My digital world

Kate Nelson, Principal Sustainability Consultant, Talks about her Digital World.

The original article appears on Building Sustainability Design's website

What is your favourite website?

I am hooked on www.etsy.com – its mission is to reconnect makers with buyers and it has a fantastic shop local function which hooks me into all the UK based designers and artists. As someone who works in responsible procurement, I love the idea of buying one-off, handmade items instead of mass produced goods.

What is your favourite gadget?

It isn’t really a gadget but last year I became a mac user and it was love at first drag and drop.

What’s the most useful website you access for your work?

I recently worked out that the best way to get the latest information was to stop subscribing to email newsletters and follow your favourites on twitter instead. It keeps your inbox clear and you can pick and choose what to follow up on. At the moment I am following Ethical Corporation, Building and the UN Climate Change 09 tweeters.

What was the last track you downloaded?

I am all about spotify.com at the moment where you can listen to most albums for free (legally!) but the last download was Useful Chamber by Dirty Projectors.

What was the subject of the last email you received?

Skittles! We are currently building an intranet for our sustainable design lab which will link our designers, architects, engineers, planners and project mangers together in sharing best practice and developing new tools for our projects. We have been inspired by the skittles website which plugs into twitter, flickr and youtube to generate content which means it is by the people for the people.

Social networking or face-to-face?

Hard to say, I am a fair weather friend of facebook but I can see its potential. At this stage I must say a conversation over a pint of ale is my preference.

Who is your favourite blogger?

My favourite blogger at the moment would have to be my friend Charlotte who is on gastro boot camp at the moment in Ireland - http://chopchop-charlotte.blogspot.com

Charlotte works for Sustain and she has helped me be a more ethical eater particularly when it comes to fish.

What’s been the best link you’ve ever been sent?

www.walkit.com – we are based on Victoria and I find I can walk to all my meetings instead of spending time cooped up in taxis and tubes.

What was the last thing you bought online?

A fruit and veg box from Abel and Cole

What was the funniest piece of spam you ever received?

Spammers have become so lazy so I haven’t had a good piece in ages, but I did hear a funny story about spam which involved a major tunnelling project and a filter which automatically deleted emails which included the word 'shaft'.