In doing it, you find out why you did it

…yes, continuing with the words of Tony Wilson from the last instalment. Because, this Friday morning on the Brighton seafront, we’re doing a thing.

The short version; I met Rob Alcroft of Wayforward last year, through the inaugural meetings of what is now the Sussex Futures Network*.

About a week or so ago, I saw Rob post about Secrets Beneath The Sea, an installation that he and Angus Light of Locate Productions had worked on with the Sussex Wildlife Trust to put up in the Brighton Seafront Gallery. The purpose is to make people more aware of the amazing saline that lives just off the Sussex coast, and the brilliant ongoing recent efforts to regenerate it.

It also reminded me of the Coralligenous Habitats in the Mediteranean Sea project that Toban Shadlyn and I worked on for the IED Innovation & Future Thinking summer course last year too.

This exhibition wasn’t going to be up for long. But it immediate felt like a STEPS Collective field trip. Rob, Angus and I quickly plotted, planned.

Maybe these folks will speak? Maybe we can do this? Three talks? Four?

It began to feel a bit like planning an event you’d spend six weeks on in six days. We put up the event, and started to see how many people were around at short notice.

Then, today, as we learned that some folks we’d hoped would talk would be on a boat instead (which is a brilliant excuse, to be fair), we realised we were going about it the wrong way.

This shouldn’t be the end of something, but the beginning.

An opportunity to use the installation as inspiration for what’s to come next, not a celebration of what has already been done.

So come along on Friday morning if you wish, and join us for coffee and pastries to just… imagine what might come next. To share stories of how we have made the invisible visible in different ways before. To explore what might be possible on the Brighton Beachfront.

Together, we’re going to do a thing, and then work out why we’ve done it. Then, we will have a think about what we might want to do next…

Sign-up here if it sounds like your kind of thing:

Secrets Beneath The Sea · Luma

UPDATE: A few changes for Friday… dues to people being on boats in the Sussex Bay and all sorts of things. We are still going to be looking at the exhibition,…

And if you can’t make it to Brighton, but do have an opportunity to hang out with folks this Friday… well, maybe make some plans to do a thing too.

*There is also a new WhatsApp community for the Sussex Futures Network too.

We have found that the LinkedIn, lately, is following the Facebook path of “sure, we know these people have signed up to hear about things, but we in no way want to actually tell them”.

Principles for Work

I’ve been playing around with something this week in the margins; three principles for work. Some broadly applicable reasoning for challenging stances I hold.

Yes, this would include (inevitably, boringly) LLMs.

But I’m more interested in exploring if I can express some principles in a way that isn’t quite so issue specific. Perhaps going back to information as light not liquid.

Anyway, here they are as they currently stand:

1. Treat the work of the past with respect

Other people were here before you. Acknowledge them every time you can, and speak their names aloud. Understand where and when they were coming from. Pay them their dues, and pay them what they’re owed. The deal they struck then is the deal that stands now. You are not better, or smarter, or quicker; you’re just later.

2. Approach work in the present with honesty

If you’ve done a thing, say you have. If you haven’t, say who did, or might. Work as openly as you can. Steal from Perec: write in order to peruse yourself. Know why you wrote these words, drew these lines, and set this direction. Everything is LEGO: everything you see comes apart at the seams. Show others how.

3. Set up the work of the future for success

Try and separate whether you want to do something from whether you should. Carry your experience in the smallest bag. Test the boundaries. Do things, then work out why you’ve done them. Keep the options open, especially the invisible ones. Futures are not something we have, they are something we do.

I’d be interested in your reaction to these, and also on whether you hold any general principles or values yourself when it comes to how you apply yourself to the world.

Right then - until next time.

John V Willshire
08.07.26