My Story – by Ben

Please mention the name / topic of the event you want to participate in, and the city or town where it is happening.

Service design - Climate emergency

Berlin

Work, hobbies, family life, leisure, pleasure… Which activities from your present life would you like to keep doing? Which things would you like to never do again? Which would you want to start doing/do more of?

Being immersed in a progressive and learning oriented community. Being challenged. Exercising.

Commuting/ spending time in cars. Living near violence. Spending time with large groups of men. No more of that please

Spending more time with the kids. Being able to escape into the mountains on my bike with just a sleeping bag. More of that please

What is an a question or desire that drives you or your work? How did you get started and what hurdles have you met along the way? Which doubts do you have about the work you are doing and the path forward? What kind of support would you like to offer others traveling a similar path?

By sharing your story below you enable others to connect you with people, conversations, opportunities relevant to your personal and professional development:

I always followed my nose and took a long time to go to university, but once working, having learnt my values served me well.

The hurdles I have met were mainly class-oriented, where I felt I had to hide parts of myself for a looong time. Now I am one of the senior folk in the industry, I’m comfortable with those things and talk about them to signal that it’s okay to be <insert why you’re not from the right places>.

Doubts are mainly about building technology for the sake of it. The hidden impact of server farms, while in startups we’re still trying to grow at all costs. Working inside orgs to develop a considered and ethical approach, whilst knowing that people are mostly concerned with themselves unless incentivised. These are things that have been on my mind and driving my practice for a few years now. They have also affected my decision to leave my last 2 orgs. Fortunately though, I am an energised optimist and will always lean in rather than avoid things

I already do a lot of mentoring, but would like to help develop strategies and tools for teams in time-restrictive & financially motivated products to make better decisions quickly. I am also trying to take any opportunities that I can to teach children strategy.

Great, now that you’ve made it easier for us to introduce you to the others – start to think about the topic and purpose of the event itself. Why do you want to participate in it? How do you feel the topic touches your work or life at the moment / in the future?

I am about to join a new prganisation in order to tackle sustainability. For that reason I am open to exposing myself to any approaches that are available to better understand how to create impact.

From the title and the organisers this looks like exactly the right environment to do that :slight_smile:

name: Ben

1 Like

Welcome @ben_55! great to have you here!

Your motivation and direction sound amazing! Could you tell us a bit more about that new organisation you are about to join?

Ping @mrchrisadams and @Kathryn

Hi @ben_55, thanks for persevering through the sign up process :slight_smile:

I’ve updated the page here with some more details, but I’ll be sending further instructions on the Wednesday to yourself and other attendees.

1 Like

Thanks for the warm welcome!

@MariaEuler !I will tell you on Friday :smiley: (Looking forward to it too)

@mrchrisadams Yes, that sign up is a magical mystery tour

We are thankful for feedback regarding the sign up and on-boarding process. We are working on smoothing and developing that in parallel to all the ongoing projects.