Nice to see you.
These types of videos (showing lots of web and social media stats) pop up every few months. Nice to watch occasionally. (Though does get a bit repetitive once you’ve seen a couple).
JESS3 / The State of The Internet from JESS3 on Vimeo.
JESS3 designed and animated this for the JESS3 lecture at AIGA Baltimore in Feb 2010.
I love what the nec (new economics foundation) produces. Right up my street.
I hate it when the government is always talking about growth, seems like I’m not the only one.
It’s great how the global coworking community pulled together to get the coworking.com domain they always wanted.
In the rush to get The Software Testing Club magazine live, I realised I neglected to blog about it.
If you haven’t seen it, check it out.
It’s been a great experience working closely with Rob Lambert, Phil Kirkham and Joel Montvelisky. Plus of course all the people that contributed content meant that we had a grand 47 pages to put together.
For me the great part was putting the STC stamp on it. Being in charge of it (as a team) we had full control over the content and the design. It also meant banging my head whilst getting to grips with Adobe Indesign. The result was that we felt that we could add a bit of much needed fun to it.
Hope you enjoy it.
I’ve long had frustration with how our capitalist system works. Especially since having kids. Things get damn expensive.
This post kind of focuses of the children/family angle, but will hopefully show how our society is driven to spend and we increasingly feel tied down because of what we feel we need to commit to.
Perhaps turn away from the following figures if you plan to have kids and want to maintain both parents working. 
So if the ‘mother’ plans to go back to work full time then kids have to have full time care. In the UK families are not as close to each other as other countries, so there is a natural reliance on child care. This usually comes in the form of a nursery or childminder.
A quick search on Brighton Nurseries will show a common price of £40 per day per child at a nursery. Some are a bit less, others easily go up to £50 per day.
So if you have one child and work full time then that’s 5 days per week for 52 weeks per year. Yes there will be holidays in between, but to keep your childs place often you are pressurised into paying for their attendance even if they are not there. For calculation purposes and to show I am not trying to be excessive we could calculate this to be based on 48 weeks per year.
So, £200 per week (£40 per day) x 48 weeks = £9600.
£9600 is after tax. So ‘the mother’ would have to earn around £12,000 per year before they can start paying themselves.
Of course it’s worse if you have two children under the age of 5. It could be double that figure (£24,000). Our government does support working families financially with child care, but this is only when the child turns 3 – not quite quick enough – (especially when they encourage mothers to get back to work within a year).
So if you did have 2 kids (like I do) £24,000 is a lot of money to find every year – just to cover the costs of childcare. Even if it was a few thousand less, it’s still a lot of money! Many parents obviously opt out, or choose to work part time. Putting their career on hold and then feeling like they can’t (or don’t want to) get back on the ladder once their kids start school full time.
It’s also very stressful. Getting kids ready early in the morning. Picking them up when they are tired. The sadness of not spending as much time as you would like with them…it just doesn’t feel right, not to me anyways.
The bigger point is that whilst this example is very much a reflection of my experience and situation – the pressure to keep working and make money is huge.
I could go on, but the point is that it is very expensive to be a ‘full time worker’.
If you didn’t have to work ‘as much’ many of the costs could be significantly reduced. It’s easy to save a bit of money here and there. The extra time could be used to do those things that you really want to or should do. I’d be very surprised if people’s lives overall would not improve.
There is a report recommending a 21 hour working week by the New Economic Foundation.
I know that I’m not the only one who feels our modern, western, capitalist society needs to change to be more human, social and community focused.
There’s a great post about the reluctance of people to take community seriously. Also a response to it too.
Both worth a read if you’re into ‘community’.
I can’t help but look at the government and feel completely dissatisfied.
There really could be a better way.
As an example, imagine if:
Each street in every town and city had a representative. A community person. Someone who ensured everything in the street was ok. Someone who would act and report things on behalf of the street. There would be some kind of benefit associated with it, not necessarily a salaried position. Perhaps something like getting 100% relief on council tax or local vouchers of some kind.
Or, perhaps there could be something like Kickstarter. Someone could post a project like paint over some local graffiti, clear the snow and grit their street, host a local street party. It could be funded by the government. There would be some money in it for the people that do it. It improves the local community spirit and provides a different way for people to make money.
Or imagine if we could all vote at the click of a mouse button on where money should go. Instead of people who live in different worlds to us to make decisions on our behalf.
Just ideas and probably wishful thinking
“13 of the World’s Top Women Testers Share Unique Insights Into the Profession” is the main feature of the STP magazine.
I’ve been listed as one of them and wrote an article called “Use the Social Web to Build Your Career Brand”.
