In term 2 we are fortunate to have a heart beat of guest coming in to speak to our students. This week we had Nick from Shift / LLDC talking about data and innovation at the QEOP and Josef from Arup talking about foresight, innovation and strategy. I love that I always learn something during these talks - this time about Danelaw, plastic, VUCA and future personas of Londoners.

Nick started off his talk by asking the students what they knew about the history of the place they were studying. Two tidbits of information were new to me, and potentially useful for a future pub quiz - the world’s first true synthetic plastic, parkesine, invented by Alexander Parkes, was manufactured in Hackney Wick from 1866 to 1868! Second, the River Lea, on which we are spending a fair bit of research time, was the boundary between English-ruled territory (to the west) and the Danelaw, the part of England in which Danish laws applied after the occupation by the vikings. A reminder of the constant flux of boundaries and borders that have gone before.

Josef also touched on this, reminding me they still use the phrase “the only constant is change” to introduce the core ideas behind foresight work. There was so much good stuff in his talk and I would love to introduce more of this into our curricula. The world of VUCA - volatile uncertain complex ambiguous - is all around us and some of the scenarios we developed in 2000’s and thought were implausible are now appearing as possible, plausible and probable. Josef also pointed to some Future Personas they created in 2014 with NESTA for Londoners in 2024 - worth taking a look to see how these have aged and if you can relate!

Polar by Namisu

“It all starts with an idea, write it down and see where it takes you.” Adrien and Maria, Namisu. I am sucker for pens and have been known to buy a few from Namisu. These arrived just in time for my birthday and are the nicest ones I have received - lovely to write with.