Here at Enabled by Design HQ we're on the look out for a super duper online community manager extraordinaire to join our small but (we like to think) perfectly formed team. Could you be the missing piece of our jigsaw puzzle?


So what is an online community manager?
We're looking for that certain someone who can support the Enabled by Design team to reach out, engage with and grow its online community. This can be done in a number of ways including posting content on Enabled by Design's website and social media platforms including facebook, twitter and flickr, forging links with other online communities with a common interest such as design, independent living, health and disability, keeping up-to-date and engaged with related blogs and blogging yourself, to name but a few.

Who are we looking for?
Enabled by Design was partly borne out of the frustration of jobs with flexible working conditions not being readily available. For me flexible homeworking is helping to remove some of the barriers I've experienced and for this reason we'd like to support someone else to work under the permitted work scheme too. Therefore, working hours available would be up to 15 hours per week, keeping within the rules given.

What are we looking for?

Community manager checklist:
* Confident user of technology, the web and social media
* Strong communication skills, both written and verbal
* Interested in the work of Enabled by Design
* Passionate about design for all and accessibility
* Happy to read around the subject
* Willingness to learn
* Independent, organised and creative
* Good at networking
* Sense of fun

Have you got what it takes or do you know someone who does? If so, we'd love to hear from you!

How to apply:

We wanted to make the application as straightforward as possible, so we're asking for two things:

1. A personal statement (one A4 page maximum) on why you want to work with Enabled by Design, outlining any relevant personal experience.

2. A 200-300 word blog post on what design for all means to you. The blog post should express your own personal writing style, so we can get to know you a bit better.

Please send both parts of your application by email to denise@enabledbydesign.org by the closing date shown below. If you have any questions at all or would like to do things a little differently (perhaps a video application even?), drop us a line at anytime.

Deadline: Friday 24th September 2010

Thanks for your time and we look forward to hearing from you!

Team EbD x

Do you use voice recognition software or keyboard navigation (ie. do not use a hand held mouse) or live with colour blindness and are within one hour of London? Are you interested in giving feedback on your experiences of using websites? Are you available during August/September? If so, this opportunity might be right up your street.

Our contact, her name's Kath by the way, is friendly, flexible and happy to meet somewhere that's mutually convenient for each feedback session. A session is likely to last an hour or so and you will receive £50 to thank you for your help and time. Interested? Then read on...

Kath is a freelance accessibility consultant with a passion for user centred design. She enjoys working with web teams to create engaging and easy to use websites. She was Senior Consultant at AbilityNet from 2006 to 2009.

Who can get involved?
Do you experience difficulties surfing the web or using your computer? Perhaps because of a health condition or injury?
Do you adapt your computer in some way?

Some examples:
You have a health condition or injury that makes it difficult to use a mouse - perhaps due to poor dexterity, tremors or fatigue
You use an alternative mouse, such as a switch, sticky keys or head/mouth operated
You use an alternative keyboard, such as foot, one handed, on-screen or Dvorak
You use voice recognition software
You use a combination of the technology mentioned above

What happens during a session?
A typical session will last from 1 to 1.5 hours. You will be asked some questions about yourself and your experiences of using websites similar to the one you are reviewing.

You will be asked to try out a task that a visitor to the site might do. For example, select a product and add it to your shopping basket, check how much money is in your account, compare two products etc. By doing this, you'll be able to point out what makes a website difficult or easy to use.

The session will finish with a chance for you to give your overall opinions of the website.

Each session will be filmed and the footage used solely to inform potential accessibility improvements.

Things to remember:
- You're the expert of your condition and experiences
- There is no right or wrong answer, it's important to hear exactly what you think
- If you have any questions, please do ask
- You can take a break at any time
- Your feedback will help to influence further website developments
- When the information's available, you will receive a follow-up email explaining how your comments have helped to make the website more accessible 
- The session is confidential - only people directly involved in the project will view the footage
Still interested? Got any questions? Then please do get in touch: denise@enabledbydesign.org

Thanks!

Team EbD

PS. If you're not available in August/September, but would be interested in future projects, feel free to drop us a line and we'll add your name to the list : )
 

Today mark's the fourth and final installment of the "We are Enabled by Design" video series. Last but no means least, is Kate Monaghan from markthree media, who joined us to talk about a programme her team produced for BBC2, called 'Are you having a laugh? TV and Disability'. The programme was aired on 25th June, taking a lighthearted look at how disability has been portrayed on television over the past 40 years. Here Kate speaks about the inspiration for the programme, as well as some of the stereotypes she's experienced as a wheelchair user:

'Are you having a laugh? - Disability and Television' from Enabled by Design on Vimeo.

We'd love to hear your thoughts about Kate's talk, so please do share them as a comment below. Did you watch 'Are you having a laugh? TV and Disability' on BBC2. If so, what did you think? Is there anything that you'd like to have seen that wasn't covered in the programme? If so, what?

Thank you very much Kate, for sharing a sneaky preview of the programme at "We are Enabled by Design". It definitely whet our appetites for the full fat BBC2 broadcast! : )

It's Tuesday afternoon, which means it's time for the next installment in the "We are Enabled by Design" video series. Here you can hear Julia Cassim, Senior Research Fellow at the Royal College of Art's Helen Hamlyn Centre, speaking about how creative partnerships can inspire design innovation.

When T-shaped met T-shaped from Enabled by Design on Vimeo.

Julia uses some lovely examples of how what we recognise as familiar mainstream products, such as the common or garden typewriter, actually started life as a product designed to address a particular person's needs. 

We'd love to hear your thoughts about Julia's talk, so please do share them as a comment below. Can you think of examples where a product design has been inspired by someone's specific needs, but has been transformed from a niche to mainstream product through people recognising its desirability? For example, the OXO Good Grips range or Trabasack. 

Thank you Julia for taking time out from your work at the Helen Hamlyn Centre to come and join us at "We are Enabled by Design", it's much appreciated! : )

Doesn't time fly by when you're having fun!?! And it's already time for the next installment in the "We are Enabled by Design" video series. Right, are you all sitting comfortably? Good, then we'll begin...

Next up is a thought provoking talk from Charles Leadbeater, who discusses the nuances between creating services with people rather than for them.

With Not For from Enabled by Design on Vimeo.

We'd love to hear your thoughts about Charles' talk, so please do share them as a comment below. Has this made you think differently about how you do things for other people? Or perhaps you have examples of something that was meant to be done for you, but ended up being done to you?

Thank you so much Charles for taking a detour to the airport, before your trip to Florence, to join us at "We are Enabled by Design". We really enjoyed your talk and it certainly gave us plenty of food for thought! : )

"Design can save us all..." from Enabled by Design on Vimeo.

We'd love to hear your thoughts about Wayne's talk, so please do share them as a comment below. Has this video inspired you? If so, how? Or perhaps you have some other examples of good urban design or livability in action?

Thank you very much Wayne, we thoroughly enjoyed your talk and we were dead chuffed that you could join us at "We are Enabled by Design"! : )

It's hard to believe, but a fortnight has already passed since our very first "We are Enabled by Design" event at the Design Museum, London. As promised, we've been busy gathering as much content and footage from the day as possible, to share with you here on the Enabled by Design website.

Today is the first installment of a guest blog series we're running to summarise each of the breakout sessions that took place on the day.

First up is the sticky subject of employment and how we can make it more accessible to everyone. Enabled by Design is passionate about this important issue and we'd very much like to get involved and help inform future policy and provision.

In light of the recent Emergency Budget, the changes being made to the welfare state, as well as from my own experiences, we feel that flexible working should be made readily available and the support framework for employment needs to be improved to help remove (or at least circumnavigate) the often forgotten barriers to work.

For me employment is a subject that's very close to my heart, having had

to give up my career as a result of a change in health. I have relapsing and remitting multiple sclerosis (MS), which is unpredictable, variable and affects each person differently. It's most definitely a bugbear of mine that the technology exists to facilitate people to work from home, but is rarely if ever offered as an option when starting a new job. Because of my needs, working in a 9 to 5 desk job just doesn't work for me and has unfortunately ended in a number of hospital admissions due to relapse. Work has always been an integral part of who I am and I felt worthless without its focus in my life. After a prolonged period of trying to fit in with current society's employment norm, followed by hospital admissions and treatment, I realised that this wasn't sustainable and my health had (probably irreversibly) taken a turn for the worse. So after banging my head against what felt like a very hard brick wall, I started to look at ways of setting up my own business and the concept for Enabled by Design was born.

Right, so you've heard all about why employment is so important to us and for this reason we decided to dedicate a session at "We are Enabled by Design" to it.

So to kick off proceedings, please welcome Lizzie Ostrom and Amanda Gore from A + E, who kindly ran our employment and workplace session:

How do we want our workspace to be designed?

 

How will we value work in the future?

 

How do we improve working lives for everybody?

 

These were some of the things we were asking as we embarked on our first event as A+E, organised by the impressive Enabled by Design to bring practitioners together for a new look at the aging and disability debate. Whether it's our homes, our workplaces, our products or our technologies, instead of designing special 'stuff' for those with access needs (and which often looks grim, let's face it), Enabled by Design says: can't we just make sure we're designing great stuff for all? For more on Design for All, head over here.

 

A+E were invited to facilitate the session on the Future of the Workplace, a subject very close to our hearts. As we work with organisations to keep them adapted and ahead of trends, it would be stupid for us NOT to care about this area given change is happening rapidly. We're particularly interested in post-retirement earning, and what needs to happen to better enable those 60+ to earn money. On their own terms.

 

We know that the situation is still pretty dire when it comes to older and disabled people in the workplace. But before zooming in on the obstacles, we started by looking at some of the big questions we're all facing in our relationship with work, before going into groups to talk about what everyone thinks. We were really lucky to be joined by Catriona Watt, an employment lawyer with Fox Lawyers, and John Williams, who's just written a book called Screw Work, Let's Play: How to do what you love and make it pay. 

 

Here's where you can find out about John's book including a free sample chapter giving the download on how our formats of working are changing.

 

Here are Catriona's slides from event day [NB. This is a general account of the law as it currently stands. It is always best to seek legal advice for specific queries]:

 

And here are our slides, which also include summaries of the groups discussions that followed:

Some really important things emerged here, which we offer up as challenges which need looking at some more:

 

1. Those cool offices in San Francisco with collapsible meeting rooms and zen meditations pods? Great, love 'em. What about your average small business over here, in Cornwall, Scunthorpe or Watford? Because most employers in the UK are small businesses and they can only do little things on the cheap. So what can we do? Better lighting? Look at the way desks are configured? Put wheels on our tables? We remember hearing about fascinating piece of research that a calligrapher carried out with Xerox: when a workplace swapped from wheely-chairs to those without, colleagues stopped turning to each other to check things and communicate, which then had a huge impact on productivity. It's the small changes that make a difference.

 

2. Flexi-working, remote working and virtual teams are often setups we aspire to, particularly when thinking about engaging and retaining older and disabled workers who find 9-5 in a physical space more challenging, but what are the repercussions? Something really strong came out: people get lonely working alone, no matter how many Basecamp accounts you're a part of. How do we create the watercooler when we're all dispersed? John Williams pointed out #watercoolermoments, a virtual daily gathering on twitter for home-based entrepreneurs, started by Enterprise Nation.

 

3. We're still stuck in time-based valuations of an employee's contribution. Ok, so we don't want to go to 100% commission deals, that's overboard, but if an experienced 70 year old can achieve in two hours what a 30 year old needs two weeks to do, and can only work a few hours a week, surely that works out well both sides? Maybe we need more results-based reward, something that Seth Godin explores in his new book, Lynchpins. Maybe it's about new contractual relationships that connect the best of freelancing with payroll.

 

All complex, but there are ways through here. If you know of any great projects that are improving the way work works, leave a comment or get in touch - we're keen to keep the conversation going, and will share interesting ideas via the blog.

Thanks Lizzie and Amanda, we're really glad that you were able to join us and we look forward to keeping in touch.

Thanks again for all your help, time and support!

Team EbD x

I know it's a Friday night and some of you won't take too kindly to being told to sit in front of your telly box when you could be out on the town having a laugh. But that's exactly what I'm going to recommend you do, or at least make sure you press the record button!
So what on Earth can it be that's so important, I hear you ask?!? Nope, it's not the good old Friday night staple, Jonathan Ross (AKA @Wossy), but you're getting close. Just switch over from BBC1 to BBC2 at 9pm and you'll find out exactly what I'm talking about...

Yes you've guessed it, it's a programme called 'Are you having a laugh? - TV and Disability' (AKA 'The Token Wheelchair') produced by markthree media and narrated by David Walliams.

Last week at our "We are Enabled by Design" event held at the Design Museum, we were lucky enough to be joined by its producer, Kate Monaghan, who talked about how disability has been portrayed on television over the past 50 years and her inspiration for the programme.

I'm particularly excited about this programme, as it goes a long way to help dispel the ill-informed stereotypes often used to describe people living with a disability. Whatever happened to people being just that, people?!? This is a real bugbear of mine and markthree media have done a grand job of cutting through these stereotypes by holding up a mirror to them and showing everyone how ridiculous they are.

Unlike some people's misconceptions of disability, that it's all doom and gloom, from the clips we saw, the programme was refreshingly lighthearted. Yes there were points that beggared belief, both in terms of the language previously used and people's attitudes to disability, but this was nicely juxtaposed with the human ability to find humour where people would least expect it. I'd highly recommend taking some time out to watch this programme and give it the time and attention that it so deserves!

BBC2 - 9pm - 'Are you having a laugh? - TV and Disability'. Miss it, miss out!

It's two years since the concept for Enabled by Design was brought to life at the first ever Social Innovation Camp. During this time, we've been keen to find a way of giving those well-designed products that help to make people's lives that little bit easier the praise and recognition that they so deserve. Of course, we do this everyday on the Enabled by Design website, but we also thought it would be nice to pull together the best of the bunch in the very first edition of the Enabled by Design Annual.

 

The Enabled by Design team has trawled the website to come up with what we think is the best of the best, so read on to find out who's managed to bag themselves a prize...

 

Enjoy!

 

Team EbD x

 

PS. We'd just like to say a very big thank you to the fantastic team at Sidekick Studios for making this project possible! So without further ado, we'll pass you over to Mat from Sidekick who has worked so hard to bring the Enabled by Design Annual 2010 to life...

Recently, Sidekick Studios had the great pleasure of designing the very first Enabled by Design Annual. Denise and Dominic wanted to create an annual for their first ever EbD event at the Design Museum in London, for which they'd managed to wangle Wayne Hemingway and Charles Leadbeater to speak, amongst others.

The annual takes the best (and the worst) from the EbD website showcasing "people powered products" and championing Design For All. The design took the form of an awards book, with categories like "Must Have", "Household Gadget Or Gizmo" and "Lifestyle". Some familiar products feature in the annual: OXO's Good grips range and the Herman Miller office chairs to name a couple.

It also included a coveted "Wooden Spoon" award, but you'll have to pick up a copy from Enabled by Design to find out who got that one.

This was a lovely project to work on and we were more than happy for a chance to flex our graphic design muscles for a fantastic cause.

Mat from Sidekick Studios

Thanks Mat, it was lovely to work with you guys too! : )

We decided to launch the Enabled by Design Annual 2010 at last week's "We are Enabled by Design" event held at the Design museum, London. But for those of you who weren't able to join us, you can check it out here:

We'd love to hear what you think about the Enabled by Design Annual 2010. Do you agree or disagree with the categories/winners? Do you have any suggestions on how we can make it better? If so, please do let us know..

Don't forget, what you think really does count! If there's a product out there that you'd like to see in next year's Annual, please make sure that you post it on the Enabled by Design website so that it can be nominated. Thanks!

Follow what happened on the "We are Enabled by Design" event live blog here: