🚨🚨Warning🚨🚨

I’m still feeling a bit sorry for myself. I can’t seem to shake it at the moment. Physically, mentally and emotionally I still just feel a bit off – not terrible or anything but definitely sub-optimal (and it isn’t like ‘optimal’ Jukesie is exactly much to write home about these days.)

Work was okay. Had some good conversations, intervened helpfully in a couple of places, had some thoughts about the immediate future to make sure things are in a good place for Andy when he lands in late summer. I’ve got a paper to write but I’ve been a bit blocked – it is swimming around in my head but I am struggling to get it onto the ‘page’. Just need to buckle down.

A couple of related things I’ve been orbiting but not wholly involved in have landed today. Our newest Kickstarter (our accelerator/discovery type projects) was launched by Minister Murray yesterday. Sofia has done a remarkable job steering it to this point – it is a genuinely interesting problem trying to deal with some knotty data problems with real-world implications across education, health, local authorities and parents but that means there are a lot of stakeholders and a lot of ideas and even with everyone having the best of intentions it takes a lot of wrangling.

As part of the press statement it also quietly announces that the ‘National Data Library’ as an entity is now the name of the ‘new’ data.gov.uk which accordingly gains a somewhat expanded mission and roadmap – more about this will (I think) be shared  during London Tech Week but the wider work that has been happening under the umbrella of the NDL (like the Kickstarters) will continue as part of the wider GDS Data Directorate so it doesn’t change much on the ground for now. Though my job title is definitely out of date now as I am certainly not ‘Head of Product and Services – National Data Library’ post this decision. Better update LinkedIn.

WordPress.com is doing a bit of a ‘on this day’ reminder at this moment which brought to my attention that earlier this year it was 10 years since I wrote up my ‘Product is a team sport’ talk (sometimes it was ‘Digital is a …’). My ‘joke’ was always that it was my Matifesto. Build teams through better hiring and talent spotting. Be a coach and a promoter. Build culture by identifying and amplifying the good and minimising the bad. Leave the day to day delivery, big ‘save the world’ thinking and the politicking to people better suited to it. Contribute by making things better for the people at the sharp end of shipping products and services – and if you can’t help then get out of the way.

These days I fear it is a Matifesto promise I do not live up to.

Also it is another stark reminder that I peaked professionally a decade ago.

Just 22 editions of my jobs newsletter remain. That seems to be going fast. I’m currently contemplating replacing it with a less regular (maybe monthly) Linksletter type of thing – basically just the ‘What I’m reading…and writing’ section I feature most weeks. It will be a fresh start though – starting from zero subscribers and a new domain. It is a crowded field so it might not happen…we’ll see.

I really enjoyed season two of Tina Fey’s The Four Seasons on Netflix. Just a really likeable cast doing normal-ish stuff but in an occasionally very funny manner.

Spider-Noir on Amazon was a bit of a disappointment. It is a pretty average noir homage, a pretty average Marvel ‘What-If’, a pretty average Nic Cage outing. Honestly it would have been more fun if they had fully unleashed the Cage! There are moments when his weird choices almost make things fun – but there are too few of them and too much of the homage is cliche.

The final episode of Hacks destroyed me. I’ve really loved the show and it really played with my emotions in the finale!

My reading mojo totally abandoned me last weekend and has remained absent all week. So how did I respond? My bookbacklog increased by the following – 

Big Fan: Two Friends, 81,589 Miles, and the Wild, Wonderful Sports We Love
The Subtle Art of Folding Space
Nonesuch
Escaping Babylon: An Intimate History of Black British Music
Radiant Star
The Franchise

When I do finally retire I will have plenty to read…or a source of heat if I can’t afford my bills due to my crappy pension(s).