34 in a row is my longest ever weeknote streak without taking a break and launching a new ‘season’ – and that previous record was way back in 2010. So yay me I guess 😀. My intention is to keep going until the end of the year but with the new job who knows.
Speaking of the new job – one week down, 25 to go. Like I said last week I am now contracting with GDS as a Lead Product Manager on the GOV.UK Web team (as opposed to the GOV.UK App, AI. Pay, Notify or other parts of that wider brand/ecosystem.) As an old open web guy I am really pleased to have landed here – the thing I think best fits my knowledge and experience when I am a bit more hands on remains big, information rich, navigation heavy, websites and there aren’t many that meet that description like GOV.UK does….and one week in I already feel closer to the work and the teams than I have in a while.
The people I’ve met so far have all been great. It is wonderful to work with Jane after years of knowing her in particular and everyone has been really welcoming and open from the jump. I suspect I have never known fewer people working at GDS since it launched than I do now but there are still a number of friends dotted around in corners of Slack (and ~ you know ~ the country) which is always lovely.
This week I attended the obligatory security intro, a few 1-2-1s with team members, a couple of Show and Tells, a bunch of Check-ins, one or two stand-ups, some specific project meetings, filled in some forms, applied for my GovPass, read a lot of documents/decks, familiarised myself with the team OKRs (and yes I am going to have to shelve my OKR cynicism for a while as GDS runs on them). You know. The usual.
It is an exciting time to be working in this space and I feel pretty lucky to find myself in this position.
Got some stickers printed based on my recent Cynical Optimism post (which resonated with many but annoyed a few) and have purchased some stamps and some envelopes so if you would like one (and probably a few others from recent print runs) drop me an email to iam@jukes.ie with an address and up to 25 of you will get a pressie through the post.
What else? Well in my ongoing mission towards a low(er) carb diet to help wean me off all the diabetes meds I basically went all-in on omelettes for evening meals this week (five out of seven). Soooooo many eggs. Can’t say I recommend it or will make it a regular occurrence but it was fine, filling and effective from a blood sugar POV. Still I miss rice (and pasta, pizza, chips, noodles…).
As I mentioned last week I’ve been doing a big rewatch/binge of Bones. It got me wondering what else the showrunner – Hart Hanson – had done since. Turns out not much, but he did write a couple of novels. They aren’t in print in the UK but I was intrigued enough to buy hardbacks from the States (which wasn’t cheap!) so I guess that is my bank holiday reading when I am not at the Massive Attack event on the Downs…for which I bought a ultra-lightweight camping chair to take. I’ve never felt older!!
Digital by Default 