DevelopRe-connecting Young Graduates & Professionals into their community

Looking to make a difference

Develop Workshop

Before this workshop, the definition phase had been completed. The following presentation is a continuation of the workshop, with a deeper mind on the design of the service

Everything is connectedRelating the Wheel of Well-being to re-connecting young adults into their community

Body – Be Active:The local community can advertise groups/meetings that are interested in exercise related activities e.g. nature walks that are free.

Mind – Keep Learning:A platform which allows people to advertise for skills, and create a space to skill swap. This will keep a community buzzing with new knowledge and ideas, invest in yourself and the people around you. Bringing the University mindset home, everyone is welcome to contribute & join.

Spirit – Give:The volunteer projects, skills swap/teach could be great opportunities to help others, and really benefit from these experiences.

People – Connect: Creating safe spaces, for people that want to meet because they are interested in a topic, or would like to learn something new, will strengthen bonds within a community. Breakdown boundaries that a lot of people seem to hide behind.

Place – Take notice: With outdoor activities and events in the local surrounding being made aware to the community, it has the benefits of making people aware of their local surroundings.

Planet – Care: Local volunteering with people or projects, will create stronger bonds & ties to the people and environment surrounding.

Curry Club FeedbackFollowing up with the Curry Club with prototypes was important, so they felt apart of the process:

• The wording of the booklet could seem ageist.• Like the wording ‘Reconnect with your Community’ - it makes it open to a wider age group.

• The map would be great if it could use a mile radius, as I live on the border of another borough. There may be cost implication of cross-borough systems.

• Local jobs might be a little redundant, as there are companies that already supply this service. There could be links to local job agencies.

• I meet people in the pub normally.• The search for a specific interest/hobby is good idea, in the local area• Local Events is something I would be interested in: Masons meetings, local shooting, Cribs etc.

• For the stage in my life, my work is at a level I am happy with, so I feel no need to expand my skills for work.

• My experience of old people, is that they are bad-mannered and rude. How can we expect kids and others to reflect positive behaviour? I would pull my kids up if they acted like that. Even old Masons are rude.

• Our experience of the younger generation are of positive and friendly individuals that are engaging.

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Curry Club ReflectionIt is important to reflect on the views and feedback, from the Curry Club participants

1) For the people that were older and were settled in their jobs, they didn’t have the same needs or desires to swap skills to enhance work opportunities.

People that work in the trade, it could be a good opportunity to test the water with potential employees in the future. Time = £ , so this really depends if people want to make a contribution to others in their community.

2) They did however like the idea of meeting similar minded people, in an interest of their own choice. Age discrimination was not apparent, however I could see that was a factor, from them mentioning the bad manors of old people.

It would be important that a similar mindset would be held throughout the community that took part; polite, open-minded, non-aggressive etc.

3) Boundaries for the map are important. How will it work if you live on a boundary with another borough?

In an ideal world, the Boroughs would work together, creating a cohesive thread between themselves. This is what is lacking between boroughs for recycling; that issue is to do with sub-contractual facilities, however this design shouldn’t be too different except content.

Graduate FeedbackFollowing up with recent graduates from Brunel

Fletch - Phone Call w/ scans

• Would like to see: types of skills, that local employers are looking for

• Like ‘Create local projects’ - good to put on CV for future employers

• Like ‘Your Community needs you’ - feel appreciated for the skills that I have

• This project could be run during your time @ Uni- extra credits could be a useful incentive

• Or the project could be run nearing the end of Uni - get people interested if the process is quite straight forward, rather than having to apply for jobs straight away.

• Funding/Advertising? - I would be happy to have banners/ads/links to job finders.

Stephanie - Email

Firstly, i really like the idea- i think it's really in the cultural zeitgeist at the moment. Love the idea of being able to find stuff close to home- where would this info come from? would it be open source? think the skill swap thing is great.

BUT i have to be honest and say that it sounds like something I'd like to think i'd get involved in, rather than something i definitely would get involved in. One thing that would put me off getting involved in this at this stage is that there is no mention of the amount of my time getting involved would take up. i'm really really busy at the moment, but if i knew i could just be involved for as little as an hour a month or so then that would probably make me look into it in more detail.

With regards to the leaflet, it seems like the kind of project that would benefit from an app including a real time map of events etc in your local area not sure if this is in the pipeline or not. if you did go for that one thing i'd say to watch out for is that i'd imagine alot of the projects would involve children and young people so you'd just need out mind out about who can access what info. this could also apply to signing up to get info online depending on how much detail was available.

There's a social enterprise near me in east london that might be of interest to you http://theamazings.org/the people who run it are super ice and i'm sure they'd be happy to chat to you

I hope this helps, good luck!

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Brunel Graduate: Moved away to Bristol now

Firstly what a brilliant idea. I believe that with this forum for newly qualified young adults being able to share there experiences and views into finding jobs and projects to do in local areas will build up the level of happiness in the participants. Not only will it open up venues and companies to new younger talent but it will also allow users to create a community for there area of like minded creative thinkers.

In lu of your prototypes, for the leaflet I would say go for "Newly qualified young adults and professionals" as it can then become a hub for those fresh out of university with the new thinking still in their minds which will create a more evolving atmosphere for the community. Which I believe is much better as a static community always seems to die out.

Other than that I feel the rest of your ideas are very well thought out, and the idea of having a personal map for your own area I truly love as some time with all these different events pages its hard to see what's on where, but to have it in one single place would make life so much easier.

Also for this growing community vibe I believe that the 'skill swap' and 'help required' sections is crucial and am happy to see you have included this as it will allow a community of people to build who would much rather share there skills out of interest rather than monetary reasons and in that allow them to build their experience. I am liking the sticky not look even though this is just a rough plan out, it has a notice board feel. Perhaps look at google+ and there layouts, very similar feel. It feels a lot less aggressive to the eye.

I hope these points have helped, Ed xx.

Ed - Email w/ scans

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”Throughout all of the responses from Uni graduates, they seem to like the idea of a continuation of learning. Time in-put, security, financial backing and a willingness of others seems to be at the forefront of peoples minds; with anything with good planning and testing a brilliant system can be created. Through the development stage, I have picked up on other businesses that are using the same threads: Meet Up, The Amazings, Time Bank Volunteering - The Big Society?A willingness of collaborating technology with the real world is incredibly important, and reminding people that there are plenty things that you could do OR learn that doesn’t have to cost extortionate amounts (if any).

Coaxing Students with SweetsCroydon College StudentsStudents Visiting The Tate

• Feels more comfortable not gaining credits [like Time-Banking], would much prefer to just share skill if it were facilitated correctly.• Personal skill is dance, I find it difficult to pass that along to others. • Likes the idea of volunteer community projects.• Would love to learn how to build a dry-stone wall.• Currently on gap year, have a small un-paid internship @ Architects soon, then off travelling before I start my Architecture degree.

• Both 2nd year Art College students, really busy with projects, so no time spare to take part in the service whilst studying. • Bad memory, so the contents of the service need to stand out, otherwise will forget & not engage.• Would only use if didn’t have a job - if working would have no time.• Driving helped sociability, as lived in a very isolated area.• Really passionate about Art, only on a 2 year course, hope to find a job when it finishes.

• Both 1st year hair dressing course at Croydon College.• Since left school felt a bit disconnected with community, not too bad as still doing a course. • Like the idea of gaining new skills. I (blonde) have already changed to another course because I have tattoos on my hands.• It would be really good to have this service during teenage years.

• Like the ‘Learn New Skills’• Would like to see opportunities known in the community.• Would like a community that easily integrates culture & race with each other.• (Was in it for the choccy)

• “I’m Lazy - I don’t want to do anything for free.• I’ll sit at home if I don’t get a job”• (Was in it for the choccy)

It was important to get a mixture of people with different backgrounds and experiences. In an ideal world, there would be +1000 people chosen throughout the boroughs of London. However, there wasn’t enough time or lady-power. Another factor that

needs to be kept in mind, was how people were feeling at the time emotionally: weather, educational and life experience. To get a balanced and in-depth account from everyone is difficult. The chocolate was a good talking point and got people interested,

however when it became the focus, they seemed to dis-engage with me, the project and questions.

Behaviour Change Journey

Pre-Contemplation Contemplation Preparation Action Maintenance

University/College Advertisement

before graduating: online & posters around campus.

In the community boroughs, use public transportation, and

other public advertising space to

make the service known to local

people.

Use a combination of social networking sites, and the local council website to

advertise the service & up and coming events. Starting with an opening event.

Have graduated students personal

experiences available for others to see, and positive

outcomes from their life-experience

networking.

Invitations to local people, to join their

local community hub online, and

finally meet others with similar interests at a

meeting.

As the internet isn’t accessible to

everyone, perhaps there could be a postal invitation/

letter that provided you the platform to enter your details, and get involved with the service.

An event is held, for people with similar interests to meet, and to see what

other skills/events are on offer.

If the service is run through individual

councils, it could be a good idea to explain to the community the

details, and also list opportunities for

people to take part.

Create opportunities to

local people/ graduates/students. Diversity is key to

keeping the outlook of the service fresh,

but have a solid core that will

continue to work if people float in and out of the system.

Having an open platform for

individual events/interests, would be a

good thing. By the people, for

the people.

Other groups to benefit

Teenagers, School/College dropouts (didn’t know what they liked), Unemployed, Homeless, Ex-Army, Retirement age...

The LeafletThat was further advanced from the develop workshop co-design