Weekly Braindump is a curated list of things I’ve worked on, thought about, read or listened to during the last 7 days.
I’ve been working on…
- It turned out to be a bit of a consolidation week. Noticed that a batch of non-urgent but important tasks had been hanging around so decided to draw focus on those to kill or complete them.
- It’s that time of the year where we have to ask for money for training & conferences. This coming year, I quite fancied getting away from the usual IT stuff and finding something more along the lines of ‘digital for social good’. My network of Twitter chums really delivered some ace suggestions for this, you can see the replies to this tweet here.
- Finally got the new electronic invoicing project underway proper. We tried to get this going earlier in the year, but the goal posts kept moving and we suddenly discovered a whole load of unknown unknowns that pretty much obliterated the project plan. The new and improved scope really helped tighten things up and the first project meeting with a smaller more focused team was super productive.
I’ve been thinking about…
- Spent a bit of time pondering this statement : “When we give people authority, we create leaders”. I stuck it out on Twitter to see if people agreed/disagreed with it and it generated some thoughtful debate. My rough take on it — authority doesn’t automatically equate leadership, but giving authority away can inspire leadership in others.
I’ve been reading…
- Cake as Work by Dan Barrett.
https://medium.com/@dasbarrett/cake-as-work-255567171e3f#.m067cc60s - The future of neighbourhoods.
https://www.fastcoexist.com/3065412/fast-cities/the-future-of-neighborhoods-five-projects-that-show-how-well-live - Thoughts on LocalGov Digital becoming a Co-Op by Kelly Doonan.
https://medium.com/@kelly.doonan/my-name-is-kelly-and-im-part-of-localgov-digital-fb4f0d341d7#.4g6vgpm6i - Insurers demand driverless car data.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38058600 - Visual power : Four graphics that show video is powerful. By Dan Slee.
https://danslee.wordpress.com/2016/11/22/visual-power-four-graphics-that-show-video-is-powerful/ - Failing at failing vs Successfully failing by Nathalie Sejean.
https://medium.com/activate-creativity/failing-at-failing-vs-successfully-failing-65ff3f0541c8#.itn8uo8dc - Using systems thinking to design better services. By Mike Laurie.
https://medium.com/@mikelaurie/using-systems-thinking-to-design-better-services-905b62ca10b7#.k5wyfpfo7 - Great roundup of all things digital in Social Housing : “Making the leap into digital change.”
https://yhcomms.wordpress.com/2016/11/24/making-the-leapinto-digital-change/ - Dear Tenant : Your Uber Is Here
http://www.wsj.com/articles/developers-ditch-parking-spaces-to-make-room-for-uber-1479816002 - Are we really expected to work till we drop? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/27/living-longer-soaring-state-pension-bills-britain?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
- Exoskeletons for the workplace might not be that far off.
https://www.fastcodesign.com/3065707/this-startup-is-building-exoskeletons-for-the-workplace
I’ve been watching…
- Kelly Doonan pointed me at this wonderful 54 minute talk by Indy Johar on democratizing cities. It knits together many of the thoughts I have bouncing around my head in terms of how we employ technology for good and how we work together to fix the right problems.
http://videos.theconference.se/indy-johar-democratizing-cities