Short & sweet.
I’ve been doing/thinking about…
Mini weeknotes this week.
How are you doing? Looking forward to the Christmas break? Yep, me too!
Recieved some lovely news early in the week that I’d made the cut for this opportunity with CHC & Cadenza. As part of the application process I had to record a 1 minute video which was both educational and hilarious. I did nine different takes over the course of 20 minutes (fail fast!). If you’ve ever had to record yourself doing a bit to camera, you may too empathise with how quickly I got sick of my own voice and suddenly notice all the weird facial expressions I pull that I never normally get to observe. I also have a new found appreciation for people who can read from autocue naturally.
I’ve read a lot of hot takes on the future of work this week. Perhaps spurred by the arrival of vaccines that suddenly has everyone pondering what next for the world of work. IMO, I think it’s still a while before the risks (to ourselves and others) of gathering in enclosed spaces are sufficiently manageable to enable anything but really essential gatherings.
Mid-week I listened to a comittee hearing from Welsh Gov on the impact of remote work. Opinion still seems very divided on whether knowledge workers are ever coming back full time to office spaces, with talk about local hubs being offered as potentially less isolated spaces where people can come to work AND (bonus) support local business. There was some speculation also that people would look to move to places that are not associated with ease of commuting to cities, which again is potentially a positive to places that have seen people moving to get closer to work.
I’ve not heard anybody say that they want to bring back the commute, so perhaps that’s an area we can all agree on. It’s pretty good for the planet too.
Design Thinking Notes…
I must confess, not much study this week having done some super long evenings last week.
Somewhat related, I spotted this tweet by Ben Holliday which I thought was interesting.
I also stumbled across another blog post (link below) which articulates the difference between product and service design (TLDR.. service design zooms out further, asks bigger questions and doesn’t presume the answer is digital). https://uxdesign.cc/a-case-for-service-design-1a3812a122cf
I’ve been reading/watching/listening to…
I watched this session from the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee on remote working and the potential implications in Wales.
http://www.senedd.tv/Meeting/Live/7917a2ff-9880-4b90-ad2e-cbdc8adb6421#
I read this report on data poverty in Scotland and Wales courtesy of Nesta. Something to factor into thinking in the design of public/third sector services.
https://www.nesta.org.uk/report/what-data-poverty/
Fascinating analysis by Atlassian on remote work and the effect on work-life balance due to covid. The upshot is that our home and work lives are blurring and we’re also working a bit longer than before. Hat tip to Sharon O’Dea for this one.
https://medium.com/atlassiandata/quantifying-the-impact-of-remote-work-on-the-work-life-balance-a0cdac965e3a
And finally, what if we all treated email less like an instant messaging platform?