of-meals-weeknotes-4---getting-the-message-right</link>
      <pubDate>Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:26:47 +0000</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://sidekickstudios.net/blog/2012/04/league-of-meals-weeknotes-4---getting-the-message-right</guid>
      <dc:creator>Johanna Kollmann</dc:creator>
      <description>
        <![CDATA[<p>
    Last time, I left off just before our &#39;vision check and lessons learned&#39; workshop. Since then, we worked on our mission statement and messaging, got feedback (and their life stories) from our cooks over coffee, ran another cooking session, met with other organisations such as <a href="http://www.shoreditchspa.org.uk/">Shoreditch Spa</a>, the <a href="http://bestbefore.org.uk/">Best Before Project</a> and <a href="http://www.wastewatch.org.uk/">Waste Watch</a>, and talked to a range of people, from campaigners and food tech startup founders to older people at the Sundial Centre. With help from <a href="http://fulljames.net/">Stephen</a>, an update to our website is in progress.</p>


<p class="p2">
    We&#39;re hosting another <strong>fundraising dinner</strong> next Friday, May 4th. You can find <a href="http://lomsupperclub2.eventbrite.co.uk/"><b>details and tickets here</b></a>. You are cordially invited to come along, and if you are extra-nice, please help us spread the word.</p>


<p class="p1">
    <u><strong><span class="s1">Finding our voice: &quot;What makes the story worth telling?&quot;</span></strong></u></p>


<p class="p1">
    Explaining League of Meals to someone is an opportunity to get feedback and test our messaging. A key objective over the past few weeks was to focus, and state what we do more clearly. We are passionate about reducing food waste in the household, and our cooks have ideas and knowledge about how to use ingredients efficiently. How do we talk about this in a fun way? &quot;Cook better, waste less!&quot;?&nbsp; &quot;Use your loaf!&quot;?&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p1">
    We discussed our tone of voice, words and phrases we want to be associated with, and what reaction we want to evoke. We tested our first draft copy with a few people, and, well, we still sounded a bit dry and not fun enough. Applying these lessons learned, we are experimenting with the copy on our homepage, and in conversations.&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/142/post/MissionStatement.png?1335456979'" /></span><br />
    <i>Work in progress on our mission statement. The tagline that came out of it tested badly!</i></p>


<p class="p2">
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/143/post/ToneOfVoice.png?1335457086'" /></span><br />
    <i>Brainstorming keywords. After testing our messaging, we wanted to come up with more fun, down-to-earth language.</i></p>


<p class="p1">
    <u><strong><span class="s1">The values we bring to our work</span></strong></u></p>


<p class="p1">
    Working on the brand and messaging led to a discussion about the values we want to communicate, but also the values we bring to our work. Your passion for a problem worth solving, your vision, are based on your underlying values. Human beings are driven by intrinsic values such as freedom, equality and creativity, and extrinsic values like power or preservation of public image. Everybody experiences tension between these two. (Read more about this topic <a href="http://valuesandframes.org">over here</a>).</p>


<p class="p1">
    We found it helpful to reflect on our motivations when planning our next steps, and even though the two of us collaborate all the time, taking time out to share why we care has been important to make sure we&#39;re still aligned. Going forward, we&#39;re applying values to how we frame our communication, and to how we can engage people in a positive way.&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p1">
    <u><strong><span class="s1">Iterating the &quot;prototype&quot;</span></strong></u></p>


<p class="p1">
    The cooking sessions are our prototype, and we are getting better with each one. We have seen an increase in collaboration and team spirit amongst our cooks. We are changing a few things each time, with the goal to facilitate working creatively together rather than cooking on your own. Together, all of us are coming up with more and more ideas for using the ingredients as best as we can - leftover bread is turned into breadcrumbs, cauliflower stalks can make a warm salad or pesto, and our cooks share tips for storing leftovers with each other.</p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/145/post/happycooks.jpg?1335457497'" /></span><br />
    <i>Part of the team in the kitchen</i></p>


<p class="p1">
    Their sense of achievement is so motivating - &quot;what we&#39;re doing with these vegetables is like turning straw into gold&quot;, says Paula. Listen to her telling the story of Rumpelstiltksin.&nbsp;</p>


<p>
    <iframe frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="http://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F44410302&amp;show_artwork=true" width="100%"></iframe></p>


<p class="p2">
    <u><strong><span class="s1">So, what&#39;s next?</span></strong></u></p>


<p class="p1">
    Community engagement needs time. If we want to get more people engaged locally, we have to spend a lot more time getting to know people at Fellows Court, and winning their trust. To make League of Meals more visible to the local community, we are currently planning an event for the 19th of May, the date of Jamie Oliver&#39;s <a href="http://foodrevolutionday.com/"><strong>Food Revolution Day</strong></a>. We are talking to potential partner organisations at the moment, so expect news on this in our next week notes!</p>

]]>
      </description>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[
        <p>
    Last time, I left off just before our &#39;vision check and lessons learned&#39; workshop. Since then, we worked on our mission statement and messaging, got feedback (and their life stories) from our cooks over coffee, ran another cooking session, met with other organisations such as <a href="http://www.shoreditchspa.org.uk/">Shoreditch Spa</a>, the <a href="http://bestbefore.org.uk/">Best Before Project</a> and <a href="http://www.wastewatch.org.uk/">Waste Watch</a>, and talked to a range of people, from campaigners and food tech startup founders to older people at the Sundial Centre. With help from <a href="http://fulljames.net/">Stephen</a>, an update to our website is in progress.</p>


<p class="p2">
    We&#39;re hosting another <strong>fundraising dinner</strong> next Friday, May 4th. You can find <a href="http://lomsupperclub2.eventbrite.co.uk/"><b>details and tickets here</b></a>. You are cordially invited to come along, and if you are extra-nice, please help us spread the word.</p>


<p class="p1">
    <u><strong><span class="s1">Finding our voice: &quot;What makes the story worth telling?&quot;</span></strong></u></p>


<p class="p1">
    Explaining League of Meals to someone is an opportunity to get feedback and test our messaging. A key objective over the past few weeks was to focus, and state what we do more clearly. We are passionate about reducing food waste in the household, and our cooks have ideas and knowledge about how to use ingredients efficiently. How do we talk about this in a fun way? &quot;Cook better, waste less!&quot;?&nbsp; &quot;Use your loaf!&quot;?&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p1">
    We discussed our tone of voice, words and phrases we want to be associated with, and what reaction we want to evoke. We tested our first draft copy with a few people, and, well, we still sounded a bit dry and not fun enough. Applying these lessons learned, we are experimenting with the copy on our homepage, and in conversations.&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/142/post/MissionStatement.png?1335456979'" /></span><br />
    <i>Work in progress on our mission statement. The tagline that came out of it tested badly!</i></p>


<p class="p2">
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/143/post/ToneOfVoice.png?1335457086'" /></span><br />
    <i>Brainstorming keywords. After testing our messaging, we wanted to come up with more fun, down-to-earth language.</i></p>


<p class="p1">
    <u><strong><span class="s1">The values we bring to our work</span></strong></u></p>


<p class="p1">
    Working on the brand and messaging led to a discussion about the values we want to communicate, but also the values we bring to our work. Your passion for a problem worth solving, your vision, are based on your underlying values. Human beings are driven by intrinsic values such as freedom, equality and creativity, and extrinsic values like power or preservation of public image. Everybody experiences tension between these two. (Read more about this topic <a href="http://valuesandframes.org">over here</a>).</p>


<p class="p1">
    We found it helpful to reflect on our motivations when planning our next steps, and even though the two of us collaborate all the time, taking time out to share why we care has been important to make sure we&#39;re still aligned. Going forward, we&#39;re applying values to how we frame our communication, and to how we can engage people in a positive way.&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p1">
    <u><strong><span class="s1">Iterating the &quot;prototype&quot;</span></strong></u></p>


<p class="p1">
    The cooking sessions are our prototype, and we are getting better with each one. We have seen an increase in collaboration and team spirit amongst our cooks. We are changing a few things each time, with the goal to facilitate working creatively together rather than cooking on your own. Together, all of us are coming up with more and more ideas for using the ingredients as best as we can - leftover bread is turned into breadcrumbs, cauliflower stalks can make a warm salad or pesto, and our cooks share tips for storing leftovers with each other.</p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/145/post/happycooks.jpg?1335457497'" /></span><br />
    <i>Part of the team in the kitchen</i></p>


<p class="p1">
    Their sense of achievement is so motivating - &quot;what we&#39;re doing with these vegetables is like turning straw into gold&quot;, says Paula. Listen to her telling the story of Rumpelstiltksin.&nbsp;</p>


<p>
    <iframe frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="http://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F44410302&amp;show_artwork=true" width="100%"></iframe></p>


<p class="p2">
    <u><strong><span class="s1">So, what&#39;s next?</span></strong></u></p>


<p class="p1">
    Community engagement needs time. If we want to get more people engaged locally, we have to spend a lot more time getting to know people at Fellows Court, and winning their trust. To make League of Meals more visible to the local community, we are currently planning an event for the 19th of May, the date of Jamie Oliver&#39;s <a href="http://foodrevolutionday.com/"><strong>Food Revolution Day</strong></a>. We are talking to potential partner organisations at the moment, so expect news on this in our next week notes!</p>


      <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/sidekickstudios/~4/YCH8KaHoGyY" height="1" width="1"/>]]></content:encoded>
    <feedburner:origLink>http://sidekickstudios.net/blog/2012/04/league-of-meals-weeknotes-4---getting-the-message-right</feedburner:origLink></item>
    <item>
      <title>Talking as Designing</title>
      <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sidekickstudios/~3/h6wwjRiTkKg/talking-as-designing</link>
      <pubDate>Thu, 26 Apr 2012 14:16:56 +0000</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://sidekickstudios.net/blog/2012/04/talking-as-designing</guid>
      <dc:creator>Nick Marsh</dc:creator>
      <description>
        <![CDATA[<p>
    I did a talk at London IA on Tuesday about the idea of talking as designing. This is something I&#39;ve been thinking about for a while. I&#39;ve embedded the presentation below, and the accompanying notes. As I say in the notes, this is the first thing I&#39;ve done about this idea, not the last, and I&#39;d love to get feedback from people about the idea. Think of it as a Minimum Viable Talk As I also said during the presentation, this is pretty rambly, as you&#39;d expect from a first talk, and the notes reflect that!</p>


<div id="__ss_12701191" style="width:425px">
    <strong style="display:block;margin:12px 0 4px"><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/servicedesign/talking-as-designing" title="Talking as Designing">Talking as Designing</a></strong><object height="355" id="__sse12701191" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=londonia-talkingasdesigninglowres-120426090338-phpapp01&amp;stripped_title=talking-as-designing&amp;userName=servicedesign" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><embed allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="355" name="__sse12701191" src="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=londonia-talkingasdesigninglowres-120426090338-phpapp01&amp;stripped_title=talking-as-designing&amp;userName=servicedesign" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" wmode="transparent"></embed></object>
    <div style="padding:5px 0 12px">
        View more <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/">presentations</a> from <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/servicedesign">Nick Marsh</a>.</div>
</div>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 1</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">I&#39;m here to talk about talking as designing.</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">I&#39;ve decided to do a talk about this as the first thing, so you are all guinea pigs. Sorry. And also, its not lie I&#39;ve been doing a pHD into this and these are my findings. This is the first step, not the last, so if you are hoping for a big answer or something, sorry.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Its basically something I&#39;d been thinking about for a while - and as I&#39;ll talk about, talking is often the first thing you do when you have an idea, after thinking about it.</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 3</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Anyone who knows me will know that I talk a lot. In part, yes, its because I like the sound of my own voice, but also, I&#39;ve realised that its also because its a really important part of designing stuff, and I really don&#39;t think is been talked about much. Which is weird, because the more I tell people about the idea, the more people give me more ideas and say &#39;yeah, I haven&#39;t really heard much about that idea&#39;. So it seems important. And to be clear, although I&#39;m not overly defining anything I&#39;m generally talking about talking in a verbal sense, not &#39;talking to people through writing&#39;, and obviously in talking about talking I&rsquo;m also talking a lot about listening.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 4</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">In fact, I think in the design and software community we&#39;re actually very blinkered about the importance of talking well as part of designing things, to the point where we&#39;re actually saying to ourselves that talking is a bad thing.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">I use the example of good for nothing not to pick on them (they&#39;re great) but just as an example of how shallow our discourse is around the role of talking. Talking here is positioned as the opposite of doing. Which is stupid. I think they really mean talking about doing stuff and the NOT doing it. Which is totally different.</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 6</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Another thought I had is that the design and software community don&#39;t like talking about talking much because we&#39;re generally quite introverted. Which is a good thing by the way.</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">I went to a talk the other day with a woman called Susan Cain who has had another one of these &#39;d&#39;uh&#39; ideas, that introversion is under-rewarded in creative processes. Its fascinating. You should watch her TED talk.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">However, being naturally introverted means we&#39;ve self-selectedly decided that we&#39;re better at communicating through drawing or code than through verbal means.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Unfortunately, however amazing you are, or however introverted, Talking is a really, really important part of doing stuff with other people, which in my experience is pretty much the only way to do good stuff, so we should talk about it more.</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 7</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">In fact. of all the ways of &#39;doing stuff&#39; talking is the one that emphasises collaboration the most (although talking to yourself is actually quite useful as well).</span></p>


<ul>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Thinking</span></li>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Talking</span></li>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Drawing</span></li>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Hacking/Prototyping</span></li>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Proper Making</span></li>
</ul>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">So to say that talking isn&#39;t doing is silly. Talking is absolutely essential to doing anything, and I&#39;m surprised that we don&#39;t talk about it more, in try and teach it at design school or anywhere.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Hands up who got taught anything formal at school about conversation? Did anyone have any lessons in rhetoric? Who took part in formal debates?</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Ok, now, hands up who has to have conversations as part of their daily job? And hands up who has to persuade other people of stuff in their daily job? Hands up who hates it when the bossiest loudest person makes all the decisions? OK.</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Basically, when you start thinking about it this feels like quite an important topic. Getting good at understanding when talking is important to designing things will help us design better things.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 8</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">OK, so what am I going to talk about today. Here&#39;s a slide.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Its going to be rambly. Sorry. And please interrupt me if you have ideas etc. I&#39;d like this to be the start of something rather than the end.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 9</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">OK. so the first thing I&#39;d say is that in order to understand how to be a good talker in designing you have to think about why people talk to each other during design processes.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p2">
    I&#39;d say there&#39;s two high level reasons:</p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">1. Deciding something</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">2. Having more ideas</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong><span class="s1">Slide 10</span></strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    Most formal stuff about talking sits on the left.&nbsp;</p>


<ul>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Rhetoric - persuading people</span></li>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Debate - deciding something</span></li>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Discourse - explaining stuff</span></li>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Dialectic - also deciding something (often called logic)</span></li>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Conversation - this is different, and is often not about deciding, but building or exploring</span></li>
</ul>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 11</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">As we all know, deciding stuff and then having more ideas goes together, and I find the design process is often like a fractal, where at any point you get these convergent and divergent points.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 12</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    Or one of my favourite ideas, the concept of the wobbly line shows this really well. You draw a line to decide, but leave it wobbly so there&#39;s room for more ideas. &nbsp;</p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">BIll Buxton talked about this in his amazing book Sketching user experiences, and I also found it in this book 101 things I learned at Architecture school.</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">I find the process of talking is often the moment of inflection from convergent to divergent thinking - ts the point where ideas have the most potential, and the way in which the most people can participate in their production.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p2">
    Good creative talking is full of wobbly lines - ums, ahs, pauses, strange structures - that help you have more ideas within a framework.</p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">So to go back to our formal approaches to talking,&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 13</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">The bit of talking as designing that I think is probably the most interesting to ficus on is &#39;conversation&#39; because I think this is the thing that is the hardest to think about is its the most natural, and the least studied in formal creativity.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong><span class="s1">Slide 14</span></strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    At this point I&#39;d like to bring in the dreaded design thinking. NOt sure who here is still interested in this, but for me the big standout idea from the past 10 years of &#39;design thinking&#39; thinking has been the idea of &#39;abductive reasoning&#39;, or a logical approach to finding answers that emphasises thinking of completely new solutions, as compared to infering solutions from existing phenomena.&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Basically what it means is the idea that designers and associated types are good at coming up with new ideas.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">BUt in doing my (very sketchy) research for this talk I couldn&#39;t really find any formal theories of talking that seem like a theory of &#39;abductive discourse&#39; - i.e. talking styles specifically engineered to help you have more good ideas. Maybe they do exist, perhaps in the worlds of improv and acting. Not sure.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    When you think about it, talking is very very related to your person, so probably we should look to acting and the stage for some ideas.</p>


<p class="p2">
    <strong>Slide 15</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">So, if you start reading around conversation, you find loads of books about it. Which is great, but they are mostly about manners and etiquette, not making stuff together.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">However, I found one book that had a really god summary that I thought I&#39;d share at length. Its called the art of conversation, and it has four main points that to me are absolutely on the money in terms of how to talk well in the design studio, or, talking as designing.</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 16</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">&quot;Don&#39;t talk too long without pausing for a reaction. more than a minute is too long. Forty seconds is ideal.&quot;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 17</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">&quot;Never flatly disagree with the other person. It is an implied insult.&quot;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 18</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">&quot;Don&#39;t be too forceful or emphatic in stating your opinions until you learn the other persons attitude.&quot;&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 19</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">&quot;Give the other person intellectual freedom and cooperation and claim them for yourself.&quot;&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    The thing that is missing a bit I think is passion. In &#39;normal&#39; conversation its great to have a bit of passion, but if you are just chatting its kind of weird if people are really really passionate. But that is actually something you do want in a design conversation - a passion for the idea.</p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">If you sum this lot up, you get the thing that everyone knows is the most important characteristic in the world of design and making things and making new things - strong ideas, weakly held. That&#39;s the best kind of person, and thats the best kind of talking. </span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 20</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    So, building on the idea that conversation is important, I&#39;ve come up with a list of talking / conversation styles that I think are useful in having more ideas, rather than deciding things. I&#39;m just going to go through them with some sort of examples, and then that will be the end of my talk and we can have a bit of a conversation about it.</p>


<ul>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Surfing</span></li>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Sparing</span></li>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Bulldozing</span></li>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">On the tabling</span></li>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Deluding</span></li>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Mono-conversating</span></li>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Throat punching</span></li>
</ul>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 21</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    OK so what&rsquo;s next?</p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Personally, I&rsquo;d like to expand the catalogue a bit. I&rsquo;d like to find out more about other disciplines use of talking to help with creativity, maybe acting. Id also like to try out some more practical stuff to aid better designing. Here&rsquo;s some ides to think about.</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 22</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Pair programming.&nbsp;</span>Programmers, of all people, are starting to really get into conversation! What can designers and other creative professionals learn from pairing?</p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 23</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Johanna Kollmann pointed this out to me, but the school of life has conversation menus during its dinners, designed to prompt more conversation and thinking.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Surely there&rsquo;s a little big idea in here about getting people to do more talking for the sake of it. I&rsquo;d ike to do an exercise to design something just using talking, no writing or drawing. what would happen?!</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong><span class="s1">Slide 24</span></strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">There&rsquo;s also something big about context, and creating the right atmosphere for talking.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Steve Jobs used to always have his important meetings whilst walking.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">I think that&rsquo;s great.</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 25</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Here&rsquo;s some more stuff that people said after I did my rehearsal at work</span></p>


<ul>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">learning to talk happens when you are a baby and is used in all subsequent learning so its hard to formalise</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">secondary orality</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">influence of job/education on talking style - e.g maths</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">neuro-linguistic programming</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">&lsquo;brainstorming&rsquo; is often a form of structured conversation</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">papenak</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">de-bono</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">roles in conversation - personality types and group dynamics</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">digital mediation e.g skype</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">body language</span></li>
</ul>


<p>
    &nbsp;</p>

]]>
      </description>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[
        <p>
    I did a talk at London IA on Tuesday about the idea of talking as designing. This is something I&#39;ve been thinking about for a while. I&#39;ve embedded the presentation below, and the accompanying notes. As I say in the notes, this is the first thing I&#39;ve done about this idea, not the last, and I&#39;d love to get feedback from people about the idea. Think of it as a Minimum Viable Talk As I also said during the presentation, this is pretty rambly, as you&#39;d expect from a first talk, and the notes reflect that!</p>


<div id="__ss_12701191" style="width:425px">
    <strong style="display:block;margin:12px 0 4px"><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/servicedesign/talking-as-designing" title="Talking as Designing">Talking as Designing</a></strong><object height="355" id="__sse12701191" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=londonia-talkingasdesigninglowres-120426090338-phpapp01&amp;stripped_title=talking-as-designing&amp;userName=servicedesign" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><embed allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="355" name="__sse12701191" src="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=londonia-talkingasdesigninglowres-120426090338-phpapp01&amp;stripped_title=talking-as-designing&amp;userName=servicedesign" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" wmode="transparent"></embed></object>
    <div style="padding:5px 0 12px">
        View more <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/">presentations</a> from <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/servicedesign">Nick Marsh</a>.</div>
</div>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 1</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">I&#39;m here to talk about talking as designing.</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">I&#39;ve decided to do a talk about this as the first thing, so you are all guinea pigs. Sorry. And also, its not lie I&#39;ve been doing a pHD into this and these are my findings. This is the first step, not the last, so if you are hoping for a big answer or something, sorry.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Its basically something I&#39;d been thinking about for a while - and as I&#39;ll talk about, talking is often the first thing you do when you have an idea, after thinking about it.</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 3</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Anyone who knows me will know that I talk a lot. In part, yes, its because I like the sound of my own voice, but also, I&#39;ve realised that its also because its a really important part of designing stuff, and I really don&#39;t think is been talked about much. Which is weird, because the more I tell people about the idea, the more people give me more ideas and say &#39;yeah, I haven&#39;t really heard much about that idea&#39;. So it seems important. And to be clear, although I&#39;m not overly defining anything I&#39;m generally talking about talking in a verbal sense, not &#39;talking to people through writing&#39;, and obviously in talking about talking I&rsquo;m also talking a lot about listening.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 4</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">In fact, I think in the design and software community we&#39;re actually very blinkered about the importance of talking well as part of designing things, to the point where we&#39;re actually saying to ourselves that talking is a bad thing.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">I use the example of good for nothing not to pick on them (they&#39;re great) but just as an example of how shallow our discourse is around the role of talking. Talking here is positioned as the opposite of doing. Which is stupid. I think they really mean talking about doing stuff and the NOT doing it. Which is totally different.</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 6</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Another thought I had is that the design and software community don&#39;t like talking about talking much because we&#39;re generally quite introverted. Which is a good thing by the way.</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">I went to a talk the other day with a woman called Susan Cain who has had another one of these &#39;d&#39;uh&#39; ideas, that introversion is under-rewarded in creative processes. Its fascinating. You should watch her TED talk.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">However, being naturally introverted means we&#39;ve self-selectedly decided that we&#39;re better at communicating through drawing or code than through verbal means.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Unfortunately, however amazing you are, or however introverted, Talking is a really, really important part of doing stuff with other people, which in my experience is pretty much the only way to do good stuff, so we should talk about it more.</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 7</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">In fact. of all the ways of &#39;doing stuff&#39; talking is the one that emphasises collaboration the most (although talking to yourself is actually quite useful as well).</span></p>


<ul>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Thinking</span></li>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Talking</span></li>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Drawing</span></li>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Hacking/Prototyping</span></li>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Proper Making</span></li>
</ul>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">So to say that talking isn&#39;t doing is silly. Talking is absolutely essential to doing anything, and I&#39;m surprised that we don&#39;t talk about it more, in try and teach it at design school or anywhere.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Hands up who got taught anything formal at school about conversation? Did anyone have any lessons in rhetoric? Who took part in formal debates?</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Ok, now, hands up who has to have conversations as part of their daily job? And hands up who has to persuade other people of stuff in their daily job? Hands up who hates it when the bossiest loudest person makes all the decisions? OK.</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Basically, when you start thinking about it this feels like quite an important topic. Getting good at understanding when talking is important to designing things will help us design better things.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 8</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">OK, so what am I going to talk about today. Here&#39;s a slide.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Its going to be rambly. Sorry. And please interrupt me if you have ideas etc. I&#39;d like this to be the start of something rather than the end.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 9</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">OK. so the first thing I&#39;d say is that in order to understand how to be a good talker in designing you have to think about why people talk to each other during design processes.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p2">
    I&#39;d say there&#39;s two high level reasons:</p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">1. Deciding something</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">2. Having more ideas</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong><span class="s1">Slide 10</span></strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    Most formal stuff about talking sits on the left.&nbsp;</p>


<ul>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Rhetoric - persuading people</span></li>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Debate - deciding something</span></li>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Discourse - explaining stuff</span></li>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Dialectic - also deciding something (often called logic)</span></li>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Conversation - this is different, and is often not about deciding, but building or exploring</span></li>
</ul>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 11</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">As we all know, deciding stuff and then having more ideas goes together, and I find the design process is often like a fractal, where at any point you get these convergent and divergent points.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 12</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    Or one of my favourite ideas, the concept of the wobbly line shows this really well. You draw a line to decide, but leave it wobbly so there&#39;s room for more ideas. &nbsp;</p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">BIll Buxton talked about this in his amazing book Sketching user experiences, and I also found it in this book 101 things I learned at Architecture school.</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">I find the process of talking is often the moment of inflection from convergent to divergent thinking - ts the point where ideas have the most potential, and the way in which the most people can participate in their production.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p2">
    Good creative talking is full of wobbly lines - ums, ahs, pauses, strange structures - that help you have more ideas within a framework.</p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">So to go back to our formal approaches to talking,&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 13</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">The bit of talking as designing that I think is probably the most interesting to ficus on is &#39;conversation&#39; because I think this is the thing that is the hardest to think about is its the most natural, and the least studied in formal creativity.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong><span class="s1">Slide 14</span></strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    At this point I&#39;d like to bring in the dreaded design thinking. NOt sure who here is still interested in this, but for me the big standout idea from the past 10 years of &#39;design thinking&#39; thinking has been the idea of &#39;abductive reasoning&#39;, or a logical approach to finding answers that emphasises thinking of completely new solutions, as compared to infering solutions from existing phenomena.&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Basically what it means is the idea that designers and associated types are good at coming up with new ideas.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">BUt in doing my (very sketchy) research for this talk I couldn&#39;t really find any formal theories of talking that seem like a theory of &#39;abductive discourse&#39; - i.e. talking styles specifically engineered to help you have more good ideas. Maybe they do exist, perhaps in the worlds of improv and acting. Not sure.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    When you think about it, talking is very very related to your person, so probably we should look to acting and the stage for some ideas.</p>


<p class="p2">
    <strong>Slide 15</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">So, if you start reading around conversation, you find loads of books about it. Which is great, but they are mostly about manners and etiquette, not making stuff together.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">However, I found one book that had a really god summary that I thought I&#39;d share at length. Its called the art of conversation, and it has four main points that to me are absolutely on the money in terms of how to talk well in the design studio, or, talking as designing.</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 16</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">&quot;Don&#39;t talk too long without pausing for a reaction. more than a minute is too long. Forty seconds is ideal.&quot;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 17</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">&quot;Never flatly disagree with the other person. It is an implied insult.&quot;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 18</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">&quot;Don&#39;t be too forceful or emphatic in stating your opinions until you learn the other persons attitude.&quot;&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 19</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">&quot;Give the other person intellectual freedom and cooperation and claim them for yourself.&quot;&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    The thing that is missing a bit I think is passion. In &#39;normal&#39; conversation its great to have a bit of passion, but if you are just chatting its kind of weird if people are really really passionate. But that is actually something you do want in a design conversation - a passion for the idea.</p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">If you sum this lot up, you get the thing that everyone knows is the most important characteristic in the world of design and making things and making new things - strong ideas, weakly held. That&#39;s the best kind of person, and thats the best kind of talking. </span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 20</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    So, building on the idea that conversation is important, I&#39;ve come up with a list of talking / conversation styles that I think are useful in having more ideas, rather than deciding things. I&#39;m just going to go through them with some sort of examples, and then that will be the end of my talk and we can have a bit of a conversation about it.</p>


<ul>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Surfing</span></li>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Sparing</span></li>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Bulldozing</span></li>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">On the tabling</span></li>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Deluding</span></li>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Mono-conversating</span></li>
    <li class="p1">
        <span class="s1">Throat punching</span></li>
</ul>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 21</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    OK so what&rsquo;s next?</p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Personally, I&rsquo;d like to expand the catalogue a bit. I&rsquo;d like to find out more about other disciplines use of talking to help with creativity, maybe acting. Id also like to try out some more practical stuff to aid better designing. Here&rsquo;s some ides to think about.</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 22</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Pair programming.&nbsp;</span>Programmers, of all people, are starting to really get into conversation! What can designers and other creative professionals learn from pairing?</p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 23</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Johanna Kollmann pointed this out to me, but the school of life has conversation menus during its dinners, designed to prompt more conversation and thinking.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Surely there&rsquo;s a little big idea in here about getting people to do more talking for the sake of it. I&rsquo;d ike to do an exercise to design something just using talking, no writing or drawing. what would happen?!</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong><span class="s1">Slide 24</span></strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">There&rsquo;s also something big about context, and creating the right atmosphere for talking.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Steve Jobs used to always have his important meetings whilst walking.&nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">I think that&rsquo;s great.</span></p>


<p class="p1">
    <strong>Slide 25</strong></p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">Here&rsquo;s some more stuff that people said after I did my rehearsal at work</span></p>


<ul>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">learning to talk happens when you are a baby and is used in all subsequent learning so its hard to formalise</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">secondary orality</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">influence of job/education on talking style - e.g maths</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">neuro-linguistic programming</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">&lsquo;brainstorming&rsquo; is often a form of structured conversation</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">papenak</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">de-bono</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">roles in conversation - personality types and group dynamics</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">digital mediation e.g skype</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">body language</span></li>
</ul>


<p>
    &nbsp;</p>


      <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/sidekickstudios/~4/h6wwjRiTkKg" height="1" width="1"/>]]></content:encoded>
    <feedburner:origLink>http://sidekickstudios.net/blog/2012/04/talking-as-designing</feedburner:origLink></item>
    <item>
      <title>We Shipped This #1</title>
      <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sidekickstudios/~3/wukFw646wDo/we-shipped-this-1</link>
      <pubDate>Wed, 25 Apr 2012 09:26:49 +0000</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://sidekickstudios.net/blog/2012/04/we-shipped-this-1</guid>
      <dc:creator>Asi Sharabi</dc:creator>
      <description>
        <![CDATA[<p>
    Last Friday we had our very first <strong>We Shipped This</strong> meeting. Unlike every end-of-week-catch-up-over-beers meetings, the idea of WST is to dedicate a special ocassion to celebrate making and makers; the launch of new products or succesful itteration and further development of existing ones. We&#39;re hoping to make this a tradition and run these delivery focused meetings every quarter or so.</p>


<p>
    We had the legendary Michael Norton (who is working with us on our social interns program) guest-talking about ideas that change the world, the fine line beweeen the crazy and the practical, and how persistence in the beginning of your journey and working through hurdels can only get you stronger. #inspiring</p>


<p>
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/139/post/MICHAEL_SHIPPED.jpg?1335346939'" /></span></p>


<p>
    Ian had some facinating learnings from the making of <a href="http://fieldnotes.flamingo-international.com/">Flamingo&#39;s Field Notes</a> which recently went global.&nbsp;We then had Emily our League of Meals dudette telling us about her analouge-status-paper-robots design project. And finally Jonny talked about the making of <a href="http://buddyapp.org">Buddy&#39;s new website and film</a> and how tricking yourself into making stuff but not formaly designing can unlock some designer-blocks and freeing up the creative process.</p>


<p>
    But the star of the meeting was no doubt the one and only Darren Riley AKA&nbsp;<a href="http://buglemajor.com/">Bugle Major</a></p>


<p>
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/140/post/ADIL_BUGLE_SHIPPED.jpg?1335347156'" /></span></p>


<p>
    &nbsp;</p>

]]>
      </description>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[
        <p>
    Last Friday we had our very first <strong>We Shipped This</strong> meeting. Unlike every end-of-week-catch-up-over-beers meetings, the idea of WST is to dedicate a special ocassion to celebrate making and makers; the launch of new products or succesful itteration and further development of existing ones. We&#39;re hoping to make this a tradition and run these delivery focused meetings every quarter or so.</p>


<p>
    We had the legendary Michael Norton (who is working with us on our social interns program) guest-talking about ideas that change the world, the fine line beweeen the crazy and the practical, and how persistence in the beginning of your journey and working through hurdels can only get you stronger. #inspiring</p>


<p>
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/139/post/MICHAEL_SHIPPED.jpg?1335346939'" /></span></p>


<p>
    Ian had some facinating learnings from the making of <a href="http://fieldnotes.flamingo-international.com/">Flamingo&#39;s Field Notes</a> which recently went global.&nbsp;We then had Emily our League of Meals dudette telling us about her analouge-status-paper-robots design project. And finally Jonny talked about the making of <a href="http://buddyapp.org">Buddy&#39;s new website and film</a> and how tricking yourself into making stuff but not formaly designing can unlock some designer-blocks and freeing up the creative process.</p>


<p>
    But the star of the meeting was no doubt the one and only Darren Riley AKA&nbsp;<a href="http://buglemajor.com/">Bugle Major</a></p>


<p>
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/140/post/ADIL_BUGLE_SHIPPED.jpg?1335347156'" /></span></p>


<p>
    &nbsp;</p>


      <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/sidekickstudios/~4/wukFw646wDo" height="1" width="1"/>]]></content:encoded>
    <feedburner:origLink>http://sidekickstudios.net/blog/2012/04/we-shipped-this-1</feedburner:origLink></item>
    <item>
      <title>Sidekick School: TakeCare weeknotes #1</title>
      <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sidekickstudios/~3/OiT9Xu4MkIc/sidekick-school-takecare-weeknotes-1</link>
      <pubDate>Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:17:54 +0000</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://sidekickstudios.net/blog/2012/04/sidekick-school-takecare-weeknotes-1</guid>
      <dc:creator>Asi Sharabi</dc:creator>
      <description>
        <![CDATA[<p>
    <strong><span class="s1">A problem that matter</span></strong></p>


<p class="p2">
    <span class="s1">How can we look after those who are losing the ability to look after themselves, and how much will it impact our lives?</span></p>


<p class="p3">
    <span class="s1">3 million people in the UK juggle unpaid care with a paid job. They can find it hard to get help, both in and outside the workplace, and 1 in 5 ends up leaving work to care. This simply doesn&rsquo;t add up, either for the social economy &ndash; which needs families and communities to keep caring as we live longer &ndash; or for the economy &ndash; which needs people to work longer to pay growing health, care and pensions bills.</span></p>


<p class="p3">
    Most of past years disruptive innovation around care is understandably focused on the cared for. There is a surge of innovation in so-called &#39;Assistive Technologies&#39; (sometimes called mHealth), caregiving gizmos that cover personal health record tracking, remote patient monitoring that assist in remote wellness checking, medication management and more.&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p3">
    <img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/138/post/grandcare-how-it-works-.jpg?1334585844'" /></p>


<p class="p3">
    &nbsp;</p>


<p class="p3">
    &nbsp;</p>


<p class="p3">
    &nbsp;</p>


<p class="p3">
    The focus for this project is very different. It is trying to put the wellbeing of the caregiver rather than the cared-for at the center of the design process and to create a tool that helps with the unique challenges of juggling work and care.</p>


<div>
    <strong><span class="s1">Observations, challenges, early explorations and hypotheses&nbsp;</span></strong></div>


<p class="p4">
    <u><span class="s2">Cargiving varies significantly:</span></u></p>


<p class="p4">
    The first thing you notice when looking at caregiving is how significantly caring for a loved one can vary. You could possibly (badly) paraphrase Tolstoy and argue that &ldquo;every non-caring families are all alike; every caring family, cares in it&rsquo;s own way&rdquo;.&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p4">
    There are at least 7 different variable with minimum of 3 options in both giving you over 2000 cases of care. Designing a digital product that can cater and support all or most of these cases is going to be hugely changeling:</p>


<p class="p4">
    1. <u>Aged and condition of the cared for</u>.&nbsp;This can be an elderly/frail parent, a child with long term condition or disability, a partner suffering from mental illness, a closed friend who found herself recovering from a stroke at 55 to name but a few</p>


<p class="p3">
    <span class="s1">2.&nbsp;</span><u>Relationship to the cared for</u>.&nbsp;See previous point. A husband, a parent, a child, a friend, other closed relative</p>


<p class="p3">
    <span class="s1">3.&nbsp;</span><u>Caregiving tasks involved.&nbsp;</u>The spectrum here is vast - from keeping a company, to GP appointments, cooking, feeding, shopping, cleaning, medication management</p>


<p class="p3">
    4. <u>Time and frequency</u>.&nbsp;On a daily basis, weekly shifts, any free moment, weekends only etc.</p>


<p class="p3">
    5.<u>Distance from cared for</u>.&nbsp;From living in the same house to living on different continents and everything in between&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p3">
    <span class="s1">6. <u>Nature of work the carers is engaged in.</u>&nbsp;</span>Full time, part time, shifts, 9am-6pm, from home, and of course how aware, accommodating and supportive is your workplace</p>


<p class="p3">
    <span class="s1">7. <u>Share of care.</u>&nbsp;</span>How any individuals sharing the care - family, friends, paid-for care. Couple of siblings taking care of mum, one partner who is the primary caregiver for a partner in need, a neighbour who chips in with the rest of the family, &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p4">
    Sifting through these different combinations to try to arrive to a reasonable number of cases or &lsquo;caring personas&rsquo; is what we plan to do next as soon as we do some research. For now, we tried to narrow it down and design a product with the following users/customers in mind:</p>


<ol class="ol1">
    <li class="li3">
        <span class="s1">Working carers - people who juggle paid work and caring for a loved one (that excludes paid-for carers, or non-working carers who left work to become &lsquo;full time&rsquo; carers.</span></li>
    <li class="li3">
        <span class="s1">They are part of a &lsquo;circle of care&rsquo; - meaning they share the responsibilities with at least one more individual &nbsp;</span></li>
</ol>


<p class="p4">
    <b>In search for an insight.</b></p>


<p class="p4">
    <u>Caring as a project management</u></p>


<p class="p4">
    The one obvious thing about caring for a loved one in whichever context you look at, is that there are a lot of things to take care of, manage and coordinate. So the first and obvious step for us was looking at &lsquo;cargiving&rsquo; through the prism of project management: appointments, shopping, medications, cleaning, helping, shifts etc.&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p4">
    One of our early and basic hypethesis is that people who are part of a so called &lsquo;circle of care&rsquo;, i.e. part of a small group of family members and friends who share caring for a loved one could benefit from a &lsquo;care management and coordination&rsquo; product. Something that will make juggling between working and caring a bit easier by making it a lot more organised.&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p4">
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/136/post/photole.JPG?1334580127'" /></span></p>


<p class="p4">
    <u>Caring as an emotional context or horizontal vs. vertical</u></p>


<p class="p5">
    Looking at caring through the lenses of project management with the aim of making caregiving easier logistically wouldn&rsquo;t be sufficient for the design of an amazing product that carers will adopt and be willing to pay for. There are dozens of project management tools and apps out there from google cal. to Trello, AceProject, Asana to name just a very few. Designing another &lsquo;horizontal&rsquo; tool that facilitates collaboration, manages tasks and appointments isn&rsquo;t going to work. As we start our intensive user research we will be looking for an insight that will help us design a vertical product - a product that has been specifically designed for the context of care rather than a generic project management tool. An insight that will ultimately lead to a magical feature or other UX idea.</p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">We believe that this insight will come from better and deeper understanding of the unique communicative and emotional context that is caring for a loved one and the unique interpersonal dynamics taking place within a &lsquo;circle of care&rsquo;. &nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p5">
    Here is a very partial list of what we now want to know/learn before we start sketching anything:</p>


<ul>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">&lsquo;Juggling strategies&rsquo; (how people are coping with juggling work and care)</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">What kind of emotions and behaviours are unique to &lsquo;circle of care&rsquo;?</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">What are the dominant triggers of stress for a working carer?&nbsp; &nbsp;</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">What pushes an individual to take a radical step and leave work?&nbsp;</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">Is there always someone &lsquo;in charge&rsquo; within a circle of care?</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">What are the triggers&nbsp;of negative/positive emotions within a circle of care?</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">How do people organise and keep track of the share of care?</span></li>
</ul>


<p>
    We&rsquo;ll report more soon. If you or anyone you know is juggling work and care and is part of a circle of care please get in touch we would love to hear from you.</p>

]]>
      </description>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[
        <p>
    <strong><span class="s1">A problem that matter</span></strong></p>


<p class="p2">
    <span class="s1">How can we look after those who are losing the ability to look after themselves, and how much will it impact our lives?</span></p>


<p class="p3">
    <span class="s1">3 million people in the UK juggle unpaid care with a paid job. They can find it hard to get help, both in and outside the workplace, and 1 in 5 ends up leaving work to care. This simply doesn&rsquo;t add up, either for the social economy &ndash; which needs families and communities to keep caring as we live longer &ndash; or for the economy &ndash; which needs people to work longer to pay growing health, care and pensions bills.</span></p>


<p class="p3">
    Most of past years disruptive innovation around care is understandably focused on the cared for. There is a surge of innovation in so-called &#39;Assistive Technologies&#39; (sometimes called mHealth), caregiving gizmos that cover personal health record tracking, remote patient monitoring that assist in remote wellness checking, medication management and more.&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p3">
    <img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/138/post/grandcare-how-it-works-.jpg?1334585844'" /></p>


<p class="p3">
    &nbsp;</p>


<p class="p3">
    &nbsp;</p>


<p class="p3">
    &nbsp;</p>


<p class="p3">
    The focus for this project is very different. It is trying to put the wellbeing of the caregiver rather than the cared-for at the center of the design process and to create a tool that helps with the unique challenges of juggling work and care.</p>


<div>
    <strong><span class="s1">Observations, challenges, early explorations and hypotheses&nbsp;</span></strong></div>


<p class="p4">
    <u><span class="s2">Cargiving varies significantly:</span></u></p>


<p class="p4">
    The first thing you notice when looking at caregiving is how significantly caring for a loved one can vary. You could possibly (badly) paraphrase Tolstoy and argue that &ldquo;every non-caring families are all alike; every caring family, cares in it&rsquo;s own way&rdquo;.&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p4">
    There are at least 7 different variable with minimum of 3 options in both giving you over 2000 cases of care. Designing a digital product that can cater and support all or most of these cases is going to be hugely changeling:</p>


<p class="p4">
    1. <u>Aged and condition of the cared for</u>.&nbsp;This can be an elderly/frail parent, a child with long term condition or disability, a partner suffering from mental illness, a closed friend who found herself recovering from a stroke at 55 to name but a few</p>


<p class="p3">
    <span class="s1">2.&nbsp;</span><u>Relationship to the cared for</u>.&nbsp;See previous point. A husband, a parent, a child, a friend, other closed relative</p>


<p class="p3">
    <span class="s1">3.&nbsp;</span><u>Caregiving tasks involved.&nbsp;</u>The spectrum here is vast - from keeping a company, to GP appointments, cooking, feeding, shopping, cleaning, medication management</p>


<p class="p3">
    4. <u>Time and frequency</u>.&nbsp;On a daily basis, weekly shifts, any free moment, weekends only etc.</p>


<p class="p3">
    5.<u>Distance from cared for</u>.&nbsp;From living in the same house to living on different continents and everything in between&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p3">
    <span class="s1">6. <u>Nature of work the carers is engaged in.</u>&nbsp;</span>Full time, part time, shifts, 9am-6pm, from home, and of course how aware, accommodating and supportive is your workplace</p>


<p class="p3">
    <span class="s1">7. <u>Share of care.</u>&nbsp;</span>How any individuals sharing the care - family, friends, paid-for care. Couple of siblings taking care of mum, one partner who is the primary caregiver for a partner in need, a neighbour who chips in with the rest of the family, &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p4">
    Sifting through these different combinations to try to arrive to a reasonable number of cases or &lsquo;caring personas&rsquo; is what we plan to do next as soon as we do some research. For now, we tried to narrow it down and design a product with the following users/customers in mind:</p>


<ol class="ol1">
    <li class="li3">
        <span class="s1">Working carers - people who juggle paid work and caring for a loved one (that excludes paid-for carers, or non-working carers who left work to become &lsquo;full time&rsquo; carers.</span></li>
    <li class="li3">
        <span class="s1">They are part of a &lsquo;circle of care&rsquo; - meaning they share the responsibilities with at least one more individual &nbsp;</span></li>
</ol>


<p class="p4">
    <b>In search for an insight.</b></p>


<p class="p4">
    <u>Caring as a project management</u></p>


<p class="p4">
    The one obvious thing about caring for a loved one in whichever context you look at, is that there are a lot of things to take care of, manage and coordinate. So the first and obvious step for us was looking at &lsquo;cargiving&rsquo; through the prism of project management: appointments, shopping, medications, cleaning, helping, shifts etc.&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p4">
    One of our early and basic hypethesis is that people who are part of a so called &lsquo;circle of care&rsquo;, i.e. part of a small group of family members and friends who share caring for a loved one could benefit from a &lsquo;care management and coordination&rsquo; product. Something that will make juggling between working and caring a bit easier by making it a lot more organised.&nbsp;</p>


<p class="p4">
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/136/post/photole.JPG?1334580127'" /></span></p>


<p class="p4">
    <u>Caring as an emotional context or horizontal vs. vertical</u></p>


<p class="p5">
    Looking at caring through the lenses of project management with the aim of making caregiving easier logistically wouldn&rsquo;t be sufficient for the design of an amazing product that carers will adopt and be willing to pay for. There are dozens of project management tools and apps out there from google cal. to Trello, AceProject, Asana to name just a very few. Designing another &lsquo;horizontal&rsquo; tool that facilitates collaboration, manages tasks and appointments isn&rsquo;t going to work. As we start our intensive user research we will be looking for an insight that will help us design a vertical product - a product that has been specifically designed for the context of care rather than a generic project management tool. An insight that will ultimately lead to a magical feature or other UX idea.</p>


<p class="p1">
    <span class="s1">We believe that this insight will come from better and deeper understanding of the unique communicative and emotional context that is caring for a loved one and the unique interpersonal dynamics taking place within a &lsquo;circle of care&rsquo;. &nbsp;</span></p>


<p class="p5">
    Here is a very partial list of what we now want to know/learn before we start sketching anything:</p>


<ul>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">&lsquo;Juggling strategies&rsquo; (how people are coping with juggling work and care)</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">What kind of emotions and behaviours are unique to &lsquo;circle of care&rsquo;?</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">What are the dominant triggers of stress for a working carer?&nbsp; &nbsp;</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">What pushes an individual to take a radical step and leave work?&nbsp;</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">Is there always someone &lsquo;in charge&rsquo; within a circle of care?</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">What are the triggers&nbsp;of negative/positive emotions within a circle of care?</span></li>
    <li class="li1">
        <span class="s1">How do people organise and keep track of the share of care?</span></li>
</ul>


<p>
    We&rsquo;ll report more soon. If you or anyone you know is juggling work and care and is part of a circle of care please get in touch we would love to hear from you.</p>


      <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/sidekickstudios/~4/OiT9Xu4MkIc" height="1" width="1"/>]]></content:encoded>
    <feedburner:origLink>http://sidekickstudios.net/blog/2012/04/sidekick-school-takecare-weeknotes-1</feedburner:origLink></item>
    <item>
      <title>Meet Huffy &amp; Haro</title>
      <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sidekickstudios/~3/hONalSDaY4M/meet-huffy--haro</link>
      <pubDate>Thu, 05 Apr 2012 09:20:59 +0000</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://sidekickstudios.net/blog/2012/04/meet-huffy--haro</guid>
      <dc:creator>Asi Sharabi</dc:creator>
      <description>
        <![CDATA[<p>
    Meet Huffy and Haro, our two new recruits. Nick got them off ebay for a super secret project we can&#39;t wait talk about.</p>


<p>
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/132/post/Screen_Shot_2012-04-05_at_10.15.25.png?1333617377'" /></span></p>


<p>
    Haro is red and yellow and was born 1990, it has Tange 1&rdquo; threaded forks, Haro 1 piece chromoly race crank, Odyssey platform pedals, chromoly laid back seat post, nice new comfy &ldquo;We The People&rdquo; saddle, tektro V-brakes, xposure brake lever, Ame grips, &nbsp;genuine California Lite padset and Alex rims on redline hubs.</p>


<p>
    &nbsp;</p>


<p>
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/133/post/Screen_Shot_2012-04-05_at_10.09.52.png?1333617408'" /></span></p>


<p>
    Huffy is green and younger (1998). It&#39;s got TL-88 race bike powder coated in Ford RS green and Cadbury Purple. Frame forks and bars are all huffy, the bike has shadow conspiracy grips, chromoly 1 piece race crank, Odyssey shark bite pedals (1 cage is bent but can easily be re shaped), FSA 44T chain ring, chromoly laid back seat post, tektro u-brake, super comfy &ldquo;We the People&rdquo; saddle.</p>


<p>
    We regret to inform you of the first (minor) casualty. Our buddy @stef drew (a tiny amount of) blood during our lunchtime bmx outing.</p>


<p>
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/134/post/stef.JPG?1333617636'" /></span></p>


<p>
    More soon.&nbsp;</p>

]]>
      </description>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[
        <p>
    Meet Huffy and Haro, our two new recruits. Nick got them off ebay for a super secret project we can&#39;t wait talk about.</p>


<p>
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/132/post/Screen_Shot_2012-04-05_at_10.15.25.png?1333617377'" /></span></p>


<p>
    Haro is red and yellow and was born 1990, it has Tange 1&rdquo; threaded forks, Haro 1 piece chromoly race crank, Odyssey platform pedals, chromoly laid back seat post, nice new comfy &ldquo;We The People&rdquo; saddle, tektro V-brakes, xposure brake lever, Ame grips, &nbsp;genuine California Lite padset and Alex rims on redline hubs.</p>


<p>
    &nbsp;</p>


<p>
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/133/post/Screen_Shot_2012-04-05_at_10.09.52.png?1333617408'" /></span></p>


<p>
    Huffy is green and younger (1998). It&#39;s got TL-88 race bike powder coated in Ford RS green and Cadbury Purple. Frame forks and bars are all huffy, the bike has shadow conspiracy grips, chromoly 1 piece race crank, Odyssey shark bite pedals (1 cage is bent but can easily be re shaped), FSA 44T chain ring, chromoly laid back seat post, tektro u-brake, super comfy &ldquo;We the People&rdquo; saddle.</p>


<p>
    We regret to inform you of the first (minor) casualty. Our buddy @stef drew (a tiny amount of) blood during our lunchtime bmx outing.</p>


<p>
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/134/post/stef.JPG?1333617636'" /></span></p>


<p>
    More soon.&nbsp;</p>


      <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/sidekickstudios/~4/hONalSDaY4M" height="1" width="1"/>]]></content:encoded>
    <feedburner:origLink>http://sidekickstudios.net/blog/2012/04/meet-huffy--haro</feedburner:origLink></item>
    <item>
      <title>Sidekick School kicks off with Carers UK </title>
      <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sidekickstudios/~3/Lcl_W4IJ0-8/sidekick-school-opens-up-its-gates-</link>
      <pubDate>Wed, 04 Apr 2012 16:14:06 +0000</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://sidekickstudios.net/blog/2012/04/sidekick-school-opens-up-its-gates-</guid>
      <dc:creator>Asi Sharabi</dc:creator>
      <description>
        <![CDATA[<p>
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/131/post/Sidekickschool.jpg?1333552710'" /></span></p>


<p>
    Last Monday was a very (very) exciting day for us.&nbsp;After months of planning, screening through dozens of applications, meeting loads of people, admin-ing, pondering, internally debating... we finally kicked off the very first project of the very world&#39;s first <a href="http://sidekickschool.org/">Sidekick School</a>. We finally get to do what we&#39;re really passionate about: creating digital product that solve some urgent social problem. In short, a startup that matter. &nbsp;And we&#39;re double excited by our first partner organisation - <a href="http://www.carersuk.org/">Carers UK</a></p>


<p>
    Carers UK have been the voice of over 6 million people in the UK looking after a loved one -&nbsp;ill, frail or disabled friends or family members.&nbsp;What&#39;s more, for many years now, Carers UK have have been instrumental in securing major changes to law, policy and workplace practice for the people who juggle paid work with (unpaid) caring for a loved one.&nbsp;</p>


<p>
    3 million people in the UK juggle unpaid care with a paid job. They can find it hard to get help, both in and outside the workplace, and 1 in 5 ends up leaving work to care. This simply doesn&rsquo;t add up, either for the social economy &ndash; which needs families and communities to keep caring as we live longer &ndash; or for the economy &ndash; which needs people to work longer to pay growing health, care and pensions bills.</p>


<p>
    With Carers UK and the one and only <a href="http://www.carersuk.org/newsroom-scotland/item/2435-honoured-to-be-standing-up-for-carers-scotland?qh=YToyOntpOjA7czo5OiJtYWRlbGVpbmUiO2k6MTtzOjExOiJtYWRlbGVpbmUncyI7fQ%3D%3D">Madeleine Starr, MBE </a>&nbsp;we are going to develop <strong>TakeCare App</strong> (working title): we want to build something to help working carers feel less stressed about juggling work and care. The idea is to create a product that will make caring a bit easier by making it a lot more organised and by facilitating a better communication within a &#39;circle of care&#39; - all the individuals, family members and friends who share the care.&nbsp;</p>


<p>
    We will try to be good and share our process and progress with weeknotes and updates but in the mantime if you know anyone who is currently juggling work and care, someone looking after a loved one and/or is a part of a &#39;circle of care&#39; please tell them to get in touch</p>


<p>
    Watch this space.&nbsp;</p>

]]>
      </description>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[
        <p>
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/131/post/Sidekickschool.jpg?1333552710'" /></span></p>


<p>
    Last Monday was a very (very) exciting day for us.&nbsp;After months of planning, screening through dozens of applications, meeting loads of people, admin-ing, pondering, internally debating... we finally kicked off the very first project of the very world&#39;s first <a href="http://sidekickschool.org/">Sidekick School</a>. We finally get to do what we&#39;re really passionate about: creating digital product that solve some urgent social problem. In short, a startup that matter. &nbsp;And we&#39;re double excited by our first partner organisation - <a href="http://www.carersuk.org/">Carers UK</a></p>


<p>
    Carers UK have been the voice of over 6 million people in the UK looking after a loved one -&nbsp;ill, frail or disabled friends or family members.&nbsp;What&#39;s more, for many years now, Carers UK have have been instrumental in securing major changes to law, policy and workplace practice for the people who juggle paid work with (unpaid) caring for a loved one.&nbsp;</p>


<p>
    3 million people in the UK juggle unpaid care with a paid job. They can find it hard to get help, both in and outside the workplace, and 1 in 5 ends up leaving work to care. This simply doesn&rsquo;t add up, either for the social economy &ndash; which needs families and communities to keep caring as we live longer &ndash; or for the economy &ndash; which needs people to work longer to pay growing health, care and pensions bills.</p>


<p>
    With Carers UK and the one and only <a href="http://www.carersuk.org/newsroom-scotland/item/2435-honoured-to-be-standing-up-for-carers-scotland?qh=YToyOntpOjA7czo5OiJtYWRlbGVpbmUiO2k6MTtzOjExOiJtYWRlbGVpbmUncyI7fQ%3D%3D">Madeleine Starr, MBE </a>&nbsp;we are going to develop <strong>TakeCare App</strong> (working title): we want to build something to help working carers feel less stressed about juggling work and care. The idea is to create a product that will make caring a bit easier by making it a lot more organised and by facilitating a better communication within a &#39;circle of care&#39; - all the individuals, family members and friends who share the care.&nbsp;</p>


<p>
    We will try to be good and share our process and progress with weeknotes and updates but in the mantime if you know anyone who is currently juggling work and care, someone looking after a loved one and/or is a part of a &#39;circle of care&#39; please tell them to get in touch</p>


<p>
    Watch this space.&nbsp;</p>


      <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/sidekickstudios/~4/Lcl_W4IJ0-8" height="1" width="1"/>]]></content:encoded>
    <feedburner:origLink>http://sidekickstudios.net/blog/2012/04/sidekick-school-opens-up-its-gates-</feedburner:origLink></item>
    <item>
      <title>Sidekick Studios HQ Makeover </title>
      <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sidekickstudios/~3/B_9gm2nLmo8/sidekick-studios-makeover-</link>
      <pubDate>Tue, 03 Apr 2012 09:12:45 +0000</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://sidekickstudios.net/blog/2012/04/sidekick-studios-makeover-</guid>
      <dc:creator>Asi Sharabi</dc:creator>
      <description>
        <![CDATA[<p>
    Late last year, we&#39;ve moved Sidekick HQ to a lovely and spacious&nbsp;yet quite bare studio just off Old Street roundabout. It had a lot of potential but not more than that.&nbsp;</p>


<p>
    We called our friend Julie of Eve&amp;Eileen to help us. Julie is awesome. Look for yourself:</p>


<p>
    <strong>Before:</strong></p>


<p>
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/124/post/before.jpg?1333443697'" /></span></p>


<p>
    &nbsp;</p>


<p>
    <strong>After</strong></p>


<p>
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/125/post/A1.jpg?1333443748'" /></span></p>


<p>
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/126/post/A2.jpg?1333443823'" /></span></p>


<p>
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/127/post/a3.jpg?1333443847'" /></span></p>


<p>
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/128/post/a5.jpg?1333443906'" /></span></p>


<p>Yes, we even have a circus elephant stand. For real.</p>


<p>
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/130/post/a4.jpg?1333444014'" /></span></p>


<p>
    See more photos and other works by Julie Landau <a href="http://www.eveandeileen.com/sidekick.php">here</a></p>

]]>
      </description>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[
        <p>
    Late last year, we&#39;ve moved Sidekick HQ to a lovely and spacious&nbsp;yet quite bare studio just off Old Street roundabout. It had a lot of potential but not more than that.&nbsp;</p>


<p>
    We called our friend Julie of Eve&amp;Eileen to help us. Julie is awesome. Look for yourself:</p>


<p>
    <strong>Before:</strong></p>


<p>
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/124/post/before.jpg?1333443697'" /></span></p>


<p>
    &nbsp;</p>


<p>
    <strong>After</strong></p>


<p>
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/125/post/A1.jpg?1333443748'" /></span></p>


<p>
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/126/post/A2.jpg?1333443823'" /></span></p>


<p>
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/127/post/a3.jpg?1333443847'" /></span></p>


<p>
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/128/post/a5.jpg?1333443906'" /></span></p>


<p>Yes, we even have a circus elephant stand. For real.</p>


<p>
    <span class="media"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.sidekickstudios.net/post_images/130/post/a4.jpg?1333444014'" /></span></p>


<p>
    See more photos and other works by Julie Landau <a href="http://www.eveandeileen.com/sidekick.php">here</a></p>


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