A presentation looking at the work of Bromford Lab and our findings so far on loneliness.

1. Taking a fresh look
at Loneliness
Turning Problems Into Opportunities
Paul Taylor - Innovation Coach - Bromford Lab
@paulbromford

2. Bromford
Formerly a
housing
association
Now Becoming
a people
association

3. Bromford Lab
Innovation Lab
established 2014 to
introduce:
Joined up problem
definition
Fail fast
experimentation
More agility into
testing
Organisational
headspace for
creative thinking

4. ...and we aim to kill
bureaucracy
*or at least tame it

6. Once you’ve eliminated fear of failure
You can imagine pretty much anything

7. Our Wicked Problem
Every 12 weeks we focus on one BIG thing
that has emerged as something important
to customers and colleagues
Currently it’s turning loneliness from a
problem to an opportunity

9. Provocation
Is social isolation partly a result of
how the citizen services sector has
organised itself?

10. We created
a narrative
of lonely
older people

11. And a
narrative of
perma-
connected
younger
people

12. What if we stopped misery mapping and looking for
deficits and weakness?

13. What if , instead ,
we asked every single
employee in the social
sector to look for
assets and strengths?

14. What if we created physical and virtual bump spaces to
encourage conversations?

15. Do we need a Tinder for loneliness?

16. Can Co-Living
Solve Loneliness?

17. What if we just gave
people greater
influence over who
lived next door?

18. Is Anti-Social Behaviour really just a sign of loneliness?

19. What if we just
stuck a GoPro on a
goat and let it loose
in a community?

20. What if everyone became a
coach and community
connector?

21. Conclusions So Far

22. We are in
danger of
rushing to
technology as a
solution
Overlap of digital
resources is
creating a
difficult to
navigate
environment

23. Bromford doesn’t
need to digitise
the service
We need to
humanise it and
be unafraid in
not following the
crowd

24. We need to tap into existing community networks
not create them

25. The opportunity for innovation lies squarely in the
removal of practice, procedure and policy that inhibits
conversation and creativity

26. We need to build
in obsolescence for
much of our
service.
Are we brave
enough to design
ourselves out to
solve loneliness?

27. Thanks
paul.taylor@bromford.co.uk
www.bromfordlab.com
@paulbromford
@bromfordlab

28. Credits
Special thanks to all the people
who made and released these
awesome resources for free:
✘ Presentation template by
SlidesCarnival
✘ Photographs by Unsplash