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SILK For the past couple of years we've been working on the Kent Dementia Friendly Communities project. Covering the whole of Kent the project has inspired local community projects and dementia action alliances to form. The past few months we've been hard at work creating a website that captures all the activity that has happened under the Kent Dementia Friendly Communities project. The website quietly went live a few weeks ago and we wanted to share it on here: www.dementiafriendlykent.org.uk The Trivialities and Transcendence of Kickstarter Tom Schierlitz for The New York Times The dipr, left, for dunking cookies in milk, and Edible Cups, right, exceeded their Kickstarter goals. But this time something occurred to me: What about that Kickstarter thing? Kickstarter has been around online for just over two years, and various artists, filmmakers, musicians, writers and designers have used the site to raise more than $75 million for 10,626 “creative projects,” to use Kickstarter’s preferred term. That money has come from 813,205 “backers” — individuals making mostly modest contributions (the most common is $25) to support specific efforts. The selling point of “crowd-funding,” as this phenomenon has come to be called, is that it is an alternative to the wealthy patron or the grant-giving foundation.

Software Architecture Group (HPI) - PhidgetLab Crossing the Border from Squeak to Real World Objects News: 2009-10-04: PhidgetLab is proud to announce that we were awarded with the 2nd price of the esug's Innovation Technology Arards . 2009-09-27: The spanish Linux Magazine wrote about phidgetLab. The article is available here. Us Now Us Now is a documentary film project "about the power of mass collaboration, the government and the Internet"[1] The New York Times describes it as a film which "paints a future in which every citizen is connected to the state as easily as to Facebook, choosing policies, questioning politicians, collaborating with neighbours."[2] Blogging Innovation » Does your Structure help or hinder Innovation? The traditional top-down structure in organizations can be a powerful inhibitor to innovation. It is a reflection of a command and control style of leadership where orders are issued at the top and followed by the ranks. People lower down the organization who have great ideas can feel inhibited about promoting them. They feel it is disrespectful to challenge the command chain.

news « thinkpublic Looking for thinkpublic? We’re taking a pause, as our founding director Deborah is going on maternity leave from September 2012. We’ve learnt from many of our projects with new mums and children’s services, that starting a family can be like starting a business, extremely consuming in both time and energy. Which is why we are finishing off our current projects and pausing the work of the studio, we see this time as a chance to focus on a few initiatives, whilst feeding our imaginations. “I started thinkpublic when I was 23 and I had no idea what an impact it would create. thinkpublic has grown from strength to strength, I have been lucky to work with some amazing people on a diverse and exciting range of projects. How to bend time to your will and destroy barriers to productivity Okay, that title's a bit dramatic, but I've had a lot of coffee this morning, and that's just what popped out. On topic: I’ve been meaning to write a little about the Pomodoro technique, and a post by Dave Caolo motivated me to finally do it. I agree with Dave: it’s gimmicky, but It works because I can concentrate for 25 minutes easily, and enjoy the regular permission to goof off.

ONLINE: Innovating e-Learning 2011 Online Conference Innovating e-Learning 2011, the sixth in the popular series of JISC online conferences, brings together delegates from further and higher education with an interest in technology-enhanced learning and teaching. Sessions fall under two themes: learning landscapes and nativgating pathways. Innovating e-Learning 2011, the sixth in the popular series of Jisc online conferences, brings together delegates from further and higher education with an interest in technology-enhanced learning and teaching.