Missed an update? Check out what I was up to earlier this year and beyond.
October 2024: In the last month, one of the projects I’ve begun is updating my website again. It’s been 2 years since I’ve had a refresh and I think it’s time. I’ve enlisted the help of a lovely designer and fellow colleague from TPXimpact to consult on the design. It has been a wonderful exercise to showcase how having a sounding board to challenge and validate your ideas, and give direction is an excellent investment. We cannot truly see ourselves accurately and we need to have others hold a mirror up for us. So, if you see things are looking a little under construction on here, that’s because…it is.
This is a glorified test blog post to see where I will put more blog content in the future. I’m not a WordPress developer and am stubbornly going to try and do implementation on my own (or until significant barriers arise).
I’m updating the look and layout of my website, so thanks for your patience!
Here goes! Wish me luck!
March 2024: This spring, I’m very excited to be heading to New York to present on futures anthropology as a methodology at the Advancing Research 2024 Conference by Rosenfeld Media. Exploring the future as an object of study and the role futures (plural) plays in the work of design research has become a pet project of mine.
To flex my ethnographic muscles, I have been busy documenting and sketching many ethnographic moments from an evening drawing class with the Royal Drawing School. To see my sketches and insights from the field, follow me on Instagram (above).
Meanwhile, I continue to be deeply immersed in the UK’s central government Department of Levelling Up, Housing & Communities’ Funding Service Design team. The Funding Service Design team is a multi-disciplinary group working hard to transform the delivery of funding to local authorities, charities, community groups, and others across the UK. As an anthropologist, I continuously come back to consider: how can we radically transform government funding services with a cross-cultural and future-oriented lens?
September 2023: This fall, I am deeply immersed in the UK’s national Department of Levelling Up, Housing & Communities, Funding Service Design team.
The Funding Service Design team is a multi-disciplinary group working hard to transform the delivery of funding to local authorities, charities, community groups, and others across the UK. As an anthropologist, I continuously come back to consider: what can we learn about the relationship between central and local government through the lens of funding?
June 2023: I’m wrapping up my first 90 days at TPXimpact and reflecting on how much I’ve learned. So far, I’ve been involved in not one but two major digital transformation projects. The first, with the Care Quality Commission, the independent regulator of health and social care in England. The second with the UK’s national Department of Levelling Up, Housing & Communities.
As a Canadian abroad, immersion into the UK political landscape encourages me to reflect on how and when political bias appears in research.
January 2023: I moved! It gives me great pleasure to finally share that I have found a new place to call ‘home’ — London, UK. As I settle in, this is a great time to see the city with fresh eyes. Watch this space for more updates, insights, and provocations for the year ahead.
Winter 2022: I’m now engaged in an autoethnography of corporate employment practices. In other words, I’m doing my own research on the hiring and interviewing experiences for design research professionals.
As an advocate for deep engagement to understand users’ needs and consumers’ experiences, what can we learn about a potential candidate in the 60-minutes of a typical job interview? What preparatory rituals go on behind-the-scenes in anticipation of a performative evaluation? What visual elements signal someone’s values, aspirations, and intentions during employment conversations?
Fall 2022: Right now, I’m engaged in some research related to changes in the travel industry. As international travel resumes in this “post-Covid” world, what does it mean for the way we travel, promote tourism, and plan accordingly?
Summer 2022: I’m busy wrapping-up my Master’s and writing some spin-off research papers and presentations. Looking forward to enjoying summer travel and a short conference circuit in the fall!
Nicole Aleong 