These notes are a tool I use for reflecting, remembering (to counter my SDAM), networking within my profession, and public accountability. Read more here.
I feel like I’m just getting through it at the moment. In the Daniel Bedingfield sense. Reacting and coping, one upcoming meeting, parental task or incoming problem at a time. But get through it to what? The secular Buddhist in me knows there’s only “now” and I should try to enjoy the storm. I think everyone feels a bit like this, by the way – I’m fine, it’s not a cry for help!
With any quiet moments I do get, I’m trying to map the scale of the BFI’s digital and tech needs and work out (with help from a handful of thinkers in my team and network) what needs to be different for the next phase. That’s actually a fun challenge to me and I’m itching to do a bit this weekend, so I’ll power through this note asap.
Work, work, work
I had a coffee with Stuart Cullum, one of many former work spouses from my polyamorous GDS years. It was so lovely to see him and hear about the great work his Good Machine agency is doing, and (with ref to the above) vocalise the crux of what I’m grappling with at the BFI.
We had an excellent in-person all-staff Donut Time at BFI Southbank, and a protein-rich Digital Donut for my own directorate the day after. We rotate the compère role for Digital Donuts and it was lovely to see Wobed from our corporate IT gang on first-time hosting duties. These 6-weekly showcases do a lot of good for joining up our directorate.
Lots of progress on bringing folks together in the wider org to make BFI Player’s proposition the best it can be, with a richer mix of curatorial voices and contextual extras from in-house experts and special guests. Paul’s interview in Screen also couldn’t have gone better – I’m so happy with this headline!
Plenty of cyber-related stuff as usual. This fortnight we presented copious lessons from our recent shop incident to the Audit, Risk and Governance Committee, and held our regular internal cyber board. Jia’s first official blog post on behalf of the BFI is live, and characteristically it’s about people, culture and trust.
Interesting to observe how cyber has become a mainstay of my to-do list and diary for the past 18-ish months, and maybe it will be for the rest of my career. Whereas it was barely on my (direct) radar for the 5+ years prior.
Great work happening in digital service transformation. We’re inching closer to launching private betas for our new cinema guide and archive video service, and kicking off exciting discovery work on how we could improve our services to the screen industry.
Plus we made progress on establishing an internal tech requests service. We’ve clarified ownership and an overall shape, but there’s lots to do to make it real. It’s the carrot to the stick of tackling shadow IT: thou shalt not buy stuff without us, and here’s a low-friction route to a legit solution.
Lots of problems too, naturally. I’m navigating some clashes of culture and mindsets outside of, and even within, my directorate. But I’m absolutely resolute we will solve them, there’s no choice but to.
I’ve agreed to speak at a thing in Sept to a cohort of leaders in the culture sector.
Work experience, work experience, work experience
Son 1 has been doing work experience at the BFI this week: 2 days with BFI Player devs, 2 days with BFI National Archive devs. He learned loads from it, and we’re massively grateful to colleagues for hosting and tasking him with real(istic) stuff. It’s been odd, but very nice, hearing his voice across the open plan office.
It also gave me a good reason to visit our Conservation Centre again – which I’ve only done a handful of times cos it’s a 5 hour round trip from South London to Berkhamsted, whichever transport mode I choose. It’s a peaceful place, with a mind-boggling responsibility for preserving and conserving a vast and ever-growing record of human history and creativity. Always humbling and fascinating to go and soak it in.
Not all work, work, work
Then on Friday I took Son 1 to Cambridge open day. Another 5 hour round trip by car. Cambridge is magical, and I’m excited he’s got the best years of his life coming up, wherever he ends up studying.
We attended a sample Year 3 Computer Science lecture on information theory. It covered shannon bits, the unit for measuring the content and entropy of information. I felt like it made total sense at the time, but I’m struggling to explain it now! I wrote down a few phrases I loved (with added explanations thanks to Gemini):
- “Information is a quantification of surprise.” The more unexpected an outcome, the more information it contains when it actually happens. If you already knew something was going to happen, learning that it happened doesn’t give you much new information.
- “We learn more information when outcomes are less certain.” Following on from the above, if an outcome is highly uncertain with many possibilities, and then you find out which one happened, you’ve gained a lot of knowledge.
- “We learn the most information when the outcomes are equiprobable.” When all possible outcomes have an equal chance of occurring, the uncertainty (and therefore potential value of information gain) is maximised.
It gets complex pretty fast, but it’s this mathematical theory that makes modern data communications and compression algorithms possible. It also felt highly relevant to hypothesis-driven product development, user research methods, discovery phases and A/B testing.
Son 2 and I had a longsword fighting lesson. It was fun up to a point but too like personal gym training, with all the tedium of being corrected on your form.
🔎 Found, interesting 🤔
Governance happens in foggy weather is brilliant by Harry Metcalfe (and relates back to information theory, somewhat). Harry’s intro post is also inspiring on the need for humility while peddling the undeniable truth that the tenets of agile can help everything be better – and he uses this term I’d never heard before, which I love:
“déformation professionnelle” – the tendency for professionals to view and analyze the world through the lens of their specific profession, potentially neglecting broader perspectives.
Two excellent links on service design:
Four excellent links on planning:
- Blood, Sweat and Roadmaps: the 7 laws of roadmapping
- OKRs and impact-first product teams: Matt LeMay and Christina Wodtke (YouTube)
- OKRs were never meant to solve all problems [LinkedIn]
- You’re doing quarterly planning wrong
A smorgasbord of other excellent reads:
- The three definitions of digital in UK digital government
- The rotten cult of busy-ness (part 1 of 2: the problem) (see, it’s not just me!)
- The product operating model: how government should deliver digital services
- AI tools for filmmakers
- Charity Digital Skills Report
- What cinemas are demanding of the film industry
- Welcome to the messy middle: An introduction to Sensemakers
- The worst-kept secret in content: Why bad content isn’t actually about content
- Amy Edmonson’s recommended resources on psychological safety
Listening, reading, playing, watching, cooking
📺 Trainwreck: American Apparel was a thoroughly enjoyable watch about a megalomaniac CEO (I can’t get enough of this sort of thing!) This berk swears by a book called The 48 Laws of Power which are so jaw-droppingly evil and Trumpian we bought a copy for the lols. Maybe I’ll learn a thing or two. Look out, colleagues!
📺 Titan: The Oceangate Submersible Disaster. Knew most of this from the Swindled podcast but it’s extra shocking with visuals. Another psychopathic CEO and culture, with disastrous consequences.
🎬 Born on the Fourth of July (rewatched on the 4th of July)
🎬 Oldboy (showing this to the older teenager, on BFI Player).
🎬 Saw (to show the teenagers, for tis a classic).
📺 Hours upon hours of Love Island.
🎧 Loads off great listens thanks to son 1 in the car including Liminal Space by Xanopticon (very hard to drive to!), a couple of albums by Death Grips, and The 2nd Amendment by JPEGMAFIA and Freaky.
Distractions
- Trailers for Project Hail Mary and Edgar’s Running Man
- Animals that don’t sound like they look [TikTok]
- A place in England
- Salt Path revelations and rebuttals
I gotta make it, gonna make, gonna make it through…
