TIL : Beer inhibits braindumps.
Hello! This week’s special bank holiday braindump reaches you on Sunday instead of Friday (… because I went out drinking on Friday night).
I’ve been working on…
- Turn The Ship Around — Following a bit of a break, I caught up with colleagues to continue working our way through the book. We got on to the subject of why some people might prefer to be *told* what to do. Are these the same people who are disengaged with their work? Why are they disengaged? Is it because they are not connected with the purpose of the role, or is it that the role essentially lacks any challenge or autonomy? From there I went off on a bit of a mini-rant about the importance of creativity & humanity in work, and how we should delegate repetition & drudgery to automation. Hopefully I didn’t terrify/bore anyone too much! 😀
- I’ve been thinking about the phyisical work environment. The nearest kitchen to our office has been out of commission for a few weeks. This has meant having to use an entirely different kitchen on another floor. This small change has resulted in far more random conversations with colleagues. I’ve also picked up interesting news just by listening to ambient discussions whilst making a cuppa (is that a posher term for eaves dropping?). This observation had me thinking about the value of ‘bump spaces’. Places that encourage chance encounters. It was a handy reminder that breaking down silos isn’t just about getting people to open up their processes. It’s also providing opportunities to just strike up random conversations.
- On the topic of working environment.. the last few weeks I’ve been working in a mostly empty office as the majority of my team have been away. With almost everyone back in this week, I noticed that my productivity around certain kinds of work had definitely taken a hit (Kanban board helped identify the things that got completed most easily vs things that stubbornly refused to go away). That warrants more thought next week around the best places to do certain activities.
- Dyfrig Williams from the Wales Audit Office Good Practice team circulated some of my posts around related to Open Standards (and the folly of ignoring them) following the excellent webinar they put together. That resulted in a couple of people reaching out to talk about all things digital transformation over coffee. If I’m able, I’ll report back any points of interest from those chats over the next week or so.
I’ve been reading…
- Carl Haggerty posts about the 3 leadership he values and wants to develop in himself.
https://carlhaggerty.wordpress.com/2017/04/21/the-3-leadership-qualities-i-value-and-want-to-develop-in-myself/ - Interesting post about integrating Federal (that’s public to you and I) services into things like Alexa.
https://www.digitalgov.gov/2017/04/24/federal-pilot-to-integrate-public-services-into-intelligent-personal-assistants/ - Global survey reveals declining trust in e-commerce.
Hat tip Gerry McGovern.
http://unctad.org/en/pages/newsdetails.aspx?OriginalVersionID=1465 - A site that lets you pay the water bill for a family in need.
https://www.fastcompany.com/40411211/this-site-lets-you-pay-the-water-bill-for-a-family-in-need - What would you working environment look like if trust & transparency were really important to your company culture? Cracking stuff from @unicornasaurus’s visit to Futurice in Helsinki.
https://unitedwelshblog.wordpress.com/2017/04/24/future-workplace-already-here/ - Ontario plans to launch a Universal Basic Income trial this summer.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/24/canada-basic-income-trial-ontario-summer - The myth of super-human AI by Kevin Kelly.
https://backchannel.com/the-myth-of-a-superhuman-ai-59282b686c62 - Helping leaders understand digital by Janet Hughes.
https://medium.com/doteveryone/helping-leaders-understand-digital-b2c0e015facc - Five not so radical ideas for nuturing change. Tanmay Vora sketchnotes a post from Paul Taylor.
http://qaspire.com/2017/04/10/five-not-so-radical-ideas-for-nurturing-change/ - I had reason to return to this excellent post on using personas for internal service design by Dyfrig Williams. I think we all need to be doing a lot more of this in the future rather than chucking ‘solutions’ in off the shelf.
https://medium.com/@DyfrigWilliams/developing-personas-for-a-user-focused-service-4abe39d304eb - When work is exciting and motivational, people will thrive and organisations will flourish.
http://corporate-rebels.com/mindset/ - HBR Study : The need for restructuring (busting silos) is slowing down.
Hat Tip to Dion Hinchcliffe.
https://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2017/04/27/restructuring-seen-as-a-barrier-to-digital-tech-survey/ - Do industry awards inspire or inhibit innovation? By Paul Taylor.
https://paulitaylor.com/2017/04/28/do-industry-awards-inspire-or-inhibit-innovation/ - New technology doesn’t have to be hard. A really brilliant (and wonderfully honest!) write up from Charlotte Armstrong of Citizens Advice.
https://wearecitizensadvice.org.uk/new-technology-doesnt-have-to-be-hard-especially-if-you-co-design-it-with-the-people-who-use-it-6fe7f9e59666
I’ve been listening to…
- Recode Decode : How tech can reshape American Politics
http://pca.st/ECW5 - The DO Lectures : What Matters, What’s Possible, What’s Imporant — Steve Jennings.
http://pca.st/tOnU - Team Human : Ep. 34 — Pia Mancini. Towards a Co-operative Economy.
http://pca.st/SR9j - Stanford Innovation Lab : Unlocking creativity with contraints.
http://pca.st/GnBJ - WIRED UpVote : tech & politics podcast feat. Martha Lane Fox.
http://pca.st/gDcA