Digital by Default

Category: thoughts

  • My Alpha Alpha

    My Alpha Alpha

    Today is the six year anniversary of launching the ‘ONS Alpha’ into the wild. It is also the ninth birthday of GDS and it feels appropriate that they share a day as one wouldn’t have existed without the other. Working on the Alpha (ONS have done many Alphas since – many more complex and better…

  • 2020: The year I forgot how to read

    2020: The year I forgot how to read

    We all know 2020 has been terrible and weird and unsettling…and don’t forget ‘unprecedented’. One of the things I know I’m not alone in was the effect those early days of COVID concern had on my ability to read for pleasure – and here we are staring down the barrel of October (and the foretold…

  • No Pret? No problem.

    The current campaign to get people back into offices is notable for a few things;  That there is consistent correlation between ‘back to office’ and ‘back to work’ which seems to be disingenuous at best. ‘Office’ workers have been working non-stop since all this kicked off. The fact that those notoriously soft on workers and…

  • 10 weeks note

    This is my 10th weekend of essentially self-isolating. I mean to some extent I am always self-isolating. I mean I live alone and am not the most social person but between work, family and my close friends I usually occasionally see a few people in person! Since I got back from Oslo on March 13th…

  • Let’s call it COVID’s cousin

    Let’s call it COVID’s cousin

    “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” “If you get sick during a pandemic and no one is around to test it, is it really COVID?” I don’t know whether what I have had is COVID-19. What I do know that in a…