Creativity Network meeting - 5/5/10

After a recent blog post about creativity in Cardiff and Wales and networking, it has been suggested that a meet up to discuss a possible overall programme of events and looking into working together to show the strength and vibrancy of creativity in Wales and Cardiff could be looked at. As we have a regular meet up on Wednesday evenings at Cardiff Arts Institute we are hoping to be able to meet anyone interested in this subject from around 7pm next wednesday 5/5/10 to see if we can do anything together? If you are interested then please come along. Also if you feel someone else also should come to the meet up then please pass on the invitation.

thanks again and I hope to see you all next week

ARK team

What should we be?

Having now been now up and running for almost a year we have been looking into our status in terms of a company and it's structure. Last night we had a meeting about the possibilities and what pros and cons there are depending on what you choose.

A few months ago I think it is fair to say limited by guarantee was the way we were going, or becoming a full blown charity. However recently with the introduction of 'community interest' company we are reconsidering what we may become. If anyone has any thoughts comments or experiences on either of these we would love to hear from you.

Service Design Hub

While I was scanning the web for interesting companies and case studies for ARK I came across this fantastic site called Service Design Hub run by user experience consultant Suze Ingram. The hub is described as "a place to find blogs, articles, papers, books, links and videos about service design."

I was immediately absorbed into the site and particularly liked the interview with Mark Fonteijn from Service Design Agency 31Volts and was intrigued by the 'Pleasant Platforms' project where he says that "one of the most interesting insights was that as long as travelers were not standing still they didn’t consider themselves to be waiting". A statement that felt akin to our thoughts, ideas and approach to on the recent National Assembly railway consultation project. Hopefully we can find out more about this project through 31Volts as it sounds like a great case study.

Knowledge Sharing - tell us something interesting

Part of ARK's ongoing remit is to share knowledge and resources related to social design. This includes design tools, other social/ service design agencies and groups plus any interesting projects or case studies we might come across. We have recently set up our Bookshelf and Resource library and my mission this week is to update it with some of the great sites i have recently found plus if you have come across any great websites or books that you want to recommend let us know.

Thinkpublic meet ARK

A quick thank you to Paul from thinkpublic who wrote a small piece on their blog about us, and they have also been very helpful in giving us a bit of advice as to how to move forward. Finally after a number of months of us trying, Paul has also managed to sum up what we do in one sentence.

"ARK is a weekly meetup of designers, artists and other interested people who share an passion for social design."

Bang on. I guess that we just need to expand peoples ideas of what social design is now.

One down many more to go

As some of the previous blogs have articulated. We have managed to get our train proposal in for Assembly Wales and we are working on the Shop project as an ongoing project. I personally am also trying to raise ARK's profile within the design community at large so am trying to find new networks to join and plug into any suggestions welcome. Also thinking about producing some kind of urban psychology type advertising if that sounds interesting to people would love to hear from you.

socialARK

PHEW! This week was a quiet week for ARK with time to relax and chat with new ARKee Noel, or as i later called him Leon (as Laura pointed out my mind must be working backwards!) I think this just summed up how we all felt after some pretty intense workshops the last few wednesdays to get the National Assembly railway consultation project finished. Thanks to all who participated and a special big thanks to Simon for pulling it all together, a few late nights I think! The report looks fantastic with some really interesting ideas that challenge what accessibilty means. Hopefully the assembly finds it thought provoking. Simon will be posting the report soon so we would be interested to hear what you think?

It's great to meet new people who just drop-in to find out what we are all about and hopefully Noel will be back along with everyone else a week wednesday (21st) as next wednesday we are off to TEDx Cardiff so maybe we will see you there?