The big four oh! Well actually it turns out it is a ‘streak’ of 54 weeknotes now. That is a lot of internet introspection in a row – even for me.
This week has been dominated by the work with [redacted] which continues to be somewhat adrenaline inducing and more opaque than I’d really like given the timelines involved. As I said last week, though, it has been an opportunity to stretch some underused product muscles and witness some stellar work from colleagues. I think we might be suffering a bit from too many cooks but honestly it is hard to tell still – things are moving fast…but zig-zagging more than straightforward and the minute the group gets smaller I suspect we’ll be missing someone we need…urgently.
This week was also the GDS Get-Together – an all-hands gathering in London. I’ve always been curious about these events. Over the years it is where big reveals happened (and then leaked on Twitter) so despite feeling less than 100% – but Covid free after a couple of tests – I dragged myself to London.
I can’t really go into much detail about the content of the day – there was a really nice review of the delivery against the current strategy that is in its final days, a preview of the vision for the next strategy and some of the thinking behind that, some future products were trailed as well some that are ‘coming soon’. Sarah Munby, Perm Sec of DSIT, gave a really great talk. Genuinely impressive, inspiring and charismatic. Plus such a change from some of the slightly cookie cutter folks in those roles.
I really disliked (and had previous with) the venue. It was very noisy (plus playing a very loud playlist in the breaks on top of the crowd noise was…a choice) and had strange lighting and somehow made it feel even more crowded than it was (and there were a lot of people anyway).
I did manage to chat to a bunch of folks from other corners of GDS who I had yet to catch up with which was lovely and meet a few of the GOVUK gang in person for the first time which was equally a treat. I definitely missed a lot of people in the crush though.
Feeling rough and the venue contributed but I came away from the day feeling like a bit of a relic from a bygone era. I even updated my LinkedIn headline accordingly on the train home.
There was nothing introduced or presented that I disagreed with particularly and a couple of things I thought were very exciting but unlike the majority of people in attendance who seemed to lap it up I felt a bit uninspired. Maybe that is unfair but I didn’t see/hear anything I’d be clamouring/lobbying to be a part of. Which is probably fair enough – I’ve been at this a long time and the things I really care about are happening elsewhere if they are happening at all anymore.
Which brings me to the blogpost I wrote sparked by Jeni Tennision joining the new Digital Centre Panel for DSIT. I think it reflects my main interests these days beyond the day to day of producing. Openness, capacity, capability, community and a bit of data. It seems to have gone down better than I expected – and has got me hoping again that 2025 is the year I find a way of focusing more on that kind of thing – much as I am enjoying this Product Lead lark at the moment.
Oh and I was also in a meeting that I think the kids (and by kids I mean nobody in over a decade) would call ‘awks’. 10 people, all with different expectations of what the meeting was about, pretty much all those expectations being incorrect and a lot of furrowed brows in HD as we tried to rescue some value. Always fun.
Nobody Wants This on Netflix starring Kristen Bell (forever Veronica Mars to me) and Adam Brody (the legend Seth Cohen) is just a lovely, thoughtful, romantic, awks and very funny show. The kind of thing I thought Netflix had forgotten how to do. Highly recommended (which is uncontroversial because everyone is recommending it everywhere as far as I can tell.)
Digital by Default 