Have been debating as to whether an end of year round up isn’t all a bit self-indulgent, but whatever, nobody has to read it. It’s been an interesting year for me though, having left the Wellcome Trust in at the end 2012 to go freelance and see where that would take me, achieving a couple of life ambitions, getting frustrated in various ways with the areas I work in, trying to find solutions to problems and so on. It seems like it might be useful to reflect on that and share what I’ve learnt along the way.
Freelancing
I’ve not done badly finding work this year, and towards the end of the year began to get a much better sense of the lie of the land in this respect. I had a lovely job at the beginning of the year on a project with a school to help three teenage girls make a film. Having rather fallen out of love with filmmaking after several years working on projects for other people, this felt like a good way to be using those skills and was very rewarding. In March, I joined Tate as Producer: Interactive Media on a part-time maternity cover contract. It was a useful to have a solid basis, with two days free for other other work, and I got to work on Artmaps and the new Tate Britain Mobile guide. I’d love to have done more, to be honest, but it’s all been good learning.
In the last half of the year I got two agency contracts for extended freelance consultancy work on mobile and games, working with Lord and Frankly Green and Webb. I realised that this was where the work was. Cultural organisations in particular don’t hire individual consultants, they hire agencies. I was also lucky to come in on projects where the bid had already been won, so didn’t have to go through that tedious process (more on which later).
Flexible working
Offices make you ill. I’m becoming convinced that the traditional way of working, 9-5 in an office in front of a screen, is unhealthy and unproductive. This year I’ve loved being able to be flexible about the way I work, where I work, and when I work.
It took me a while to figure it out, but now I know when I work best, and don’t bother to do any heavy brainwork when I know I’m going to be slow (the afternoons, usually). If I do the complex stuff in the mornings, it takes me a fraction of the time. I’ve still been doing office days for my Tate work, and the way I feel at the end of the day (tired, a low level feeling of being under the weather) is now much more noticeable in comparison to the working at home days.
Funding/frustrations
A theme for the year was money, and a lack of it for great projects. I went through three unsuccessful funding or tendering bids, saw some unbelievable tenders out there asking for the moon on a stick for no money, had countless conversations with people about how broken the system is and watched as some great companies and great projects folded under the pressure of finding money in this environment.
All the while, the message from funding bodies was that they wanted to see innovation, relentless innovation. Where is the room for best practice in this? For projects with established pedigree, a history of solid engagement or other measure of success? Do you have to throw in a bit of 3D printing to get anywhere these days? This cult of innovation seems to have us in a race to create the new without considering what kind of a world we actually want to live in. A world with more apps/more tech/more new types of products? Really??
It also seems very unsustainable. There seems to be no recognition of the amount of time and resources that go into putting a bid together. For companies or individuals who rely on funding for projects, it’s hugely risky. But I think most of us would agree that we want these sort of projects to exist even if they might not be commercial. I’d love to see some indication that funders such as Nesta, the Arts Council, TSB etc are at least thinking about ways to create a more sustainable and nurturing environment for companies and organisations, not just running huge competitions or banging on about being entrepreneurial. A thought: what if more of this funder money went into a sort of investment model, ie putting the onus on the funder to go out and find great projects, mentor and nurture them, and provide flexible funding where needed.
For organisations putting projects out to tender, maybe they could better consider what they are asking of agencies and make more of an effort to help steer that, build longer term relationships and change their procurement processes to be less onerous and more flexible. Being on the other side of this process has made me feel bad about the time I sent out a tender to seven companies asking for a lot of information in their bid, for example. Not great odds for any of those companies given how much work they have to put in, is it?
Learning and games
I’ve given up trying to find headers that begin with “F”. Anyway… I’ve given a lot of thought this year about how to help educational games fulfill their potential. LEGup (the London Educational Games Meetup Group) went from strength to strength, growing to over 850 members. Kirsten Campbell-Howes (who originally set up LEGup) and I saw a gap for resources about learning games and set up edugameshub. I’m really proud of it, there are some great articles on there and the response has been encouraging.
Now we just have to figure out how to keep it going, grow the content and make it more sustainable. No small task. It’s a lot of work and nobody pays us to do it. But I think it’s important. A constant theme around educational games is their quality, or lack of it. I think edugameshub and LEGup are part of the process of raising that quality, bringing people together, sharing best practice etc, but there is more to be done. This year, I’m keen to encourage edugames makers to see themselves as part of the wider games community, to attend games events and see the quality of work going on out there.
I’m also interested in finding a solution for the gulf between academia and games makers. There is loads of research going on into learning and games that isn’t making it to the people who might best make use of it. How to fix that? Hopefully something that Nesta’s current interest in learning and games can help with.
Finally/fitness
I did two things this year that I’ve always wanted to do: made the 17 day trek to Everest Base Camp, and got my black belt in karate. Both were really hard, and really worthwhile. I’ve found that if you want to do something hard or scary, don’t think about it too much, lock yourself into it, just book the ticket, tell people you are going to do it, do something that leaves you without much choice but just to go ahead and do it, then you probably will.
Sure, I could have given up and chartered a helicopter at the point that I was floored by the high altitude on the trek in Nepal (and people do) but it was really too late to back out once I got on the plane to Kathmandu, so much invested already. It’s kind of freeing to have little choice and you just get on with it, and being locked in will help you push past any fear or discomfort.
I did learn something else on the trek, and that was about being realistic about fitness. I’d really sort of thought that cycling everywhere, doing some long walks, karate and the odd bit of yoga and pilates would prepare me for steep treks at altitude. But of course it doesn’t. The only thing that prepares you for doing steep treks at altitude is doing steep treks at altitude. Or training really hard, with lots of cardio stuff.
I did alright, but the runners on the trek with me found it much easier. I resolved to add more cardio work into my training and to be more realistic about my fitness levels and not be complacent, which I’ve done. I’ve stopped pretending that the cycle commute is amazing exercise, for example, and added in some training rides with hills. It’s made a major difference. More in the new year, and one day I’m going to ride up one of those big alpine inclines and enjoy it. That’s the plan.