Why Uscreates is a spidermouse
16.11.2011
Zoe’s point of view
Last week, I spoke at the Making Change conference at Goldsmiths college, in a session called ‘The power of the hybrid model: why disruption and murkiness are useful’.
I talked about the creation of the Uscreates business as a hybrid model, bringing together mine and Mary’s backgrounds in design with social aims. Building on this, I talked about other areas of hybridity within the company including:
- Hybrid team; staff from a whole range of disciplines ranging from journalism to consumer research, marketing to anthropology.
- Hybrid techniques; combining traditional research techniques with co-design methods
- Hybrid relationships and partnerships with other organisations, e.g. University of the West of England, Bell & Payne Consulting and Lake Market Research.
- Creating hybrid working environments to allow and encourage the team to gain inspiration from outside interests and influences, e.g. our four day working week, bring your parent to work days and remote working.
To further demonstrate the advantages and disadvantages of a hybrid model, and explain how Uscreates works, I used the concept of the ‘spidermouse’ (see image on the right).
Here are a few of the key points I discussed:
That’s it. Now, is anyone else humming the Spiderpig song from The Simpsons?
Click images to enlarge
