S3 episode 17 out and about
This week has felt slightly random at times– it’s reading week** at UCL so my normal pattern is interrupted, and I’d agreed to speak at a couple of events so was out of the office for some of the week.
So what happened this week?
- I spoke at two events – one on a topic I’m familiar with and passionate about — Governance as a service. It was good to have a conversation with other local authority people about this at the LGA digital conference. And then the next day I’d agreed to be on a panel about digital transformation***– a much more free range conversation which makes me nervous (will I say the wrong thing, what if I don’t know what to say etc). A good opportunity to stretch my confidence ahead of a panel I’m on at Google ‘19 in a couple of weeks time.
2. I heard an amazing talk at the second conference – about the relationship between Culture, wellbeing and physical space. The speaker Bertie Van Wyk was highly engaging and knowledgeable - it was the sort of talk where you find yourself nodding in agreement and realising that you sort of knew this already from experience but didn’t have the evidence/narrative to be able to articulate what you felt. I also learnt a new word — proxemics – the study of how close is too physically close?
3. The delivery team got together to think about how they will design and run themselves as a self organising team. We’ll still have line managers for HR admin – but as a team they’re experimenting for 6 months with what self organising might look like.
4. I caught up on a lot of reading this week – various strategy documents from the organisation that I’d glanced at whilst last week was so busy, but that needed a more focused read. I’m feeling more up to speed now and better able to operate across the organisation having taken the time to read them properly.
5. I went to a show and tell from infrastructure colleagues on their work to consolidate and update our windows servers. It’s great to see all our teams sharing their work openly – both successes and challenges. A couple of teams have also started writing team weeknotes which are really useful and engaging. I learn loads from these interactions – picking up all sorts of technical knowledge along the way and noticing the similarities and patterns in teams and how they work, no matter what the subject matter.
6. Eddie, Genta and I ironed out the last few bits of our prototype guide for designing and running a successful digital apprenticeship programme. It’s not perfect or complete – but it’s good enough to be tested by colleagues in a couple of authorities, who can then feedback and tell us what’s missing, what’s useful and what isn’t.
UCL reading
I’m about two thirds of the way into The Affluent Society by John Galbraith, fascinating, well written and also often more than a bit dated in attitudes tbh. All these things can be true at once of course.
And this from IIPP was one of the readings for this week:
Also for our group project I read into Copenhagen’s bicycle strategy – the underlying data, measurement of value of impact.
What else did I read this week?
This succinct blog post from Tom Read at MOJ:
This from Deborah Rowland writing for the LSE, I love the idea of the perceived weirdness index:
and finally this from Estonia, on a different way of dealing with speeding behaviour, thinking about what users value (and then removing that):
*Like a lot of people I find winter darkness hard — and have to rely on a lightbox as we get to these darker days. I also try to make sure I take time outside when it’s light and the sun puts in appearance.
**not a holiday
***I don’t really like that phrase — and see Deborah Rowland article above too
