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Alastair Somerville

@acuity.design
3.7K followers 1.3K following 16K posts

Clarity and kindness as foundations for work. Information perception in physical & digital places. Facilitation and workshop design for codesign and civic assemblies. Public prototyping on BlueSky. He/him

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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 44m
Looking at new workshop but checking how it fits with Breath In/Out sense of emotional tension/relaxation. Workshop cannot be anxiety followed by anxiety (or there must be some intervention somehow) #facilitation
Slide showing a rising/falling wave of tension and relaxation - the workshop content is in the middle and is fitted to sense of rising fear or spreading hope.
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 2h
Where are you on the PDF to Bin Pipeline?
Basic diagram with PDF symbol on left, bin symbol on  right and an arrow from one to the other
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 4h
This is what is also discussed in books like Disaster Nationalism. The far right appeal is in a pipeline that sharpens to a point of violence.
Knife diagram of how right wing narratives go from be present with resentment, name the other as responsible and permission revenge
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 29/09/2026
Drafting Stroud civic assembly questions about food affordability Big question frames boundaries Little questions are to provide accessibility from differing living experience perspectives
Big question about food and affordability. Little questions from perspective of people in existing crisis or approaching crisis and organisations managing processes
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 28/09/2026
Meeting about civic assembly in Stroud and talking about questions. Big Q, Little Q. One acts as boundary, three as perspective defining. #WayFinding
Diagram of Big Q with three smaller Q’s arranged around a triangle
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 28/09/2026
And do what now?
Unsuitable for diverted traffic sign next to road
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 27/09/2026
They used to trap evil spirits in circles. The spirit wanted to keep moving AI circles around too. Like a clock from trust to no trust AI hype cycle as a Tudor evil spirit trap
Tudor mansion circles carved in wood of wall. AI clock face of good and bad, trust and no trust
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 27/09/2026
Eye Can free event tomorrow at Dowty Sports & Social, Gloucester, GL2 9QH I’ll be at the Five Valleys Sounds table for Stroud’s talking newspaper
Two cards for table - one on how to listen to newspaper online, one on how to contact organisation
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 26/09/2026
Chaotic queues for Bayeux Tapestry - they could get the people in long line to pose like figures in tapestry. Just need to hand out helmets and arrows
Times headline and photo of long queue across museum inside courtyard
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 25/09/2026
Oktoberfest dinner of currywurst and chips
Sausage under curry sauce and with chips. A stein of lager next to plate
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 25/09/2026
Next book looks more readable in terms of saying what happens next
The care manifesto by the politics of interdependence
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 25/09/2026
Finally finished Community Safety on the Fourth World War. It’s not a long book but the use of obtuse academic language makes it really hard to understand what matters. It’s like reading Will Self explaining how to open a pack of crisps.
Book cover is title in red text on cream background
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 25/09/2026
24/9/77 and Open University is asking the big question at 8.30am Where is Wales?
Radio Times listing for Saturday morning and Open University has many programmes.
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 25/09/2026
Proper smart phone
Analogue black dial phone with many switches too
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 25/09/2026
Time is tricky and institutional time is not like individual time. How we shift time perceptions is hard. Frictionless/instant processing of information hasn’t helped that. Forms and post were useful in slowing and crossing time layers
Diagram of the hugeness and length of institutional time and the scrappy blips of individual time
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 24/09/2026
Must be midnight again on the AI BS clock. How time flies
Clock face with Rogue Ai as midnight, trust us at 9, clear ai rules at 6 and don’t trust us at 3
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 24/09/2026
Wolverhampton nail factory in 1962 - part of dad’s film
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 24/09/2026
Daily #AI BS Loop
Looping from trust us to don’t trust us via rogue ai scare to clear ai rules
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 24/09/2026
“Tie with string” instruction in late 50’s. Presumably that new-fangled Selloptape was a pain for unpacking at Kodak developing labs.
Kodak 8mm film box has postal instruction to tie with strong and not use adhesive tape
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 23/09/2026
“Are we the baddies?” meme killed off by Labour government and police who simply don’t care
Are 80 year olds holding placards the only baddies now? Intimidating uniform and weapons don’t really count?
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 23/09/2026
Burger-style sandwich - meaning is collapsing
Sainsbury’s premium sandwich which has layers of mince, sauce, lettuce and gherkins
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 23/09/2026
Doing community-training course on #facilitation skills for civic assembly. This is the content diagram for #ActiveListening and then faciltating fair conversations and real opinions. A lot is trying to show how to nudge not impose as facilitator.
Conversations are held within Active Listening and the conversations enabled by two facilitation methods
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 23/09/2026
I have looked at Active Hope theory as that process is interesting and also because it looked awfully like the Active Hate process. Walking people back and then forward seemed to be possible. Still very tricky and also anxiety-inducing for people who are victims of such hate
Two spirals - one of hope and one of hate. The are three key points where interventions could be made
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 23/09/2026
Reminding myself that asking people to say no when they are facing systemic power can be too much. Ask them to start with a chat, find an ally and build towards a We. Shift from individual to communal power layer.
We say no badge
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 22/09/2026
Setting out my position and perspective at start of talk at Lean Agile conference
Agile tools have led to individual Value Capture and that leaves institutions vulnerable to AI slop.
Seriousness can help rebuild the value of expertise in individuals and institutions.
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 22/09/2026
Value Capture as described by C. Thi Nguyen. The expert loses their expertise and thus the institution loses its ability to see AI as slop
• Your values are rich and subtle - or developing that way.
• You enter some social (typically institutional) setting that offers you simplified, often quantified renditions of your values.
• The simplified versions take over.
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 22/09/2026
Writing conference talk so dumping phrases and diagrams out here while sorting my thinking out
Three layer diagram of seriousness- be expert, be present, be meaningful
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 22/09/2026
GenAI makes play as an engagement tool tricky as the spaces made by AI mimic spaces made by play.
Both play and AI make new spaces but the prompts and slopfacts of AI are not the same as playful interactions and artefacts of play
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 21/09/2026
The core problem in new talk about #AI slop and Value Capture. That experts have lost their professional richness and subtlety and so become unable to spot or tell why slop is bad to their organisation.
9 slides printed out explaining the idea of value capture in The Score book. The losing expertise to simplicity.
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 21/09/2026
Writing new talk - using seriousness and valuing expertise against #AI
Slop'ageddon is not inevitable
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 21/09/2026
Local council election here and Reform have two leaflets - one against Greens and one against Tory/Labour. That the latter are indistinguishable from each other is striking. Also only Greens represent the Future.
A5 leaflets. One about the wrecking of UK if Greens gain power and one about Labour/Tories did wreck Britain
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 21/09/2026
Forbidden Planet makes more sense when you think of the Krell machine as an AI data centre generating slop monsters of the Id
Tiny humans walking among the giant underground Krell machines
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 21/09/2026
One moment of Dame Evelyn Glennie playing in Stroud last night
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 20/09/2026
#HiddenNotes final performance by Dame Evelyn Glennie & Catrin Finch in Stroud
Evelyn playing cymbals with harp accompanying
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 20/09/2026
Zine prototype for talk at Lean Agile Scotland in Edinburgh on 30th October
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 20/09/2026
Sunset thru church windows at #HiddenNotes festival
B&W photo over audience in church light flooding thru stained glass window
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 20/09/2026
Drone electronica/electrobard Madrigirl at Hidden Notes festival today. Last time I was here it was a ceilidh run by morris dancers. #Stroud
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 20/09/2026
Zine-making in cafe with record cards and sticky tape from WH Smith. Slightly more portable than sheets of A4 for prototyping
Mini zine on cafe table made from folded up white card, but smaller then postcard, sticky together at spine with tape
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 20/09/2026
There’s a colonial pattern within citizen and civic assemblies - the extraction of decisions and ideas that are packaged as fuel for the democratic system that is failing the participants. The outputs of assemblies are PDFs and manifestos. So what is the outcome for participants?
What is the outcome you hope for?
Civic Assemblies generally hove outputs like Monitesto or Guidelines. These are published and shared as PDFs and validate the organiser's intent in organising the event.
But what is the outcome for participants?
For participants, the outcomes can range widely.
Rupture - having on effect upon status quo of power system
Recognition - being noticed by power system
Respect - being volidoted by power system
Reaction - creating feedback from power system
Response - creating visible action by power system
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 20/09/2026
Listening to Laurie Anderson before leaving
Home of the Brave Lp on turntable
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 19/09/2026
Caturday and Nya retired to teen bed
Domestic short hair cat tucked up under duvet in bed
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 19/09/2026
Worrying about the outputs and outcomes of civic assembly we’re organising. There’s a bias in the outputs to the organiser. What is the meaning of the event for the participants? What is their outcome?
What is the outcome you hope for?
Civic Assemblies generally hove outputs like Monitesto or Guidelines. These are published and shared as PDFs and validate the organiser's intent in organising the event.
But what is the outcome for participants?
For participants, the outcomes can range widely.
Rupture - having on effect upon status quo of power system
Recognition - being noticed by power system
Respect - being volidoted by power system
Reaction - creating feedback from power system
Response - creating visible action by power system
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 19/09/2026
Techbros logic The #AI mistakes are the proof
Humans are sentient
To err is human
AI err
QED Al is sentient
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 19/09/2026
#BatmanDay and here’s a public experiment I did on what people can draw of Batman in 5, 10, 20, 40 seconds
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 19/09/2026
Diagram from yesterday - longtermism is millenarianism at a slightly different angle
How Christianity put perfection up into post-death heaven while long termism puts forward into a post-death future
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 18/09/2026
Longtermism is just millenarianism at a different angle - not up anymore but forward
Basic diagram showing Christianity as putting perfection up into invisible heaven while Longtermism puts it into invisible future
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 17/09/2026
Interesting point about repair by Amandeep Kalra at GreenFlip. Manufacturing is a one-way ratchet. Processes of making become more automated, more efficient. Yet repair is more time-consuming and more individual. Factories get automated but repair cafes can’t.
Making new products is incredibly efficient and highly automated, but repair is the opposite. It's manual and people-led, one job at a time.
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 17/09/2026
My talk in Edinburgh on 30th October at Lean Agile Scotland leanagile.scot On being serious and being expert in a time of AI slop and misinformation
Agile and modern project management have given us powerful ways to collaborate: workshops, retrospectives, participatory exercises, visualisations and increasingly sophisticated approaches to stakeholder engagement. But what happens when the problem itself demands a different kind of engagement?
Over the past few years, Alastair Somerville has worked with organisations including the Design Council and Royal Academy of Engineering on Beyond Net Zero and climate crisis projects. Working with citizens, activists and professionals has challenged a familiar assumption: that engagement is more effective when it is playful, energising and collaborative.
This talk explores seriousness as an engagement method—and what Agile and project leaders can learn from it. When stakes are high, people may need different forms of facilitation to express disagreement; less simulation and more access to expertise and decision-makers; and clearer proof that their participation will affect outcomes.
Drawing on public consultation, climate projects and a decade of workshop practice, Alastair will explore how we can design engagement that matches the complexity and consequences of the problems we are trying to solve.
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 17/09/2026
Unhealthy perception in culture wars.
YOU MUST PAY ATTENTION TO ALL THINGS
Human perception generally works best when ignoring anything which isn't usable. Paying attention to everything is painfully draining.
YOU MUST HAVE A SET OPINION ON ALL THINGS
Having an opinion is part of being sentient. A person in a place/time with a past. Yet, like perceiving everything, there is a strain in holding opinions over time.
YOUR OPINION MUST BE CLEARLY BINARY
ON ALL THINGS
Binary opinions are a clarity trap that are exploited to make people be in one group or another. The blurriness of reality enables conversations not fights.
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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 16/09/2026
8mm film getting digitised £150 for the machine
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