Category: #thinkery

Different isn’t wrong

When I lived in Tanzania, I had to keep reminding myself of this. So much of what felt wrong was simply cultural. This mantra probably features highly in “how to achieve stuff with a bunch of people who aren’t like you”, if someone would actually take the trouble to write it… Pretty simple — but ultimately liberating,…
Pull yourself together

In the last couple of years I’ve increasingly reflected on my own mental health, and those of the people I work with. I’ve realised how little I know. So when I stumbled across this blog post by Julia Skinner, this thought jumped out of the page…
The wall

The wall is high, but it’s constructed by our own selves. To be good at anything requires practice. We all know this – or do we? Hold out your hands and give someone a foot up, so at least they can catch a glimpse of what’s on the other side…
An umbrella of experiments

A friend challenged me this week on where my newsletter was going. Admittedly, I have no idea. It was meant to be an experiment, though — an umbrella for experiments, if you will…
Avocado

Ask your eyes to notice. What’s the light doing? Why is it doing that? Highlights, lowlights, shadow. Sometimes a drawing just works. This avocado was triggered from a comment by Laura Hilliger. In Kiswahili, it’s a parachichi or even sometimes embe ya mafuta (literally: oily mango…).
Thinking fast and slow

OK me, lets sort this stuff into two piles. Blink – first, Smile – first, Scratch head – first, Think what to write in this narrative – second, Typing the words – first, Sniff – first, Hear music – first, Wonder about a lyric – second, Realise I’m being distracted by music – second, Turn…
The Big Arrow

This cloud is going to lift in 5 minutes. I said it so often it became my punchline. A dad joke – only to be appreciated by other dads (and sometimes their wives). We need to turn off the path somewhere near here to get to the top of the mountain. Nothing says top of…
Glasgow

I used to live in Glasgow, Scotland – and it remains my favourite city. A warmth and humour despite (or possibly due to) the dreich weather. We lived in a top floor tenement flat next to a boisterous Celtic-Football-Club-supporting family. We soon figured out that if Celtic won a big game, we needed to sleep in…
A subjunctive mood…

Primary schools in the UK have gone grammar mad. Essentially, although a kid may be dynamite in other areas, they can be labelled “below age related expectations”. What does that even mean? In actual fact, we are natural grammarians. Kids sponge-brains can soak up new languages amazingly quickly, without any formal learning. It seems we are…
Offline

Oooh. Was that a buzz from the phone in my pocket? It’s probably someone tweeting me. Probably someone sharing an illustration of mine to their followers. They’ve probably got a bijillion followers… let me just check. Nope – must of just been a tingle in my leg – back to reading with the kids… (This…
Diffusion of Innovation

Aha! So it’s not just me… When I first saw this, it face-slapped me like an un-hinged double hi-five. At the time, I was pitching an e-portfolio solution to different training organisations, which was really quite hit and miss. After a while, I realised the product I was selling was actually “Change” – and that…
ART!

An empty page. Create something. But what? I can’t think of anything. Why are you asking me? It’s your brain… But it’s so daunting. It’s too clean. I’ll just mess it up. And anyway, I can’t draw. An empty page is daunting. But it’s also an opportunity. You used to draw when you were a…