Friday, 1 December, 2023

Daily note for 1 December 2023

Really impressive what Sarah and her team at Swindon are achieving. Just goes to show what can happen when people are given just a little scope for experimentation.

Been tempted by a Remarkable e-ink notepad for ages, but always felt I couldn’t justify it. So instead treated myself to the Kindle Scribe, which on Black Friday was half the price of the Remarkable. It’s pretty good! It’s great having a single, relatively small and lightweight, thing that I can have with me most of the time for scribbling things down to get them out of my head. I’m also using it to note down stuff that happens during the day, I often find that by 6pm I can’t remember a thing about the previous 10 hours!

Am switching to deck.blue for engaging with Bluesky for a bit. It’s got columns, like Tweetdeck had when that was a thing. Now Bluesky is getting busier, it does make it easier not to miss things.

Monday, 27 November, 2023

Daily note for 27 November 2023

Miserable day here, weather wise. Very cold and very wet. Sort of weather than makes me want to hibernate!

I newslettered for the first time in a while. Lots of lovely people replied to say it doesn’t matter if I don’t get round to it as often as I feel I ought to. Love you all.

Neil’s weeknotes really are a joy to behold.

Been using Zoom a bit more recently for online meetings. There’s something about hte simplicity of it that I really enjoy. Also the idea – not limited to Zoom, of course – that it is a simple, cheap technology that you can use for whatever you want. It’d be easy to start a business with a website, an email address and a Zoom account.

Digital and Data – Continuous improvement assessment framework (via Ben Cheetham) – worth bearing in mind as I work with others on the Local Government Digital Quality Model.

Get involved with the launch of early access to GOV.UK Forms.

Why’s it so difficult for councils to adopt the same technologies?

Thursday, 23 November, 2023

Chunks, anchors and textcasting

Lloyd is experimenting with adding anchor links to the chunks of text that make up his daily note style blog posts. It’s an interesting thing to do, and is very reminiscent of the way Dave Winer structures his blogging. Lloyd is doing inside of WordPress, which I can imagine must be a bit of a faff, while Dave W’s got a custom blogging platform that just works like that.

Most of my blogging here is in the form of daily notes, which are, like Lloyd’s, chunks that I write as it occurs to me to do so throughout the day. Interestingly, if for some reason I don’t open MarsEdit (the editor I use to compose all my posts here) first thing in the morning, the daily note often doesn’t get written at all. It has to be open, almost to encourage me to record and reflect as I go about my day.

I think maybe the concept of ‘textcasting’ which Dave W has been promoting recently might be a part of all this.

I would really like to find a way to improve my flow around this stuff, particularly now I have landed upon Raindrop.io as a really great way to store helpful links. I took a look at IFTTT to see if I could at least send the links automatically from Raindrop to Bluesky, but it appears that Bluesky hasn’t built out that kind of integration yet, which is a frustration.

What I would like is for Raindrop bookmarks to be pinged out to Bluesky (maybe Mastodon and Twitter/X too, why the hell not?) straight away, and then for the title and the link to be dropped into the daily note post for that day. So not a WordPress post for every Raindrop bookmark, but the post for that day is created if it doesn’t exist, or added to if it does.

What complicates this is that I use MarsEdit to write these notes, and that’s a desktop app on the Mac. Maybe there’s something I could do with Shortcuts or Automator on MacOS instead? I’ve never used those though and wouldn’t know where to start.

Wednesday, 22 November, 2023

Daily note for 22 November 2023

Raindrop is very good for social bookmarking it turns out. Mine are here.

As well as Neilly Neil’s welcome return to blogging, Lloyd is also publishing stuff on a more regular basis. This can only be a good thing. Tuesday’s was a good one, I thought.

Some awesome advice here on how to write a blog post.

Anne McCrossan is great at lots of things and one of those things is data. Found this post from her about data as a utility really interesting.

OpenAI’s Misalignment and Microsoft’s Gain – Ben Thompson’s take on the ongoing OpenAI kerfuffle. All this stuff just makes me nervous about the whole AI thing. Potentially game-changing, yes, but currently stewarded by bozos.

Monday, 20 November, 2023

Thursday, 16 November, 2023

Daily note for 16 November 2023

Ouch, nearly a week since my last note on here.

I’ve been having a quiet week this week and it has done me a lot of good. Slowed down the pace a bit, spent a (little) bit more time outside, made some space to work on some things that are starting to come to fruition.

The main example of that is the Local Government Digital Quality Framework, which is my attempt at coming up with a scalable framework for councils to be able to figure out where they are at with digital design, data and technology. Most importantly, it also helps them decide where they want to get to, and how.

I’ll write a dedicated post about it though, as there’s a fair bit to say.

Was feeling sad about the dying art of social bookmarking reading this by Howard Harold Jarche. In the comments someone recommended Raindrop.io which looks neat and I am going to have a play.

Am finding my Google-powered emails are struggling to get through some organisations’ spam filters all of a sudden. Shane and Steph recommended taking a look at DKIM records and things like that, so I did.

The different ‘flavours’ of service design – by Emma Parnell (subscribed!).

The Future of the Blogosphere – “Yet, despite its very different political-economic DNA, the blogosphere has become enshittified as clearly as Facebook, Google, or Amazon. Not just at the level of aging software, but at the level of the aging people who inhabit it, maintain it, and continue to churn out content on it, though at a rapidly decelerating rate.” Ouch.

Trustworthy AI in Government + Public Services — A self assessment tool from Oxford Insights.

Friday, 10 November, 2023

Daily note for 10 November 2023

Excellent technology advice. There are lots of other product categories that this could apply to, I’m sure.

This is great, from Audree at Public Digital: Changing how we change in the public sector. Business cases, big programmes and all that stuff can really hamper good work.

This is another great post from the digital team at Stockport Council: Updating our website: new brand, better performance, and a lot of TLC.

Very useful update on the really important work happening in digital social care from Alice Ainsworth.

This Transformation Programme Director role at Tandridge looks like a really good opportunity for the right person.

Monday, 6 November, 2023

Daily note for 6 November 2023

Happy new week!

Am hoping it is going to be a happier week for me, and that I can put the stresses of the last 7 days or so behind me a bit. Saw the GP on Friday about it all, he upped my Sertraline dose. Obviously that’s a sticking plaster rather than a fix, but hopefully it will give me a bit of space to make improvements elsewhere.

Lots of people have been in touch to check in with me. I am hugely grateful.

dxw’s Dave Mann on what needs to happen to improve digital delivery in government.

Lauren Pope’s sharing is just amazing. Take this latest belter as an example: Prioritisation for content teams: a guide.

Fab to see the Adur & Worthing digital bods blasting out more awesome work: Using Low-Code to build No-Code: Customer Enquiry Forms.

Understanding & tackling government’s true legacy.

Friday, 3 November, 2023

Daily note for 3 November 2023

I published a newsletter on Wednesday, talked a bit about blogging. Hadn’t done one for a whole and picked a fairly safe topic just to get back into the swing of things.

Today’s innovation igloo was a right laugh, as usual. Next time, Nick, me and the gang are meeting on Friday 17th November at 1pm and will be discussing the steps needed for an organisation to become truly data driven. If that sounds like your idea of quality thought-nosebag, sign up!

Have had a difficult week this week. I think I’m suffering a bit with stress, with a lot of work on and things happening at home. That seems to be affecting my blood sugar, which seems very high all the time, no matter what I eat or how much insulin I take. Tuesday I felt absolutely done in and spend the day asleep in bed.

Eddie Copeland wrote a nice post: Maintain, Fix, Equip, Create or Involve. What scale of solution do YOU need? I like stuff about levels of change and it’s helpful for people to remember that change – digital or otherwise – isn’t monolithic. It can mean different things depending on context and the outcome that is desirable and realistic. I wrote my own (sort of) version of this a while ago.

How video and images can help people complete forms – useful from Aderonke Olutunmogun at Citizens Advice Bureau (also, gah! Medium).

Nice new site from Emily Webber pulling bits and pieces together around communities of practice.

Sunday, 29 October, 2023

Daily note for 29 October 2023

LocalGovCamp was lovely last Wednesday but exhausting. I did very well not to drink much at all the night before which definitely helped. But… so many people to talk to, so much going on. I attended way more sessions than I have done previously and I think that was a good move. Sometimes the opportunity to sit (a bit more) quietly and listen is a way to recharge the social batteries. Anyway, it was great seeing people and as always the energy of the local gov crowd, despite all the challenges, is always an inspiration. Credit to Mr Hill for his organising skills, and the sponsors for their support.

Neilly Neil is blogging again, hurrah!

The next innovation igloo is about blogging, don’t forget.

“Full Stack Service Design is a model to help people break services down into the parts that make them and understand how all of these parts impact the user experience.”

Imaginary Problems Are the Root of Bad Software.

Abort Retry Fat is a brilliant newsletter about the history of various bits of IT. This one on Lotus, from 1–2–3 to Notes, is a belter.

How to run a daily stand-up – very useful from Alan Wright (as always).