I may publish these on different days, but will always title them as the Friday of the week they cover.
Reflections
It’s LocalGovCamp this week, 10 years after the first. A rather different event than that one – it’s a weekday, it has an agenda. But that’s just an indicator of where we are these days in the sector, I think. This stuff is pretty mainstream, it’s people’s actual jobs and so the event reflects that.
It’s a bit sad that the unconference element isn’t there this year, but last year it did feel very flat after the energy of the Friday. My head injury didn’t help my own experience of the unconference, admittedly. Maybe we can bring it back, but separate it from the more formal event. Or maybe we just don’t need it anymore. It’s not like anyone is complaining.
Gone well
Two really interesting conversations, the sort I love and need to find more opportunities to have. The first was with a very early stage start up, looking to see if we’d be interested in their prototype offer around reducing loneliness. It sparked a fascinating (to me!) discussion about where the value in their proposition was. For me it wasn’t the tech (pretty standard service directory) but in the demand aggregation and market creation and energising they could provide.
Second was with our adult education service, where we are helping with some equipment upgrades and things. Part of that work involves a new virtual learning environment, which provides an opportunity to rethink the model of delivery as a whole. Gave me a chance to mull on Raymond Williams, Ivan Ilich and how they are still relevant in the digital age, as well as reminisce about lovely things like School of Everything, which seems to be still alive but only just. Hopefully these chats can formalise a bit into experiments into how this stuff can work in practice.
I booked a week off, so yay. No plans for it other than a much needed eye test. There are lots of books that need reading!
Room for improvement
I let things get on top of me on a couple of occasions this week. Sometimes I worry that I am too emotionally involved in my work – I take everything so personally! Of course the flip side of this is that it’s that approach that means I’m motivated to do good things. Still, maybe I should try and balance it a bit better.
Cultural input
I started reading Jon Savage’s new Joy Division book, which I’m thoroughly enjoying. I can’t claim Joy Division belong to me – they mean too much to too many other people – but they’ve always been an important band in my life. Interestingly I appreciate them more and more as I get older. I wonder what it is about the music made by very young men at the start of their career that somehow resonates so much with duffers like me.
Anyway, my standard Joy Division tip: as well as the excellent studio albums, do dig out the live recordings which reflect another side of their work: more angry, quicker, and louder.
The Joy Division reading of course had my mind making links all over the place and it got me digging into Krautrock, which I’d never really explored much. Early days, but I’m very much enjoying bits of Neu! and Harmonia in particular.
I had my fortnightly long drive up to Lincolnshire and back this weekend which gave me the chance to listen to some more of Underland, Robert MacFarlane’s new book, on Audible. It’s extremely good (although I find some of the bits talking about caving and other claustrophobic topics terrifying) and I thoroughly recommend it – and I do wonder if his books work better spoken aloud than read to oneself internally.