First week at Valleys To Coast done! (…technically three days as I started on Wednesday). And rather fortuitously day three on the job was the annual staff conference which proved to be a really useful way to get quickly onboarded. 🙌
The story so far.. deciphering of acronyms and system names. Occasionally walking through the wrong doors to the wrong places. Sometimes forgetting people’s names (but not faces). Bumping into some former colleagues who are now current colleagues.
I initially invested some time in creating a map of systems so that I could more easily visualise what’s connected to what and for what purpose, and more perhaps more importantly, it’s always great if you’ve got somethign to show to someone else to know if it’s right/wrong. As per usual, the process of making the map is valuable as having the map itself.
The thing I least anticipated was feeling quite tired at the end of each day. Having not been a ‘newbie’ for a while, I’d forgotten about the extra mental bandwidth required to parse and order lots of new information. Thankfully that seems to be easing off. At the time of writing my brain feels distinctly less squishy.
So, quite short weeknotes for what has been a relatively short week. Slightly tardy weeknotes too as I was out and about on my usual weeknote writing night. But hey.. better late than never, right?
I had a bash at making some stickers a couple of weeks ago and the finished product landed on my desk. A decent first attempt in my very humble opinion.
Someone asked me what the point of the stickers was and I directed them to this post which explains why something seemingly a bit frivilous can also be a really useful communication tool.
#Weightnotes (see what I did there?)
One of my ambitions this year was to eat better, sleep better and generally live a healthier lifestyle. It turns out the burning platform I really needed was being able to fit into a wedding suit!
I’ve returned to low carb and I feel lots better for doing so. I’ve been getting about 7.5 hours sleep a night. Good progress on the scales too. Feeling like it’s sustainable at the moment with very little discipline required. Long may it continue! 🙂
I’ve been consuming…
- Working together when we’re not together.
https://blog.google/inside-google/working-google/working-together-when-were-not-together/ - Strategic thinking with blog posts and stickers.
https://gilest.org/blogging-stickers.html - “Digital can be a window or a wall. How many windows are you creating intot he world of your customers?”
http://gerrymcgovern.com/making-the-customer-part-of-the-culture/ - Effective housing goes beyond a home.
https://www.pstamber.com/effective-housing-goes-beyond-a-home/ - [Podcast] The Atlantic — Why should we care about privacy?
https://pca.st/z49Q - [Podcast] TED Talks Daily — Sleep is your superpower.
https://pca.st/z49Q - Form design for Government.
http://racheledelman.com/forms/ - [Podcast] WB40 — (109) Customer Experiences.
https://pca.st/DWI2 - [Podcast] Decrypted — The strange world of virtual bike races.
https://pca.st/DWI2 - My Scrum Journey: Part 4: Openness.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-scrum-journey-part-4-openness-tom-apps/ - How a bike can help us understand service design.
https://uxplanet.org/how-a-bike-can-help-us-understand-service-design-5506b1b88ff5 - Building accessible digital tools.
https://wearecitizensadvice.org.uk/building-accessible-digital-tools-d994149ba974