Brendan Arnold

Studio manager role at Policy Lab! 🎉🎉🎉 - run our team-wide operations in a really amazing policy innovation team in central gov - Apply before 12th August www.linkedin.com/posts/policy...

Applications now open: Policy Lab Design Placements | Policy Lab UK Applications now open: Policy Lab Design Placements   Policy Lab is offering a limited number of paid placements (~6 months) for graphic designers, other designers and creative practitioners who thriv...

Great paid opportunity for early-stage designers to get experience in a policy design context in UK central government - massively recommended! #PolicyDesign #Placement www.linkedin.com/posts/policy...

Policy Lab are looking for an entry-level film ethnographer to join our team - www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cg...

Are you a UK civil servant looking to build your skills in innovative policymaking? | Policy Lab UK Are you a UK civil servant looking to build your skills in innovative policymaking? Policy Lab, a cross-government innovation team, is offering 4–6 month placements for civil servants interested in e...

People in government .... www.linkedin.com/posts/policy...

🚨 We are hiring! 🚨 Can you be Policy Lab's Aesthetics and… | Policy Lab UK 🚨 We are hiring! 🚨 Can you be Policy Lab's Aesthetics and Communications Lead? We are looking for an ambitious and talented individual to lead the development of Policy Lab's visual aestheti...

What a title… Aesthetics and Communication lead going at Policy Lab. Open to Bristol peeps - 3 of us here already, can we get Policy Lab SW?? www.linkedin.com/posts/policy...

Kal Dosa is amaze - if you want a bit closer to centre maybe Chido Way if you fancy a nice Mexican place?

#civilservice | Policy Lab UK Policy Lab and Government Skills (Cabinet Office) are calling on UK civil servants to join a groundbreaking online ‘collective intelligence’ debate, using our innovative Pol.is system, to revolutionis...

Running the online debate on the Future of Civil Service Skills with Policy Lab, come join - civil servants only! 👀

If you aren't a civil servant but know a few, please do let them know! - www.linkedin.com/posts/policy...

🧵 3/3 - ... delighted to be able to carve out time to collaborate on Collective Intelligence open-source with Citizens Foundation (citizens.is). @robertbjarnason.bsky.social and myself looked at how we can collaborate, meet UK gov criteria and prep the software for our sandbox

Picture of ab Icelandic road sign labelled 'Baldursgata'

Screen showing a still from Grand Theft Hamlet (people in a casino playing slot machines) from the perspective of an audience member in communal space

Banner for the Nuts video game - stylised image of a forest with a camera and squirrel semi hidden

🧵 2/3 - ... #VideoGames featured again with a viewing of Grand Theft Hamlet (www.undiscoveredcountryfilm.com) and Operation Jane Walk (totalrefusal.com/home/operati... ) at Hafnar Haus, meeting the developers of Nuts (noodlecake.com/games/nuts/ ) as well as even a visit to Baldurs Gate ...

Brendan giving a talk in the cateen at Hafnar Haus, people watching

Door showing the original Icelandic Ministry of Welfare decals alongside Hafnar Haus branding

Perspective of someone carrying a big bowl of salad entering a large room full of people

A modern office desk looking out of a bay window over a view of mountains and harbour

🧵 1/3 - Beyond the landscape, recent #Iceland 🇮🇸 trip highlights included a micro-residency at hafnar.haus, talks, discussions, brilliant socially conscious creatives in the former Ministry of Welfare. Lunchtime food parades and possibly the best office view ever ..

Rusty scrap remains of the Grimsby trawler wrecked on a black sand beach with a glacier behind it

Morning view out of a window of a small fishing harbour with lights on with a Fjord bluff behind it

Hand holding a bottle of Lysi cod-liver oil

An array of dried fish heads on display on a white tiled wall

Taken by how Icelanders seem to know my hometown of #Grimsby better than people in the UK do. Isolated Icelandic villages often had better ties to coastal towns around the world than Reykjavik. Got quite reflective, took a trip out to the Westfjords - came across a wrecked Grimsby trawler on the way

A Creative Technologist with the UK government | East of Moon Laboratories for community centred innovation.

Took some time out from my trip to 🇮🇸 to chat with Josie Maltinsky Gaitens from East of Moon about being a Creative Technologist in Policy Lab ... #EastOfMoonTransmissions #CreativeTechnology -

This is an incredibly annoying feature for other people too when e.g. putting together a workshop plan I don’t want everyone to know about my half-baked document…

Love the idea that writing blogs is writing letters to AI

🧵 4/4 - ... really feel we should be more proud of the things we do to fend off corruption and keep government sovereign, we need to be more transparent and help people understand what they see under the covers - so important for trust and resilience

A Raspberry Pi board in a hand

🧵 3/4 - ... it reminded me a lot of #Government. Trust is low, we hide so much complexity and it's seen as a monolith yet we strive so much for #OpenStandards, checks and balances which is partly why it seems slow - government is actually like a #RaspberryPi but we put it in a Macbook shell...

An array fo symbols of demons from Ars Goetia next to a photo of a circuit board with similar looking symbols (Original: @goth600 on X)

🧵 2/4 - ...it felt transgressive and is maybe against IT policy but its important to know what's under the covers. Inside is a network of patterns and black boxes which we could be tempted into conspiracy ("is there a spy chip in there?") (image: Demon symbols from Ars Goetia @goth600) ...

Filming of the cover removal of the Macbook on a conference table

Removing the cover of the Macbook with a screwdrivers

🧵 1/4 - In our fortnightly blue-sky session #ImaginationStation we took a closer look at the electronics around us as part of an art exploration. Part of this was logging off of Teams, shutting down the Macbook and removing the back cover to see what was inside ...

🧵 4/4 - ... really feel we should be more proud of the things we do to fend off corruption and keep government sovereign, we need to be more transparent and help people understand what they see under the covers - so important for trust and resilience

A Raspberry Pi board in a hand

🧵 3/4 - ... it reminded me a lot of #Government. Trust is low, we hide so much complexity and it's seen as a monolith yet we strive so much for #OpenStandards, checks and balances which is partly why it seems slow - government is actually like a #RaspberryPi but we put it in a Macbook shell...

An array fo symbols of demons from Ars Goetia next to a photo of a circuit board with similar looking symbols (Original: @goth600 on X)

🧵 2/3 - ...it felt transgressive and is maybe against IT policy but its important to know what's under the covers. Inside is a network of patterns and black boxes which we could be tempted into conspiracy ("is there a spy chip in there?") (image: Demon symbols from Ars Goetia @goth600) ...

🧵 2/3 - ...it felt transgressive and is maybe against IT policy but its important to know what's under the covers. Inside is a network of patterns and black boxes which we could be tempted into conspiracy ("is there a spy chip in there?") (image: demon sigals from Ars Goetha @goth600) ...

A man in pink shirt punches air in front of screen that reads - Cross Government Software Engineering Community

3/3 🧵 - … thanks to the organisers which are all volunteers - great event

A slide with a code comment that reads - When the signal is received, terminate all non-responsive children. Do not log any data about this, and spawn a new daemon.

2/3 🧵- @edent.tel great talk on what it takes to make government software open-source - here a comment is mad fuel for conspiracy ppl…

Presenter next to screen with abstract image of face on it

1/3 🧵 - Cross government software engineering conference today at GDS Whitechapel, presenting talk on Creative Technology in Government …

Ah amaze, @larakinneir.bsky.social has blue sky wings 🦋!

Selfie of Brendan, Prateek and Lara in the audience at UK GovCamp 2025 at MoJ Building, Petit France, London

Such a buzzy vibe at #ukgc25 with really some really thoughtful discussions. Policy Lab represent with @prateekbuch.bsky.social and Lara Kinneir - Moawr pls!

Very Useful Library all-round - its in my bookmarks!

#Bristol #Hackspace Christmas #RobotWars

Why we are experimenting with ethnography in the metaverse Over the past decade Policy Lab has established a foundational practice in film ethnography. Throughout this time, we have continued to push the boundaries of how this method can support policymakers ...

When our #Ethnography researchers showcased this to the team it was amazing to see how the discussion in-game was different to that in the participant's home - two completely different complementary bits of insight, both so rich 💡 openpolicy.blog.gov.uk/2024/12/11/w...