House for Artists in Barking. Artists pay 60% market rate for studio space in return for contributing to and curating a public space.

This has been a fun couple of weeks:

• A first for me: I was part of receiving a delegation from South Korea, showing them the work we've been doing with startups in Barking & Dagenham, Havering, and Thurrock.
• I headed to Smart City Expo in Barcelona for a few days. Lots of interesting stuff going on but I would note that, in general, it was very tech driven without much thought for people living in the cities. Where there was talk about people it was very "doing to" rather than "doing with". Just something to watch in a growing space.
• This was my first trip to Barcelona. I didn't get time to see much but the food was excellent. And Gaudi's Cathedral was even more stunning in person. I'd love to go back!
• I've been going a bit deeper on complex systems (driven largely because I'm working in this smart city space where our key question is how do you attract startups and corporates to an area and make sure the economic benefits of that commercial growth stay in the area and don't displace the existing population?). There was a really good podcast with Dave Snowden which I need to listen to again because I grokked only about 30% of it. This YANSS podcast with Neil Theise is also good - I bought his book off the back of it.
• I had my first "formal interview" for a while and I was struck by how different it felt to "coffee chats" and how much worse my formulation of ideas was in the more formal context. Some work to do there. I also took away a bunch of questions I need to think more deeply about.
• My blog feedback system now produces audio...