These notes are a tool I use for reflecting, remembering (because I can't), networking and public accountability. Read more here.
“Do you think it’s better than living?”
“No.”
A little exchange there between my wife and me this morning about my spending it writing weeknotes. Although actually, sitting down to write this today feels like a tranquil treat, slowing time down so my late forties don’t just rattle by in a blur of work and parenting.
It’s been an eventful fortnight and a full-on January. I’ve been ‘only-two-trips-to-the-gym-all-month’ levels of busy. ‘Barely touched a video game’ busy. I was so brain dead after work and life admin the other night I told Joel to get to bed because he’s “got breakfast in the morning” (now a daily in-joke, which is quite fun as it goes).
Work, work, work
The main thing to report was my all-directorate away day.
It was a barnstorming success from my POV with evidence to suggest most attendees thought so too. (Will do a survey though to check if that’s true and gather thoughts on making the next one even better).
The day’s theme was taking the organisation with us on a journey to become digital-first. The agenda was a mix of plenary talks and dual-track unconference sessions, which kept the energy up and made it a protein-rich day.
I kicked things off with a sitrep and a rallying call for us all to be more bold, clear, open and united while we keep going and deliver impactful change this year – and introducing a set of stickers to amplify and share those messages.
My morning guest speaker fell through the night before (with good reason) so I sent word to the network that I was in a pickle. Peter Kappus stepped in like a total hero with a session on OKRs. It was a smash hit, and a lightbulb moment for many on keeping activities separate from KRs.
Peter’s a demon at liberating structures facilitation so he held the room well – including a method of bringing everyone to order that we used through the rest of the day.
The afternoon talk was Giles Turnbull, on the magic powers of weeknotes. I’m trying to nudge more people and teams to generously cut windows in their silos through internal (and where appropriate external) regular-ish missives. Reading the room there was a range of reactions from inspired excitement to redoubled reluctance so it’ll be interesting to see what happens off the back of it.
Split-track sessions included an agile game, speed dating, a discussion on psychological safety, and group work on describing our digital-first future BFI vision more clearly. We finished up with lightning talks on the roadmap for the year.
Some reflections:
- I don’t know why it took me 3 years since joining the BFI to arrange this. Post-covid remoteness, partly. Plus my having one foot in an exec team rather than both feet in my division (as was more the case in previous roles). Or perhaps now was just exactly the right time to do it, having right(er)-sized and reshaped the team.
- I’m so glad we did do this, and we’ll defo do it annually now. I had good chats with people I’d not spoken to 1-1 before, and I feel more connected overall. The vibes were great and we’re a cracking collective of diverse, talented, cool, nice and interesting people.
- My god it’s weird seeing your own weeknotes projected on a slide. I knew it was coming (in Giles’s talk) and my heart was racing. It’s that blogger’s paradox again, laying everything bare while also being shy about it. Giles and I also outed the other personal weeknoters in the directorate so maybe they were squirming too – but there’s strength in numbers and their notes are all deliciously good and need to be seen!
- And ofc, without my weeknoting, I wouldn’t have had a coffee with Peter Kappus last spring and been able to call on him to unpickle me on Wednesday at 10pm. I wouldn’t have made a new connection with Rob Cawston last week. Candidates for the cyber security job I just hired wouldn’t have had a way to know if this is a place and I’m a person they want to work for. And countless other constant wonderful surprising benefits like those.
- Leadership and inspiration flows both ways and I got energy and confidence from the teams’ support and participation. The day left me motivated to create more opportunities for learning and sharing, and give a speech to the whole organisation this year that builds on what I just said to my teams.
- I shoulda given more time to my deputies to talk through their plans for the year.
So that was good, wasn’t it? Worth spending some of my weekend writing about.
Other work stuff this fortnight included:
- a workshop on evaluating BFI’s 10-year strategy, led by the bright sparks in the research and stats unit
- an exec board all-dayer on budget-balancing decisions, plus a normal exec board. We’ve been working brilliantly as a team, it’s been good, and we got there
- our regular cyber security group meeting and an internal weeknote on latest progress; and reaching out to that new hire to say hi and get them excited
- networky chats with Rob Cawston as mentioned (lots of useful stuff) and Ross Ferguson to plan some wisdom-sharing with my teams on routemapping
Work-adjacent links
- The state of digital government report pulls no punches and I can see myself referring to it often.
- The blueprint for new GDS is pretty much everything I hoped for. All hail new GDS.
- This NAO report on government cyber resilience might help your case for funding if you’re struggling
- Write it down is top advice (via Steve Messer), as is this: seventy percent
- Digital in an AI era by Ben Holliday and On AI maximalism by Cennydd Bowles
- Playing to Win – handily distilled book notes from Anna Shipman
- My colleagues Jay, Ben and Harriet giving evidence to the select committee on British film & high end TV
- This Video Game History Foundation library looks interesting as does this slide pack on the state of video gaming in 2025
- Croydon ‘could become the UK’s answer to Silicon Valley’, data shows (yeah we’ll see, I’ve been part of this field of dreams before)
It’s not all work, work, work
Life outside of work was super-busy too with:
- many hours of mad dashing around getting Joel to his rehearsals and a theatre trip (this NT Connections gig of his is heavy on the petrol) plus medical appointments
- an evening hosting our new actor neighbour and her filmmaker boyfriend. We got on like a house on fire. You would probs know her, she’s v good in things
- a two-nights stay from my niece, Lily, who is doing work experience in London while studying in Brighton. So lovely to see her and lessen her Southern train hell
- a briefing from Dylan’s school to the scholars group about applying to Oxbridge (he’s speculating on it), and emails to line up more work experience to broaden his exposure to dev work in teams. Proving hard to arrange with safeguarding and remote working
- Ismet finished decorating and I re-hung a million pictures. Chuffed with the results.
Cultural consumption
🎬 Blue Velvet in a packed NFT1 was fantastic. So many iconic shots (🚒🙋♂️) and lines. “It’s a strange world”. “Why are there people like Frank?” “Now it’s dark”. And of course…
🎬 Slade in Flame. Occasionally, my job involves seeing films in a cinema in the daytime and this was one of those times. The content mastering team in my directorate has remastered this gem for re-release later this year, so this was a QA screening in NFT4. It’s a lot of 70s fun, you should check it out when it goes on sale.
🎬 Heist. Mamet’s masterpiece crime caper was magnificent to revisit at home. Had to buy it on DVD, it’s not on any streamers.
🎬 The Thomas Crown Affair was also a fun rewatch, and is very keen for you to know it wasn’t filmed in a real museum.
🎤 A disproportionately good Comedy Night at Joel’s school. Kerry Godliman is a mum there and has been organising fundraisers for 4 years now, but this is the first time we went. The amazing line-up was Kerry plus Jen Brister, Fern Brady, Dane Buckley, Michelle De Swarte and Ian Stone. It was top notch, but ended on a sour note when a pissed-up audience member interrupted Ian Stone’s bit on Israel-Palestine with a rude, slurry protest.
📓 DNF’d Butter.
🎧 Love this: Orla by Bjork and Rosalia
🎧 Also listened to and liked the new albums Eusexua by FKA twigs and DIA by Ella Minus
Distractions
Laters, I’m off to do some living now.
