Weeknotes s01e29
Beige
Catch up with the last episode of my #weeknotes (number 28) by listening to it on SoundCloud! The audio version includes a new #weeknotes theme tune that I wrote and recorded all by myself [1]
I had an unspectacular week. I didn’t ruminate on anything particularly interesting or scratch at the edge of any great public sector digital insight that I’d want to share on the internet.
The skeleton I write over the course of the week says
Jesus I got so frustrated on Wednesday
but I think I was just tired.
Generally speaking I’ve had pretty low energy for the past few weeks. Related to that, sticking at #weeknotes is a bit of a slog too.
I’ve only got myself to blame for that, of course. Curating seriously professional animated GIFs like I do may well be admirable, but it’s unnecessary. Picking just the right Archers of Loaf reference [2] takes time. Working out when I said what in which of the growing number of #weeknotes episodes I’ve written to link back to it is increasingly difficult, and the Medium stats show that nobody clicks on the links anyway.
However, I committed to writing a proper ‘geek serial’ this year (see episode 9). All those unnecessary things (and more) make it fun for me.
So, onward.
Week in brief
On Monday I was late for a meeting, which makes me a hypocrite. I sat with Jamie (fellow Head of X), Colin (product manager) and Caroline (delivery manager) to prioritise work on the new website using a 4x4 grid. It was a good session. Jamie and I agree on pretty much everything.
I met with Tracey (Deputy Department Director) and Stephen (performance analyst) to talk about corporate management information dashboards and strategic measures. This was actually really constructive, with some frank and helpful advice from Tracey.
I met with Ken to talk about how requesting people with specialist skills works for programmes and projects.
Gavin had arranged a workshop on data visualisation with a wide variety of colleagues who do data visualisation in the House of Commons and House of Lords. Jamie led the workshop. I thought it was great, and there was some really impressive, expert work on show. My main interest is how we (the Digital Service) can better help people to do this impressive, expert work. There was a ready-made community there with people who didn’t know each other or didn’t work especially closely. I think that’s the first thing to try to build on. This is an illustration of how ‘digital’ doesn’t just mean computers.
The meeting was in a different building and I stayed late in the ground floor café doing work. It was very peaceful and cool, and a good opportunity to concentrate properly on something I’m collaborating on with fellow #weeknotes-er Sam.
On Tuesday I went to a meeting of the Information Management Practitioners Group about controlled vocabularies. I went to a meeting about DevOps. I went to a meeting about billing for cloud computing.
These meetings meant that I had to miss both the weekly team rally and our show and tell. This is becoming an increasingly regular thing, which I don’t like. Robert and Ben pretended to be me [3]. At least it’s good to be able to delegate. Trusting people to do things is good.
I met with Dia (product manager) to talk through the ‘data and search 101’ presentation she’s put together, which is an attempt to communicate the work of the team to a broad audience in an accessible way. We also spoke about search. Then Robert joined us and we spoke about search some more. We’re going to launch the new search service into live soon.
Emma (my Director) was delayed so we didn’t have our one to one, but I had a chat with Jeanette (fellow Head of X) instead.
I worked on correspondence.
On Wednesday we had data day, my team’s planning day. It was tough, and tiring, but we got through it. Main outcome for me was that we need to work harder on keeping Anya’s team informed about what we’re doing.
I took a break in the middle of data day to meet Louise. Louise has recently started writing #weeknotes, which is great. It was good to talk about my motivations for doing this in the first place, what I’m getting out of it, and my experience so far.
Louise and I also spoke about the things that you can’t say, which can often be tricky. I wish I was clever enough to turn my #weeknotes into some kind of caustic acrostic that would reveal all of my work woes if you could solve the puzzle.
I’m not clever enough though. Also I’m pretty lucky. There aren’t many work woes.
I did some writing and planning, including our plan to the end of March next year for team events (including some outside of that London), and working out what to do at our forthcoming ‘extravaganza’ when the team have an afternoon with Tracey to bring her up to date about to our work.
Thursday started with me meeting Anya to work through the issues from data day. We agreed to some things we could do better.
I did some customer support. I did some email. I went to the corporate management information dashboards meeting, and it was ok.
I had a one to one with Mike (engineer).
We had Emma’s team meeting, featuring the Heads of X Carrie, Jamie, Jeanette and Matt, plus Jo. Jeanette gave us an update on the road map for the new website, and we had a round-the-table sharing session.
I did some editing of a paper Aidan (delivery manager) had drafted about costs for the new data service.
It was my baking brother Henry’s leaving drinks.
Several people I’ve enjoyed working with have left recently and I am sad.
On Friday I had my one to one with Emma which was helpful and a good open chat as usual.
I went to the website show and tell. I really liked the bit about the approach to making the online shop better. It was also good to see how the recently released photos of MPs had increased traffic, and therefore increased the amount of precious feedback that the team were receiving.
My post about my trip to North America went live on the departmental blog (see also episodes 24–1 and 24–2). It’s in my annual objectives (see episode 18) to write 12 blog posts excluding #weeknotes by the end of March next year.
Oh, and I have to demonstrate how my writing has influenced people.
This is my fourth post since April [4], so I’m on the pace.
I did some career coaching. I volunteer as an internal career coach and I see people from the Digital Service and House of Commons to try to help them with their careers, with objective and confidential advice. My week would have been worse than beige without having done this session. It feels good to give something back to an organisation which has been really good to me over the years.
Michael published the team’s second set of resurrected #weeknotes. Again, being able to trust people to do things is good.
I did some cross-gov information sharing about work other people are doing with Parliament’s data.
I had my first proper one to one with Sara (data analyst), which was great.
I did some pottering around.
#CultureDan
Listening: ‘The Holy Bible’ by Manic Street Preachers. This is hands down one of the most important albums of my life. I think I picked it up because I linked a Manics song in last week’s #weeknotes. I could write about this record at some length, but there’s not much of a data and search angle in the chronicles of miserable teenage Dan.
Reading: Still ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ by Thomas Pynchon. I’m past half way through this 900+ page novel now. It’s good.
Watching: I saw ‘Alien: Covenant’. I rather liked it. I don’t usually get on with scary films.
#MeetingWatch
I had quite a few meetings last week, with around 40% of my time spent in them. That 40% is probably closer to 60% or more in terms of its impact on my productivity too.
Apart from having meetings, I got stuck in a revolving door a record 5 times.
One of the 12 blog posts I write this year will be called
“It’s not me. The door is broken.”
[1] Can I keep this audio companion up for the rest of the year? I doubt it. I really enjoy it though. It would really help the workload if I could travel in time, so that I could record my #weeknotes from… THE FUTURE
[2] I’ve actually never put in an Archers of Loaf reference, but if I did it would be something like “we put the web in front of our new data service”
[3] I’m pretty sure they never actually pretend to be me
[4] The other three so far are: The one about books and bureaucracy; the one about the new data service; and the one about tapas and icebergs that is not actually about tapas or icebergs. If you are reading this and have been influenced even a tiny bit by any of my seriously pro blog posts please get in touch and tell me in writing so that I have some evidence for my annual performance review
