Category: Uncategorized

The death knell of appointments

June 7, 2014 /

So far the appointments have been rather disappointing; one one person has turned up for their slot, and unfortunately I couldn’t help her fully with her issue.  When you add in as well that the appointment sheet was misplaced for this week it does me things rather awkward

At this rate it looks like I will be going back to a drop in surgery for September, as I get more people coming in and its easier for me to arrange via Social Media.  The appointment slots were only ever meant to be a way to control the number of activities I was undertaking, but it seems to have caused more problems than it solved.

I will be taking a break in August, returning in September for more monthly surgeries.  I will be going back to running the surgeries as a drop in session, so please pay attention to Twitter/facebook/linkedin for the dates!!

Update on appointments at Laptop Surgeries

May 15, 2014 /

So I’ve completed the first surgery based on appointments on Saturday, and I have to say that not only was this an easier way to do it, we still had some issues.

The biggest of these was people not turning up for their appointment. I know that I’m doing this for free, but this is very frustrating as I had to turn away two people who had turned up and needed my help because my time was already booked up.

Let’s see how June’s surgery turns out.

Laptop Surgery Dates

March 24, 2014 /

These are the Saturday’s that I will be at St Johns Wood Library;

5th April
10th May
7th June
5th July

After realising that I spent too much energy on these surgeries previously, I will be taking August 2014 and January 2015 off, So I will be publishing new dates later in the summer.

I haven’t had any feedback about how people would prefer these surgeries to be held? Drop in or Appointment based?  you can contact me on twitter with any comments you might have. (@flexsite) 

Laptop Surgeries Ending

July 9, 2013 /

As some of you may or may not be aware, I have stopped the Laptop Surgeries that I was holding at Keats Library and Marylebone Library.

After almost 4 years these had become a staple of my community work and had blossomed into a fully featured service covering all facets of computing, but as they grew, the surgeries lost their focus on the original goal which was to help those who were first starting out in computing with their first issues so that they were not permanently put off by the process.

I would like to thank everyone that made a point of using the Surgeries, I felt privileged that I could help…

First Laptop Surgery at Keats Comunity Library

September 9, 2012 /

Yesterday I had the privilege of offering a laptop surgery at Keats Community Library in Hampstead; for those of you who might not know what that is I offer a two hour drop in surgery for people to bring along their IT problems for my help in fixing them.  These normally take the form of impartial advice on everything from whether they need to replace their current laptop, and if so which one to buy.

Normally when I get the last question I don’t normally tell them to buy this model or that model, or that apple is better than windows or vice versa; instead I give them a framework to understand the sales jargon.  People often find this to be the best way because they feel they can make an informed choice.

There are so many good things that come out of these surgeries, particularly the satisfaction that is felt by everyone (myself included) that they have someone that is willing to listen.

Yesterdays surgery saw three people coming along, and with all the problems being fixed satisfactorily I hope that I get more surgeries like this in the future!

First Laptop Surgery at Kentish Town Library: Good example of first day dramas!

November 26, 2011 /

For those of you who haven’t read my previous posts, I run drop in laptop surgeries in London Libraries as part of an experiment originally started through IT4Communities.

Previously I was running one in Queens Crescent, Camden and Marylebone Library, Westminster; however I have been asked to expand this somewhat and start to include Kentish Town Library as well!

I was approached by Philip, a lovely gentleman who I met when I was trying desperately to get Camden to let me run these surgeries, at the beginning of October as he had moved jobs and wanted me to include Kentish Town as well…  After considering that while I didn’t want to lose either of the other two surgeries but didn’t want to spread myself too thin either I opted to split the Camden one between Queens Crescent and Kentish Town on a monthly basis.

I turned up this morning to find that Philip had been promoted and moved on, and to my surprise had not left anyone my contact details to follow up on the surgeries!  The staff were very helpful in the end once they realised who I was, and overall I think the first surgery was a success!

Lets hope this trend continues!!