How was your Easter? Mine was spent hugging my new air purifier (thanks for the idea Mr O’Neil) and embracing my new life as a shut-in to escape the pollen infected hellscape of the outside world.

This did mean an unusual amount of adulting was undertaken. I’ve always taken a perverse pleasure in how un-digital I am in my personal life. No online grocery shopping, no online banking, paying by cash as much as possible, until recently even refusing to use contactless. Honestly it had no real reason – I just enjoyed that sliver of eccentricity in my community.

This weekend though I took the plunge. I moved my current account to Monzo (it is clearly a great service, I’m an investor of a tiny amount and I love that I know so many people there), moved my electric to Bulb, I tried to move my pensions to PensionBee – this however highlighted that I do not know enough about my pensions(!) and there are a few so I started that investigative process. I finally finished my will with Farewill – I really recommend this service – made it really painless – hardest thing was deciding who to leave my comic book collection to 🙂

I also set up my InstantPot and cooked my first meal in it.

——

Spent Tuesday in Taunton – I’m just finishing off the ‘assessment approach’ proposal I mentioned last week and the product coaching stuff I’ve been doing. Just need to line up a bit of shadowing at other organisations for someone and then that’ll be it. It is an interesting time to be there and I’m sad to be moving off the project as in a lot of ways it feels like it has just got out of neutral – it feels a little out of control at the moment just because it has really hit the accelerator but there is a lot of opportunity to do great stuff.

Wednesday and Thursday were meeting heavy but good. Had a really interesting conversation with someone from a Kubernetes consultancy who we’d done something with while at the BBC and who is totally coincidently based at the same co-working place as me in Bristol.

Also Sara is back from her trip to Ethiopia – I get on with all my colleagues but it really has made a difference having someone I’ve been friends with for a decade in the company and given the amount of marketing stuff we have in play at the moment it is good to have someone I just trust to help us get that all done…plus someone to geek out about TV and movies to.

The new website is really coming along – the Bens are knocking it out of the park. This does mean though that I need to carve out time to having another run at the words. It is one thing saying that the personality of the company is going to come out via the tone of voice of the copy but now I need to do it!

The Hertz/Accenture mess inspired me to write something – https://medium.com/notbinary/own-it-9240ce0007e3

So I guess I am blogging again – the book is still going nowhere though but one block at a time.

——

Today I am attending my first Notbinary Board meeting – I’ve done a few slides and a fair bit of prep but I am a bit nervous. Not sure why really – I’ve been in loads of meetings with all the members of the Board and get on with everyone. I am also confident in our narrative but it is just one of those things. Finding myself in ever increasing positions of responsibility continues to freak me out even as I seem to subconsciously seek them out. Maybe my subconscious is just trying to punish me?

Dear reader it is now 19.51 and I survived the Board meeting. As expected it was fine – in fact I quite enjoyed it (well apart from the WeWork fire alarm fail…that was unfortunate.) I said a few things. Pitched my marketing plan/approach. Had some news about my role (for another edition), learned a few things and all in all found it a good experience.

I am still in London as I am attending the SiliconMilkRoundabout tomorrow – I’m not job hunting 😉 I am kind of fascinated to get a look at how it works and how companies pitch themselves…enough that I am giving up my Saturday.

——

My Easter weekend of hermitage did mean I watched the new season of Bosch (very good – it really is a great adaptation of the novels) and I’ve given in and am catching up on ‘Line of Duty’. It seems OK? Season one was average with some good actors and I agree with everyone that Keeley Hawkes is brilliant in season two but it really isn’t as smart as it thinks it is and gets really silly. The Wire it isn’t. Also a significant plot line just seems lifted from ‘Infernal Affairs/the Departed’.

As mentioned above Dear Reader it is now 19.53…I went and watched Avengers: End Game. No spoilers but I laughed. I shed a tear or two. I yelped in excitement. I saw a packed cinema get totally swept away by it despite the run time. Thanks Stan.