Weeknotes 18 of 2024

It's been a minute. A busy minute. On the family side, we had Halloween and Remembrance Day and Covid and Flu Vaccines and a lot of medical appointments (mostly all good.)

What happened:

• I attended Victoria GovJam which was such an awesome experience. It reminded me of the good old meetups in pre-covid London - lots of open energy and big ideas. I wrote some reflections here.
• I continued and finished the coaching course I've been on since September. It was wonderful. I also had another helpful session with my executive coach.
• I wrapped up some patient portal desk research and started a new project to understand the journey of building something digital in the health sector (internal work,) and I'm gathering info for two other projects.
• I spoke at FWD50! Well, kind of, they played a pre-recorded talk to their virtual audience and I was online to answer questions. Easiest conference talk ever. I was sad to miss the in person event though.
• I also gave a talk to our product owner group
• I provided UX advice to a few different projects, which is not really my area of expertise but I am always happy to share my perspective on how to make things clearer.
• I attended a Ministry orientation roadshow and learned about many of teams across the Ministry of Health
• I attended quite a few virtual learning things, some in the health sector, as well as FWD50 and the federal Policy and Service conference
• I wrote a LinkedIn post that got a lot of interesting comments!

What went well

• Connecting with people IRL last week was so great. I even got to meet Shara, one of our accessibility community leaders in the BC gov. When we said hello, we both said, "I feel like I'm meeting a celebrity" to each other because of our respective government community work, which was lovely, and also flattering for me because she is much more of a visible presence than I am.
• I've received lots of nice feedback on my various talks and work.
• I've had lots of lovely conversations with people online and in person.

What was challenging

• Well, the US election news was challenging, and still is. But I don't really want to talk about that.
• When I started in this role, which is mostly doing project-based design work, I had this idea that the projects I'd work on would have a specific outcome pre-defined - eg, A journey map, or a workshop, or a presentation. But I'm finding that it's much more vague than that and I'm having to do a bit of digging and a lot of guessing at what I think will be useful for the people I'm helping. It's not a bad thing, as I'm happy to be building up this muscle. But it's definitely a learning curve at the start.
• I found out I have hearing loss which was not surprising because I've had tinnitus for a few years, but it was kind of a disappointment, mostly because if I keep thinking, if I have hearing loss in my 40s, what are my later years going to be like? My dad had quite significant hearing loss but we had always attributed it to the fact that he was pilot. I guess it's actually genetic. Anyway, I'm not at the point of getting hearing aids, yet.

Things you should read

I think this LinkedIn post from Dan Hon is not getting the attention it deserves because I think it is spot on.

Here are some other good very good reads:

Policy prototyping is something you can do, and might already be doing

Have you ever sat in a working group, or briefing, where conversations circled, and wondered if people were listening to each other or even…

MediumLNH

Crafting a Collaborative Approach to Digital Oversight

As I prepare to close this chapter on my role in digital investment, I wanted to capture and organize some thoughts. Over the past two years in the BC government, I’ve been deep into the world of IT…

MediumMackenzie Kitchen

Analogue because of digital

Ben Holliday -

Ben Holliday

Work is meaningless, and it almost killed my husband

Work is an exchange of time for money. Work is an exchange of time for money. Work is an exchange of time for money. Work is an exchange of time for money.

whitep4nth3r.comSalma Alam-Naylor

An Introduction to Systems Thinking

Part 1: Three Key Principles

We Are Open Co-opDoug Belshaw

The end of the useful idiot

This recent piece in Fast Company was bothering me. I’ve been in work for almost 20 years soon and I’ve heard people talk about the lack of business acumen in design since I was a stude…

designswarm {thoughts}View all of designswarm’s posts.

Reflecting on In-House Service Design: Types of Work - Part 1

In this article, I dive into the experiences of working as an in-house service designer at Barnardo’s, highlighting the diverse projects…

Service Design at Barnardo’sUn-Jeong Ko

Why you need to hire a Chief Community Officer (and why “community” and scale are often opposites)

Community’s a funny old word. I spent most of the 2010s hiring people for roles with the word “community” in the title, and used to ask…

MediumSarah Drinkwater

A beginner’s guide to what service design is not

This article could be good for you if:

MediumHoward Chen

Reading, watching, listening

I finished five books since my last weeknote but I will highlight the two most recent, both wonderful Irish reads: Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, and Long Island by Colm Toibin.

I finally watched new shows! Nobody Wants This - the first episode was great but after I found it just ok and maybe even a bit cringe. And I started watching the Diplomat, but I'm not sure about it yet.

Two episodes from Search Engine have been helpful lately: How did the first democracy die? and How do you sit quietly in the middle of a storm?