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…
- Back to work following a very much needed two week break!
- Patching & updated some odds and ends following penetration testing. Fortunately, no major security holes to report!
- Had a good meeting with colleagues about progress on our digital services and digital inclusion. I’m part way through a post expanding on how I think those two things are inextricably linked.
- @Kath_cadwynHA pointed me in the direction of the EAST Framework. TLDR version — it’s a way to encourage behavioural change (within ethical boundaries of course!). Looks really practical.
- Had a brill chat with Steve Dimmick regarding DooPoll and how it might be used in the context of Social Housing.
I’ve been thinking about…
- Roxanne Persaud prompted me to revisit an old blog post I started writing last year on a framework for innovation. Wrote someupdate thoughts here if you’re interested : https://neiltamplin.me/revisiting-a-framework-for-innovation-b2cb954440a8#.te93taw8j
- I’ve been pondering lots of customer experience type stuff this week. Increasingly, it seems like the end game is to ensure that no matter what the tenant/customer/user is trying to achieve, they should not have to know anything about the internal machinations of our organisation, nor who deals with what. Our job then, is to quickly and seamlessly figure out what they want to do and ensure they’re interacting with the right system/person to achieve it.
- Following a surprisingly turbulent but familiar political saga in America, I’ve been wondering what this dark new pattern means for the future. People who feel like they don’t have a stake in the system seem all to happy to engineer its destruction. And yet, scrambling for the centre ground (in the UK at least) trying to please everyone and no one seems to be how we pushed the left and right further apart and created such polarisation. Pfft.. I hope wiser and more knowledgeable people than I are working on a solution.
I’ve been reading…
- This week has been Working Out Loud Week. Here’s a really good blog post that kicked it off in style. https://wolweek.wordpress.com/2016/11/06/wolweek-day-1-share-purpose/
- How Emoji have help put non-verbal communication back in the Slack teams chat.
https://slackhq.com/some-of-the-ways-we-use-emoji-at-slack-a21be5030815#.drdfbd94b - Cracking post from Gerry McGovern explaining how digital enables us to design through customer use.
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/design-through-customer-use - Something I’ve been thinking a lot about this week.. Strategy VS Design.
https://medium.com/@kingshukdas/strategy-versus-design-thinking-41d86ad81f1f#.2j9prjw16 via kingshuk das - “Showing the thing”. Those clever people at Government Digital Service explain what that actually means in real terms. Superb advice here for anyone building anything.
https://gdsengagement.blog.gov.uk/2016/11/04/what-we-mean-when-we-say-show-the-thing/ - Building a product based on what customers say they want can lead to ruin.
https://jtbd.info/bitchn-ain-t-switch-n-don-t-be-fooled-by-what-customers-say-they-want-4c7b56563f68#.q2b8pcwh8 - Brutal but accurate dissection from mark britz explaining why social technology (aka Yammer etc.) hasn’t changed the work place as hoped. Clue.. it’s nothing to do with the technology.
http://markbritz.com/a-tale-of-two-socials/ - Should AI run your local council services? Good read from Nesta touching upon some of the ethical dimensions.
http://www.nesta.org.uk/blog/town-hall-2020-should-ai-run-your-local-council-services - A great blog post from @ngoodrich87 about one of my favourite topics.. culture change!
https://thehousingblog.com/2016/11/01/culture_shock/ - Is working from home damaging to your career? IMHO.. only if the organisation you work for has a culture of predominantly office based work.
https://www.theguardian.com/careers/2016/nov/08/does-working-from-home-harm-your-career?CMP=share_btn_tw via @comms2point0 - Super sad reading of an outgoing government digital person bemoaning the changing political tides. As with many things lately, it looks like progress is slowly giving way to regression. 🙁
http://annkempster.com/so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-cheese/ - People are losing faith in institutions. Trust amongst the public is at an all time low. Paul Taylor underlines the importance of openness, transparency & accountability.
https://paulitaylor.com/2016/11/11/building-trust-and-standing-out-in-the-digital-age/
I’ve been listening to…
- BBC Click : Nesta Sharelab
http://pca.st/FCKF - Slack : Work in Progress -Breaking New Ground
http://pca.st/xH6v