Cycles: 20260420-20260607

Wrapping up a couple of months worth of updates in a long overdue post. I’m finding it a little too easy to slide out of the habit of writing. The longer the gap, the more I need to write which adds to the pressure of finding the time. It’s taken me getting out of the house – away from the online and offline distractions – and out into a little nook of local biodiversity to put fingers to keyboard.

We’re almost halfway through the calendar yet these last few months have shared moments of almost every season. The last few weeks in particular dishing out some of the most extreme cases of weather; days of scorching +30° heatwaves to squally torrents of torrential rain and high winds. I’m starting to seriously think about how we adapt our homes to daily lives around the increasingly unpredictable weather patterns.

Although I wasn’t at home for the heatwave in late May, it highlighted the priority for water conservation. With the incompetent water companies issuing hosepipe bans more frequently I’ve starting to think about how we become more resilient as a homeowner and our responsibility to the biodiversity to the front and rear of it.

Despite the heat the garden is doing really well and we’re starting to enjoy some of the edible fruits of our labour while still protecting others from slugs and snails.

One recent casualty was the chilli plants purchased from Lewes’ small independent plant dealer, Fi’s Yard. I’m on my second batch which are safely behind glass for now. They’re also sharing the company of some small shoots of shiso, wasabi rocket and some other older seedlings I’m hoping are still in their prime.

Once they’re ready, they’ll join this year’s mint and tomato plants which are very happily doing their thing. I’m taking extra care to maintain the tomato plants so they don’t turn into the wild and gnarly mess of bright red and orange gluttony of last year.

I’ve been reading Veg Patch the fourth in the series of River Cottage Handbooks. I’ve learned a wealth of information that will keep be busy this year but most of all how to maintain the cycle of compost. As a fanatic avoider of waste, I’ve been tending compost since moving down from London to Brighton & Hove and subsequently Lewes in 2010. With Hugh’s advice I’ve scaled from one to two heaps and will likely increase to the recommended third. I find the process of composting genuinely magical and hugely satisfying.

After doing a bit of reading about the bonsai technique I repotted both Acers and they’re starting to develop nicely. I’m quite enjoying the slow process. It’s a rather nice antidote to today’s fast-paced world. It’ll soon be time to check on the air layering of the crab apple tree that sits near to our house. Our neighbour has drastic plans for their plot that will inevitably result in the tree being cut down. Every year it’s blossom reminds me of our trip to Japan during the cherry blossom season and it would be a tragedy for it not to live on in some way or form. In the meantime I’m enjoying their unintentionally rewilded garden.

The cat mint surrounding the pond has been giving some much needed shade and is a top destination for bees, moths and other pollinators. The beautiful purple glow of flowers has almost gone so I’ll be cutting back to encourage some more growth very soon.

I have to keep reminding myself not to neglect the treats of the front garden. It’s currently dotted with wild strawberries and will soon be joined by gooseberries and Japanese raspberries.

There’s almost too much to recall over the past couple of months but there’s some standout moments that are worth mentioning.

A while back, we had the pleasure of Jason Mesut leading us through a number of team workshops to explore our individual and team strengths and opportunities for growth. As with most design practitioners, storytelling came up as an essential skill and growth opportunity. A select group also attending Ben Sauer’s workshop and a copy of his book Death by Screens put storytelling firmly on the map.

Inspired by something Chris How instigated at Clearleft a few years ago, I floated the idea of a storytelling practice group in a tangental Slack thread. A few people liked the idea so I let the idea ruminate. A few weeks ago I ran a pilot session with a small group of 6 people, myself included. It followed a bring-your-own-topic PechaKucha format and if you joined you also presented.

I was really impressed in the craft and passion behind people’s stories, and there were some really interesting serendipity in the themes. With the success of the pilot I’ve now officially launched the first season of Presento Bento: a storytelling practice group.

There’s been a lot of discussion in the team about what it means for us to work in-person. Remote working has become the new normal for a lot of folks. It obviously has lots of benefits and there’s been some really exciting design related activities that have been remote-first.

It’s not until you experience the in-person version that you recognise what the tradeoffs are. This happened to me late last year when I ran an in-person usability study. I was struck by volume of people’s body language and the device ergonomics, both of which are abstracted by the front-facing camera and screen share.

In the same way people’s geographic location is also abstracted. I realised I only knew where a handful of my team were located. So I decided to run a quick and hopefully fun exercise to map where our team was in the UK and further afield. It was really interesting to see the clusters of neighbourhoods form on the map. My hope is that we can return to this resource as a way to choose locations for a design sprint or ethnographic research.

I’ve already started to play with the idea of a ‘Spotlight on {city}’, framing the folks who live there as ‘guides’ with expertise of local co-working spaces, research labs and design safari intel. I like how this is surfacing even more value of having a distributed team.

There’s something refreshing about getting out of the office, by extension that also means your own home, no?

Some other highlights:

• I attended my first Service Design Breakfast. Hosted by the lovely folks of Clearleft, I met some great minds and had a fascinating discussion. It was really refreshing to have my perspective and ideas challenged. I really hope I can make the next one!
• I’ve been playing a lot with dynamic Obsidian bases. They’ve been really useful for displaying related content across multiple notes.

I’m ashamed to say my bicycles have been very much neglected. I’ll hopefully have a much more exciting two wheeled update next time.

What’s caught my eye over this cycle.

• Rebuilding the Car Tax Service in Ten Weeks in 2014 by Dafydd Vaughan
• The Conversation Trap Why Defaulting to Chat Might Be the Biggest Interaction Design Mistake of the AI Era by Itamar Medeiros
• Japanese Aquarium Drops 2026 Version of Flowchart Illustrating Their Penguin Relationships
• Easy as ABC Voters in England Tend to Pick Names Nearer Top of Ballot, Data Suggests by Helena Horton
• Design as a Demonstrator by John V Willshire
• Are Batteries the Bob Mortimer of British Energy by Tania Barr
• Native Apps Should Be Avoided Whenever Possible