All in a days work…

Three months ago Sam wrote a post about his experience of being the new guy at Curative. He wrote about how his first weeks were a heady mix of myriad tasks. He wrote about how July was a month of disruption and that things seemed to be moving incredibly fast as Curative grew. But he wrote all of this with a tone which implied that it was only temporary – that there was some base-line of normality to which Curative would eventually settle.

This idea has persisted; yarns of a world where things don’t change quite so fast were spun to me in my first few weeks as well. “It’s not normally like this…”, I would be assured. “Wow, this week is crazy”, would be exclaimed. “Amazing events like this don’t always happen”, I would be emphatically reminded. But, having been here for over a month now, I’ve come to realise something: it *is* always like this; life at Curative goes at a million miles an hour - and that’s exactly the way I like it.

This month’s list of things to keep us on our toes has included launching some very exciting new projects. It’s always a delightful experience finally opening the gates on a piece of work that we have poured so much time and love into.

One such project that deserves special mention is The Harbour: Everyone here says that it seems so long ago that the wonderful people at SAFE, Help and RPE asked us to produce their incredible new online resource.

The Harbour is a platform for people to access information and support about harmful sexual behaviour, addressing a really important need within this area. The material we needed to tackle covered some pretty heavy stuff, especially when it came to collating contributions from both those who have been harmed, as well as those who have caused harm - there were certainly times when this content weighed heavy on our minds. That said, we are already starting to hear some really rewarding feedback about how affected  users have been by reading these contributions. 

And so now, all of a sudden, it’s complete & launched. For me, The Harbour has been one of the first projects I’ve seen fully-launched at Curative, and it’s taught me a lot about the transient nature of our working process: about the necessary level of connection we have with our projects and their subject-matter, while knowing that eventually we will have to let go and set it free at some stage in the future. 

The Harbour’s  release came right off the back of an extremely full-on period for the Curative team, a time when a whole bunch of projects were coming to a head at exactly the same time. As this particularly busy period approached, anticipation rose to the point where the phrase ‘hell-week’ started being bandied about. But we were determined not to let this week get on top of us; we are the masters of our own time, and so we collectively renamed hell-week ‘HELL-YEAH Week!’.

One of the largest (and definitely the most delicious) components of hell-yeah week was our Social Innovation dinner event, The Feast, which Curative hosted in collaboration with the Sustainable Business Network and our friends at Innovate Change. The Feast is an opportunity to get some of Auckland’s greatest social innovation minds in a room, feed them wine and delicious food from POPdining, and then let them loose on a challenge. This year’s dinner was based around identifying interesting and innovative solutions that could provide safe, warm and sustainable housing for the Auckland’s growing population. Lots of great connections were forged during many interesting conversations. Check out the photos of the evening here…

But even as the final morsels of dessert were devoured, the Curative team were all conscious that ‘Hell Yeah’ week was still in full-swing; we managed to race home for a few short hours of sleep before being up again to host CreativeMornings six hours later. Another global collaboration, which this month saw 50+ chapters from around the world host a talk which followed the theme of ‘Play’ proudly set by our own little team. 

All the while, I still had a sense that everyone expected things to slow down soon, back to some level of supposed normality…

‘Hell-Yeah’ week ended with a special treat for Eddy & I (Double-Eddies!) when we were asked to speak at the Tall Poppy conference that was expertly brought together by Brook, Elliot, and the awesome team at ZEAL. Tall Poppy pulled together some of the most interesting change-makers in the country to share the ways in which their work is having positive impact on the lives of young people. While the day was choc-full of incredible speakers, some stand-outs for us included hearing NZ’s principle youth court judge Andrew Becroft talking about progressive new approaches to youth justice. Another memorable moment was hearing Chris Clark, CEO of World Vision, talking about the importance of adaptability within the social sector - which certainly resonated with us during this fast-paced week. From my perspective, it was fantastic to get a chance to meet some of the best movers and shakers in the sector up here, and to reconnect with some I’d met before. 

As the sun set on Tall Poppy, so too did it set on ‘Hell-Yeah’ week. Eddy and I both (respectively) went home to our first home cooked meals, our first early night, our first chance to not be out the door before 6am, in a week. Team Curative slept well that weekend, no doubt. Perhaps they did so under the illusion that it wouldn’t be the same in the coming week; that this was going to be the settling week, the promised-land where time comes in healthy portions, and nothing needs to get done until tomorrow. 

Maybe this is the way we need to think in order to stay sane, but as for me, the new guy, I see through it; I’m quickly coming to the realisation that the pace never drops in a place like this, there is always more to do, more exciting projects and ideas, and more wonderful organisations to help. But then again, I think the thing we all share in common here is that none of us would have it any other way. 

Have a great November, everybody.

Edward & Kaan 

“You create your opportunities by asking for them” - Shakti Gawain

As I sit here at Heathrow airport ready to board my 30+ hour journey home to New Zealand, I keep thinking about how important it is to never wonder ‘what if’, but to instead seize every opportunity. And that sometimes, that means you need to create the opportunity for yourself, by asking for them, after all, the worst case is that they’ll say ‘no’.

It’s these thoughts that I’ve carried with me through all of my previous travels and upon reflection of the past few weeks in the UK, these thoughts are still incredibly relevant today.

My trip to London was initiated by a client of Curative’s; British Council NZ (BCNZ). They wanted us to look at an arts, culture and social innovation project; The Edible Garden as part of the Phakama: Velela pop-up festival.

An initiative we look forward to helping implement in New Zealand later in the year. Being over there allowed me to meet amazing young artists from around the world, engage with the local London creative practitioners and even inspired me to explore a bit of storytelling through performance arts workshops. However, my experience with Phakama was just the beginning…

I wholeheartedly believe, that even in an age where everyone feels more connected online, nothing can beat real life face-to-face connections. Which was partly why BCNZ sent us over, to connect, engage and learn first hand about the project and the people involved rather than being sent a well-structured strategy document about systems and processes to re-create the concept in NZ. That would’ve been too easy!

The challenging part, is really getting involved, getting your hands dirty, and getting amongst it all, clarifying the original intentions of each individual, the objectives of the project, learning about what each person brought to the table; both professionally and personally, and understanding the dynamics of the key-players of the project. Which I felt, I was able to grasp whole-heartedly while living on campus with some of the Artists in Residence.



However, it wasn’t just ‘campus life’ that I threw myself into wholeheartedly. While in that part of the world, I extended the ‘business trip’ and took the opportunity to explore the professional landscape of Design, Social Innovation and Social Design in the UK. With these interests in mind, I connected with a few thought leaders prior to arriving; and managed to set up times to meet with them.

Below is a bit of a re-cap, collection of interesting links, resources and little learnings from some of the people I was fortunate enough to meet with:

Stuart Thomason, Senior Associate at The Young Foundation; took the time to talk me through the landscape of Social Innovation in the UK, what part YF played, the innovation spiral and sent me off with a bunch of resources; this publication comes highly recommended if you haven’t already read it, you can download The Open Book of Social Innovation here.

Earlier that week, The Young Foundation was hosting a Social Design talk on Design Ethnography with Catriona Macaulay. Admittedly, earlier that day, I had no idea what Design Ethnography really was, but the end of the presentation, I was looking forward to finding out more and how we could highlight the notion here in NZ.

It was at that talk, where I met the Service Design Lead at Fjords, Noemi Mas. Who was kind enough to have a coffee and take me through their innovation process, methodologies and tools even amongst a big deadline.

I also ran into Noemi at the CreativeMornings London event with rAndom International (I guess the creative industries are small no matter where you are in the world!) Where I got the chance to meet CreativeMornings London chapter host, Drew Smith and share our CreativeMornings Auckland ‘Hello LDN’ video. An interesting, articulate, well groomed creative character that was incredibly warm and welcoming. Meeting industry leaders with extensive connections in their cities, is just one of the reasons why the CreativeMornings family is so valuable to be part of, and again reiterates this video »

Peter Holbrook, CEO of Social Enterprise UK; whom I initially met in NZ and gave a captivating presentation at The Kitchen, took the time out of his busy schedule to show me around The Firestation, meet the SEUK team as well as share insights and resources into the beginnings of setting up a similar association in NZ. Once again, I was amazed, not just by his charismatic words of wisdom, but by the physical space. In this one building, they have housed here; School for Social Entrepreneurs, PwC’s Centre for Social Impact, and The Brigade bar & bistro; here they host The Beyond Food foundation, where they are offering people who have been at risk of or have experienced homelessness the opportunity to take part in a 6 month apprenticeship programme called United Kitchen. If you’re interested in learning more about Social Enterprise NZ, contact us and we’ll point you in the right direction.



Social innovation and research consultancy; A Very Good Company’s co-founder and director, Natalie Campbell, was incredibly welcoming given it was the week following A Good Week. She was even kind enough to gift me a book; which is mandatory for all her staff, contractors and interns to read before working with her; The One Minute Manager, a book by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson. 

At that very meeting I also had the opportunity to catch up with; Kate Andrews, a social communications strategist and design consultant who I had been following the work of online for the past few years. We’re all pretty busy ladies, but currently exploring the potential of a collaborative project, where we can share our learnings and discourse around Social Innovation and Design. We’ll be sure to keep you posted on any developments.



And then, there were these next two serendipitous encounters. And the story goes a little like this: A really good friend of mine, Adele Barlow invited me to a launch party of General Assembly where they were setting up a London office and heard there would be some rather interesting characters there… I was right.

Despite arriving embarrassingly early, Tom Hulme, Design Director of IDEO and founder of OpenIDEO was there at a similar time too. I recognised him instantly and on my somewhat swift departure, introduced myself, snapped a pic and he was kind enough to invite me around to their studio to meet with him and his team later that week. To learn a bit more about IDEO, the Art of Innovation their widely recognised human-centred processes, and world renowned guide to designing for Social Impact. Haiyan Zhang, interaction lead of OpenIDEO was kind enough to answer a few of my niggling questions about the agency after the team from Thames & Hudson departed. In which we found out we had a mutual Kiwi acquaintance; Meena Kadri (6 Degrees of separation, that, and us Kiwis are everywhere!)



At the launch party, was also fortunate enough to meet Dees from Mozilla, where we set up a meeting the following week at their new beautiful co-working space right in the centre of town in London; (which from my understanding, Mozilla Spaces is completely free and open to the public for people to work from.) And after realising that Mozilla does much more than create the amazing web-browser Firefox, we then explored the possibility of hosting a Design Jam in New Zealand in the coming year. Again, we’ll keep you posted on any developments.



So, whether it was via phone, email, twitter, launch party or a serendipitous encounter I thought to myself that, “You do indeed, create your opportunities by asking for them.” and fortunately for me it turned out on this trip that no-one said ‘No’.

This mini-mantra has served me right not only on my travels, but day-to-day life as well. I must admit, I felt terrible having to leave Curative, just 6 months new, with the workload really starting to take off! However, I’m fortunate to have a business partner and a great friend in Eddy, who was incredibly supportive of the opportunity and saw the long-term benefits of this trip out weighing the short-term work stress. And it was with this support that I was able to throw myself into the experience fully, knock on every door, ask plenty of questions and let the opportunities open up.

So, what unexpected opportunities have you recently created for yourself by just asking for them?