1) This research project aims to launch HTiC (Hidden Talent in Clacks) to identify job roles for the unemployed and help them enter the job market in a stigma-free way. 2) The researcher will test approaches on himself as an unemployed "house husband" to develop a replicable model for others. 3) The project will build and refine prototypes through iterative testing and stakeholder engagement to establish HTiC as a charitable organization with products, methodology, and place in the local economy and research community by January 2016.

1. Hidden Talent in Clacks (HTiC) research brief: June -
December 2015
Author: Nick Bubeck, HTiC founder
Please note that, as well as being the author of this brief, I am also the person who will be carrying
out the research. For the purpose of honest realism, therefore, I am breaking with research
tradition and writing this in the first person. In this line of work, we must never forget that every
business-owner, and every unemployed person, is a unique human being.
Part 1: Overview
This research project is designed as the launch phase of HTiC. It is a piece of operational
research intended to produce an effective model for identifying and/or creating job-roles that are
immediately accessible to the unemployed, and for introducing the unemployed to the job market
in a way that negates the stigma of unemployment that currently hampers their efforts.
How does a man or woman move from unemployment into paid employment? They cannot just
select a workplace and simply turn up one morning. It takes two steps:
Step 1! Find a job and apply for it
Step 2! Be offered that job and accept the offer
These two steps are not independent. But tackling unemployment means tackling both of them.
Scope of the project
One has to be realistic about what a six-month research brief can cover. At the same time, HTiC is
an enterprising and ambitious undertaking.
Realism:! This project is confined to helping people whose primary issue is unemployment,
with no other major barriers (such as ill-health) excluding them from the workforce.
Ambition:! The project will identify and empirically test an approach that is not widely used, and
develop it into a model that can be replicated.
The empirical test is simple: I myself am the guinea-pig. I have been a “house-husband” - and
therefore absent from the traditional workplace - for eight years, and it is not easy to sell that to an
employer. If HTiC works for me, I can offer it to the wider unemployed community.
Background factors
There are certain SLEPT factors in play at the inception of this project (June 2015).
Social! Unemployment and working poverty are ongoing problem in the Forth Valley; at the
same time, the poor are widely and loudly stigmatised (the TV programme “Benefits
Street” being just one example).
Legal! The unemployed live under the continual threat of sanctions - removal of the little
income they have - and this limits my freedom to help those on JSA.
Economic! Although there appear to be few jobs in the Forth Valley, there are many employers
who speak of the difficulty in finding employees but who lack a good recruiting
strategy, and this suggests that there may be many hidden opportunities.
Political! Westminster remains committed to escalating the current sanctions-based approach
and to keeping the management thereof as a reserved power, whereas Holyrood is
opposed to both of those policies.
Technical! There are many unexplored possibilities for freelance working that neither the
unemployed nor the employing community are fully exploiting.
All of these help to inform the approach for this research brief.
Page 1 of 2! 2nd June 2015! Author: Nick Bulbeck

2. Part 2: the project
This is a concise description of the project - a detailed explanation of day-to-day operations is not
the concern of a research brief.
Budget and resources
It is vital to note that the typical unemployed person has little or no budget and is not paid to seek
work. Likewise, this project begins with no specific financial input. I have two main resources.
Myself! I have extensive experience of (and aptitude for) business networking,
process and systems analysis, research per se, and starting an
organisation from scratch.
Generic resources! I have telephone and internet access, a great deal of information is publicly
available, and more will become available to me as I establish and expand
my functioning local network.
If these resources seem unrealistic for the task, compare it with job-hunting while on
benefits.
All being well, I will additionally need to fit HTiC around whatever employment I am able to secure.
Solving the problem of how to bring in other people to work on the HTiC model is part and parcel of
the challenge of making the HTiC model replicable and sustainable.
Research objectives
This an operational research project, geared towards perfecting an as-yet-unused approach to
solving the problem faced by an unemployed person: how do I get established in decent, long-
term employment?
Research approach
An organisation is only as good as its people, and for HTiC in 2015, that means me. The approach
is based, therefore, around as much face-to-face contact as possible with the target communities.
The other important descriptor of the approach is that it will be an iterative development
methodology, of the kind developed in the fields of software and mechanical engineering. That is:
1. Build a prototype using the available resources and information
2. Test the prototype in as realistic a setting as possible
3. Refine the prototype using the test results
4. Repeat
Deliverables
The fundamental deliverable is HTiC itself, as a charitable organisation with a recognisable product
and methodology, and its own place:
• In the local economy
• In the research and development (or “think tank”) community
This also defines the target audience:
• Businesses and business groups in the Forth Valley
• Other social entrepreneurs and research groups around the UK
Timeline
HTiC must “hit the ground running” in January 2016.
June! Initial approaches to target audience: SWOT analysis
July/August! Develop and present concrete proposals to target audience
Sept - Nov! Build, use and refine recognisable HTiC products and services
Dec! “Report”: published articles in media outlets recognised by the target audience
Page 2 of 2! 2nd June 2015! Author: Nick Bulbeck