Weekly Braindump is a curated list of things I’ve worked on, thought about, listened to or read during the last 7 days.
I’ve been working on…
- Procuring hardware. Spent quite a bit of time hopping between three suppliers trying to drive the cost down. It’s an interesting balance of ‘How much can I shave off this quote?’ VS ‘How much is my time costing the organisation?’.
- I’ve been writing up some reflections on two large projects that accounted for much of the last 12 months. I’ll be honest, it was wonderfully cathartic. Going forward, I’m now wondering if some sort of internal (bi?)weekly blog post on new projects might be helpful to gather insights in retrospect.
- Gearing up to embark on a new project which will involve automated purchase request and invoice matching. Hoping to put some of the learning from above into action.
- Following the revelation last week that I might be burned out, I booked two weeks leave! (yay!)
- I have failed to keep pace with that EdX course I signed up for a few weeks ago. Need to recognise that with many things going on outside of the day job at the moment (building work + general family life) it was perhaps spectacular over confidence on my part to assume I’d squeeze it in somewhere.
I’ve been thinking about…
- Remote working. How isn’t this the norm? The tools are there. If we tore it all up and started again tomorrow, would we insist that we house everyone in a giant office? Does that make sense in 2016 and beyond?
- I’ve been going into work at peak times this week and the crammed trains and massive queues everywhere have been killing me! Why do we do this to ourselves?! See point 1 about remote working.
- How do we encourage bravery in our organisations? Billions of words have been written on change, often it’s sparked by someone daring to do something a bit different. What enables that behaviour? What does it look like?
- Digital life after death. We are leaving a digital footprint behind that will quite possibly outlast us. Some are even taking that data and incorporating it into AI chatbots. Electronic versions of our former physical selves. This poses all kinds of ethical questions. What are the implications for living past our natural expiry date?
I’ve been reading…
- Livestreaming is destined to fail. You’re LIVE!.. who cares? By jsneedles.
https://hackernoon.com/youre-live-who-cares-df916d70f79e#.kunbc1jfx - What comes after user centred design? By Jeff Sussna.
https://medium.theuxblog.com/what-comes-after-user-centered-design-d1ace893c976#.wb0oj32wb - I come back to this Mozilla post from 2011 every so often to sanity check my approach. It’s solid gold! How To Work Open.
https://openmatt.org/2011/04/06/how-to-work-open/ - Government thinking on AI and Robotics needs a reboot.
http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/science-and-technology-committee/news-parliament-2015/robotics-ai-report-published-16-17/ - Why voice is the catalyst for compatilility. By Linden Tibbets.
https://medium.com/startup-grind/why-voice-is-the-catalyst-for-compatibility-bec7cc7e5d57#.3rkm24bf1 - Maps are not reality — Why businesses fail to change. By Shane Parrish.
https://medium.com/@farnamstreet/the-map-is-not-the-territory-c83505be942f#.423i9gux0 - Writeup of the GovCamp Cymru session on behaviour change in public services. By Dyfrig Williams.
https://goodpracticeexchange.wordpress.com/2016/10/12/govcamp-cymru-can-we-change-behaviour-for-better-public-services/ - Google will show different search results to mobile and desktop users. Mobile users will get most up to date results! HT Helen Reynolds.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-to-index-mobile-pages-separately-from-desktop-2016-10 - The digital team from Adactus housing talk about conducting user testing of their new website.
https://digitaladactushousing.wordpress.com/2016/10/14/post-its-sharpies-puzzled-expressions-its-user-testing-time/
I’ve been watching/listening to…
- 99% Invisible — Half A House. Build half a house with the bare essentials, occupants can build out the remainder of the house if/when they have the resources. Thought provoking stuff!
http://pca.st/vaKh - BBC Analysis : Gentrification. Really good examination of the forces making housing ever more unaffordable in cities, and what can be done about it.
http://pca.st/ERDL - What is work? By Andy Swann.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDA9jKMpZRY&feature=youtu.be - ODI Podcast : Food banks, data and social change.
http://pca.st/BZKI