Treecreate notes #25 — gratitude and grace

Walking along Pumicestone Passage, Yarun (Bribie Island)

This past week has been massive! In between a full week at work, there was a few side activities which really made me realise that 2022 has well and truly kicked off. I am also feeling a deep sense of gratitude for all that life is offering me — the opportunity to grow and learn as well as the environment to support family at this time. I am very grateful to my awesome team at work for being so open and understanding about how life is much more than just the responsibility of work. That said, I do love my work :-)

Spending time to reenergise has also been important and most days have ended with a leisurely walk along Pumicestone Passage or Woorim beach. We are adapting well to coastal life ❤

What I did

Early last week I met with Fred and Geert from Supercluster picking up on our work with Meeting of the Waters: Locative Media Oceania. It is wonderful that this work is continuing to grow and diverge in different ways in different places. Another highlight coming out of this program, was facilitating a session on water music and deep listening with Sandy Sur and Leah Barclay as part of the Guardians of the River program.

It is also worth mentioning that the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC) where Leah is based, is doing amazing work in the marine and aquatic ecosystem space. I hope that synergies will evolve as well as linkages with the Centre for Applied Water Science at University of Canberra. This is looking possible as I will be doing some sessional teaching this semester at USC :-)

Last Friday, I presented a paper about some of the Treecreative walking projects as part of the BEST Conference. As part of the presentation I discussed the 9 Values of Treecreate which have emerged in part through the Appreciative Inquiry work Liz Sweigart and I presented last year at BEST.

It has also been a productive week at TFTM. As part of the audit scheduling discovery, we have had a series of interviews with users which have been very insightful. It is such an interesting area to focus on and the research will also be beneficial to help inform our other work streams. We are starting to gather some very valuable insights which will inform our discovery report due mid March.

What I learnt

Last week I had a great 1:1 with my coach Norell as part of the coaching program I am part of at work. I am really realising that many of my barriers are about my own mindset which can err on the side of anxious. It is really good to be able to ground-truth what is going on with our coach and to learn strategies to be more courageous and confident. Interestingly, some of my self imposed barriers are relatively recent, so it is enlightening to realise that point and to put the situations which challenge me into context.

Another wonderful learning from work, one of my colleagues has set up a chat group around “Regenerative Leadership” which is really fab as a linkage to my Treecreate passions and interest in more-than-human design. Looking forward to learning more in this group.

What I read

This post about creating valuable insights from user research: How to Write Compelling User Research Insights in 6 Steps was a good read.

I also read a few articles by Debbie Levitt about research and design which were insightful, forthright pieces:

I also found this article about Personas vs archetypes quite relevant as these terms are often used interchangeably used along with ‘character profiles.’

Thank you to my dear friend Kate Genevieve for sharing this lovely article with me — Rebecca Solnit on Trees and the Shape of Time.

Speaking of trees — here is one from last week at dusk.

Dusk at Pumicestone Passage, Yarun (Bribie Island)

And one more thing…

I was very saddened to hear that a dear friend, Sue Walker suffered a massive stroke last week. Sue and I became good mates when I worked at the Yorta Yorta Nation Aboriginal Corporation on a Jawun Secondment in 2013. Sue was a vibrant, intuitive and talented human, always ready with a joke, good advice and a keen ear. We were very lucky to see her play Turning Tables in 2014 at the Bendigo Theatre, where I wrote a review for our Geokult blog.