“If you’re tired of waiting for the revolution, start it yourself.”
What I’ve been doing…
- Sadly, I didn’t get to make it to #OneTeamGovInWales on Monday due to other commitments. I did lurk from afar and amongst the many other ace things going on I particularly liked the idea of starting your own revolution. Most of us are put off tackling the big intractable problems we can see before us because.. well.. they just seem too big and intractable. But through microactions, perhaps we can make things gradually better, by being the change we want to see in the world. Vive la revolution!
- I went to the inaugural Digital Transformation network for Welsh Housing Associations. Really useful to hear about what other people are up to and what the shared challenges are (GDPR, Mediocre/Bad IT systems & suppliers, PORTALS!!!!). Thinking about it, at future events would be good to get more non-techie types from different bits of the organisation to come along and see what it’s all about. (mental note to feed this back via email after posting this)
- I spotted a tweet by Ben Unsworth of FutureGov doing a show & tell for Hackey Council around supporting residents accessing work. Looked massively interesting from a Housing Association perspective. Ben kindly offered to tell the story behind the work. Group Hangout booked for next week. I’ll report back.
- Had a great chat with our Chief Exec regarding Openness & Transparency. Our workplace is already a moderately high trust environment, but there’s always more we can (and should!) do to nudge the scale further towards being truly open by default. As a fan of working in the open, I’ve spent a fair bit of time experimenting with different methods. I’ve discovered that you can be super transparent via blogs/trello/yammer.. but if people aren’t paying attention, their perception remains… “I really don’t know what’s going on with <insert thing here>”. It leads me to think that the best method is working in the open combined with pulling specific people in where needs be to make sure it’s actually registered. I suspect the overarching issue is that people generally have too much work in progress happening simultaneously and too many channels of communication to manage.
What I’ve been reading…
- Matching our research approach to the project.
https://digitalblog.coop.co.uk/2018/01/25/matching-our-research-approach-to-the-project/ - A democratic digital charter.
https://medium.com/doteveryone/a-democratic-digital-charter-d858f38ee731 - Is this the society we really want?
https://shift.newco.co/why-is-amazons-go-not-bodega-2-0-6f148075afd5 - Gamestorming — Mapping organisational culture.
http://gamestorming.com/mapping-organizational-culture/ - 7 portraits of modern work in the UK.
https://medium.com/@thersa/7-portraits-of-modern-work-87a055b77d21 - Questioning what you think you know.
https://medium.com/@BromfordLab/questioning-what-you-think-you-know-7e4cbbcf10a7
By Bromford Lab. - Becoming a better leader.
https://medium.com/doing-better-things/becoming-a-better-leader-e0de73342614
By Dyfrig Williams. - Are social networks highlighting our disconnections?
https://medium.com/experiments-in-working-out-loud/are-social-networks-highlighting-our-disconnections-346833c27bb3
by Paul Taylor. - Our robot era demands a different approach to retraining. A local economy that loses its main industry does not magically create ‘safer’ jobs.
https://www.ft.com/content/c4bde676-0027-11e8-9650-9c0ad2d7c5b5 - Digital has beccome a continuous activity.
https://digileaders.com/digital-design-continuous-activity/ - Reflections on leaving the FSA.
https://medium.com/@mcleanonline/reflections-on-leaving-the-fsa-1f653ad1bed1 - And this one time, at Govcamp.
https://medium.com/@ayymanduh/and-this-one-time-at-govcamp-9c1c504df81b - Liberating structure, talking about failure and bridging silos in Government.
https://medium.com/@vickytnz/liberating-structure-talking-about-failure-and-bridging-silos-in-government-a8dee0611e9a - Weeknotes 11
https://weeknot.es/weeknotes-11-42c2b7e3938c
What I’ve been watching / listening to…
- The Community Development Podcast: Episode 9 — Social Capital
http://pca.st/O8N5 - Eat Sleep Work Repeat: The Results Only Work Environment
http://pca.st/6sdQ - Eat Sleep Work Repeat: Measuring the intelligence of teams.
http://pca.st/hL1f - Guardian Chips with Everything:
Digital Dystopia – The changing face of trust.
http://pca.st/hL1f - BBC Wales Sunday Supplement: Brexit and Wales (Featuring Automation)
http://pca.st/PIRD#t=1207.0