Have sent out my first newsletter on Email Octopus. It’s a nice system to use.
newsletter
📅 Daily Note: September 9, 2025
The hidden fundamentals of digital transformation in healthcare: how to roll out nationally in a local system – by Jane Maber on the dxw blog:
There’s no question that the technical challenge is real. Designing digital services that work for a national screening programme in a local environment isn’t easy. You have to integrate with diverse existing systems, handle local variation and consider patient safety. Not to mention managing, and often decommissioning, legacy systems alongside.
But what’s become increasingly clear is that technology alone doesn’t drive transformation. As more decision-making power is devolved to Integrated Care Boards (ICBs), national teams can’t assume one-size-fits-all delivery. Success is really all about the people impacted by the new product – the admin and clinical staff who use it, and the screening participants who experience it.
Change doesn’t land just because it’s technically sound. Or even operationally sound for that matter. It lands because people trust it, understand it, and feel part of it. So development needs to be done in partnership, and the quality of the relationship with those partners is critical.
I stopped sending out my email newsletter this year – it lost its place on my todo list in the madness of moving house and so on.
However, am minded to kick it off again, but wanted to move away from Substack for a variety of reasons including nazi-friendliness and increasingly user hostile behaviour.
So, taking some advice Steph gave me a while ago, I’ve moved to Email Octopus, who seem very friendly and the system is easy enough to use. I’ve also changed it to be Localise branded – I’m terrible about marketing my company so thought this might be an easy way of reminding people how I earn a living.
If you’re curious, you can sign up on the landing page.
Have updated my about page which was very long in the tooth!
Daily note for 18 December 2023
I’m barely posting any links into Raindrop. I just like linking to them here, on my blog. But I worry they get lost. Not that I ever seem to look for them.
I newslettered.
Some nice bits in Matt Mullenweg’s bag.
Public Digital’s data strategy playbook. Plenty of good stuff to learn from in here.
A literal twist on the classic Minesweeper game.
How product teams are using prototyping in the public sector:
A few teams were very mature in their prototyping practices. When they needed to move fast, try out loads of ideas and surface issues quickly, they used low-fidelity prototypes in paper, Powerpoint, and Mural or Miro. These helped them test out different journeys and flows. They progressed to Figma and Prototype Kit when they needed more fidelity or to test out technical approaches.
More good stuff from Steve: all of this post is worth reading, but the section on Cycles, not sprints is great:
For research and development work (like discovery and alpha), you need a little bit longer to get your head into a domain and have time to play around making scrappy prototypes. For build work, a two-week sprint isn’t really two weeks. With all the ceremonies required for co-ordination and sharing information – which is a lot more labour-intensive in remote-first settings – you lose a couple of days with two-week sprints.
Sprint goals suck too. It’s far too easy to push it along and limp from fortnight to fortnight, never really considering whether you should stop the workstream. It’s better to think about your appetite for doing something, and then to focus on getting valuable iterations out there rather than committing to a whole thing.
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?
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.