The future is already here
It’s just not evenly distributed
Since joining the Policy Lab team at the end of the summer last year (2019), I’ve been getting familar with the various tool and techniques the team has developed over the last 6 years through live policy projects. Many of these experimental tools are now best practice in innovative policy making and the team regularly use them with UK policymakers to faciliate better conversations with the people who influence and are affected by government’s decisiosn (aka policy).
Evidence discovery
On of the tools which the team often uses are evidence discovery cards. These are a visual, bite-sized way of displaying exisiting information around a particular policy area. It functions as a pop-up exhibtion with the cards stuck to the walls of the space. And there are always blank cards inviting people to add their own evidence.
The point of the evidence discovery is to widen the thinking around a topic and pool the collective knowledge. Government already uses more conventional ‘calls for evidence’ where members of the public are invited to email in evidence - you can search a list of calls for evidence on gov.uk.
What Policy Lab does is to transform that evidence into inspiring, thorugh-provoking nuggets of viseral data using graphic design, into a tangible format designed for human brain consumption in a social setting.
A call for evidence: the future
As governments starts to figure out how to tackle arguably the biggest, most complex, glolbal challenge of our generation - the climate and ecological emergency - I’ve been starting thing about whether they could do with a bit of inspiration.
As the futurist and xxxx what’s his name famously said, ‘the future is already here, its just not evenly distrubuted.’
I believe that most people probably know at least one inspiring examples of hope, of a new way of doing things that’s already underway. What if we started to collect all of those bits of the future together to create a body of evidence to show what is possible, what is already happening. What if we shared them with anyone who needs help with imagining what kind of future we could be designing? From national govenremnt, to local community groups and inidivduals with the omph the omph to change things. A scrap book of global inspiration, made by the people for the people.
An international scrap book for change