Week notes: 8 – 14 July 2024

What a horribly violent week with crossbow murders, suitcases of human remains, and that counter-productive assasination attempt on Trump. I’m not here to talk about any of that, but it’d be odd not to acknowledge it, if only to set this post in context for future readers (hi, me!) On the flipside, it’s also been a week of positive energy and optimism with the new government crushing it on all fronts, England in the Euro 2024 final tonight, and…

Joy’s UK premiere

The hottest news round here is Joy’s debut feature 7 Keys will have its UK premiere at FrightFest on 24th August. A perfect fit! Teaser trailer here:

Mogging

Mog has come to mean some other stupid thing in this era of TikTok brain rot, but for me it’s either a cartoon witch’s cat or a Machinery of Government change. 

This week, our impressive new government announced they’re reforging the shards of Narsil by bringing GDS and CDDO back together and moving them from the Cabinet Office to DSIT, (along with i.AI which I admit I’d never heard of). 

What this ex-GDSer thinks

I’m optimistic. It signals this government sees digital as a priority, both for public service reform and economic growth; and sees those as linked. It’s sure to inject new energy into GDS …and may also eject the odd focus on GOV.UK “growth” and personalisation, which no user needs. 

I do wonder slightly what these functions might lose by not having Cabinet Office’s leverage over all departments (including DSIT!) – but the mandate OG GDS had back in the day was always more personal than structural. So all eyes on Peter Kyle and the jostling SCS incumbents …and any plum vacancies that may emerge.

What others think

Here are reactions from Ben Welby, Richard Pope, Ben Terrett and Sarah Drummond. 

Side note (well, brag)

MoG changes used to cost a bomb in building, migrating and sunsetting websites (among wider waste and disruption). For a decade now, reflecting MoG change online has been fast and free, with the functionality built into GOV.UK to merge, split, launch, rename or close any government body with relative ease. I’m really proud of the work I did on this in the 2010s with the help of many brilliant colleagues. Check out the new MHCLG and closed DLUHC homepages for instance. Boom!

Blogging

I’ve been having a self-critical wobble of late about these weeknotes. Not sure what value they’re adding to the world versus proper blogging about learnings and approaches. When I (re)started this I had hopes of crafting considered articles too, but haven’t had the time …or, tbh, much to say. 

If I wasn’t leaning on the weeknote format I’d probably not be blogging at all, though, so I’ll keep going with them. I guess the main value is in mindfulness and memoirs, for me. I’m coming up to a year of unbroken life-logging soon and it’s nice to have this accumulated personal history. 

Meanwhile… pleased to see Dave is spinning up a new initiative to give public sector bloggers (who don’t want to run their own sites) an alternative to Medium. I’ve volunteered to help with site admin and coaching/editing. Watch this space, it’s shaping up nicely.

My work week

I spent some time getting clear on my priorities, using (fugly) OneNote as a second brain with a blend of GTD and PARA (and a smattering of BuJo, Four Thousand Weeks and Make Time – I am so fickle when it comes to productivity methods!) 

The most useful part was making a list of my areas of responsibility, rating myself out of ten on the attention I’m giving them, and identifying next priorities for each. I’m part way through also tidying up my to-dos into active projects (defining those as any open loops with multiple steps or actions). The final bit I intend to do is sort out radars and checklists for my regular 1-1s so I’m keeping better tabs and giving better steers on the work being led by my senior team. 

Other than that, a bitty week: picking off tasks across all those projects – flitting between prioritising the work and JFDI-ing it (following Dave Allen’s two-minute rule – but then going down rabbit holes, natch). 

I have two long reports from consultants I still need to read but still didn’t – so should schedule. 

🔎 Found, interesting 🧐

Provocation from Richard Pope on how GDS’s over-emphasis on simplicity has obscured the complexity of government, harming accountability and engagement. I have culpability here (counterbalancing my earlier brag) as the Product Manager on gov.uk/government because I agreed with Rich about this at the time (and had lots of ideas, some inspired by chats with Rich, for exposing government’s inner workings) – but I didn’t prioritise it enough, becoming caught up in the cultish groupthink. (That and the fact Pete deleted my backlog – it simply isn’t true that everything that was important got remembered).

Anna Shipman posted an amazing treasure trove of strategy models: Strategy for Directors: Models and Strategy for Directors: Tying it Together

Anna’s models pair nicely with this from Carl Haggerty: Some of the influences and learning on my approach to supporting Change and Transformation

Two cool links shared by BFI’s UX design supremo Anna Serecold: A quick guide to writing better button labels and The Art of the Title (as in film and TV title sequences).

This flowchart tool looks useful via Dave Briggs.

Beautiful personal piece from Amy Hupe.

Like others, I also enjoyed Rachel’s mockery of the Tony Blair institute’s starry-eyed AI event.

Listening, watching, playing, reading, cooking

At the theatre:
🎭 Mnemonic. Impressive production, but it’s not for me. Joel ADORED the NT’s architecture and the whole experience, and has caught the bug in a way that is a total delight (to his mum especially).

At the cinema:
🎬 MaXXXine. Median Mia Goth fun. 
🎬 Kinds of Kindness. Kinds of Yorgos self-indulgence. 

At home: 
🎬 The Ballad of Tam Lin. Fun (if flawed) folk horror.
📺 Love Island. Entering the boring end phase.
📺 Euro 2024. ENG v NED proved very watchable. 
📺 Fleabag S2 (rewatch). Sexy priest time.
📺 Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! S3. Continues to be our top discovery of 2024. 
📺 White Lotus S2E1. Total snooze.
🕹️ Animal Well. I’m a bit stuck. 
🍳 Chipotle cauliflower and smoky black beans. Tasty 

On the move:
🎧 Master: the allegations against Neil Gaiman from Tortoise. Gripping, grim, complex case study on consent. Not the kind of digital penetration I usually write about. 

The end

Thanks for reading my musings and making them feel a bit less pointless! RIP Shelley Duvall. Enjoy the football tonight, however it goes down. Or enjoy something else you fully consent to.