Weeknotes 16/2022

Tomorrow is Remembrance day. I’m from a military family, so this day is always a big deal: A day to be solemn and reflective and remember the people and the stories from the terrible times in our history. I’ll be having a moment of silence with my family at 11am and hope you will too.

What went well:

• I’ve shocked myself at how much content I am writing for #NaBloPoMo. I feel participating in this has given me permission to write all the things I was too nervous to write before. That said, I’m going to take a small break over the weekend, for Remembrance day and to spend the weekend with my family.
• I sat in on some user research interviews. It’s so nice sometimes to a be the person listening and absorbing instead of panicking about recordings and timing and notes.
• I’m joining a new team, so I’m starting to meet everyone 1 on 1, because although it feels awkward, I know from experience that it’s the most impactful thing I can do in the early days of a new job.

What didn’t go well

• I joined a 2-day change management course, run by business consultants. I feel bad saying this but I really didn’t gain any value from it. I see change management as a meaningful opportunity to be people-centred, but this course really focused on doing change to people though tactics that weren’t very user-focused. There were also other other aspects of the course I found kind of difficult or problematic. I gave them some very constructive criticism and have been struggling since, wondering if I am too harsh or too critical. So I’ve been asking myself, “am I the problem?” while trying to convince myself the feedback was fair and focused on the content, not a personal attack on anyone. I hope I wasn’t too unkind.

Inspired by

• I missed the live call but I really enjoyed a recent call from Rosenfeld Media’s Civid Design Community: Why Community is Key to Professionalizing Design with Jaskiran Kang.
• Amy Hupe wrote an interesting post on the case for jargon. In a funny coincidence, she published hers on the same day I published my counter argument.
• I discovered my colleagues Kevin and Kelsey have been writing weeknotes (yay! working in the open) so I’ve been catching up with their work.
• Honey Dacanay did a bit of a writeup of the talk she and Katy and Katherine did at FWD50 — What does winning look like?
• My colleague Heather (and her teenage son!) has been writing some really lovely stuff for NaBloPoMo

Reading, watching, listening

• I finished a slightly cheesy chicklit novel, Meant To Be by Emily Giffin. It was … ok.
• I’ve been catching up on recent episodes of Gogglebox UK … it’s always a great way to get a glimpse into what’s good on telly.
• Do not listen to this episode of The Moth unless you want to cry a lot. The last story wounded me deeply but was so, so beautiful at the same time.