Pardon the Pandemic Part 2 (Apr-Jun 2020)
April 2020
The month kicked off with absolutely stunning weather the start of some serious sunshine for a few months! Mother Nature was obviously trying to counteract the fear of the pandemic with some sunshine! I decamped to my parent's place in Surrey to self-isolate as I was advised to avoid being out and about with my asthma and I had no desire to venture into supermarkets or pharmacies; something I was lucky enough too avoid until mid-Jun as it turned out!
My birthday is the 4th and it was a positively strange experience being in the thick of the 5pm roll calls hearing from the government, not able to be out and about and feeling a lot of fear about what was going on! The following day the Queen made her speech which was so powerful and for somebody who doesn't readily relate as a royalist I was really moved by her address! Absolutely a sign of the times!
Difrent continue doing work for NHSX in way of the COVID19 response working across various NHS departments and with a raft of suppliers some we had worked with before and lots we hadn't! It was very much a 'leave your badge at the door and deliver the outcome!'. Always the best way! A shout out to AWS, Blenheim Chalcot and NHS BSA for being hugely supportive partners during this period!
I was delighted to join the Difrent and NHSX team being interviewed by Elemental TV talking about the home testing service - have a watch and a listen.
Internally at Difrent, we kicked off the start of this quarter ramping up the ask to our permanent staff about sharing more about the work they are doing and start producing content on a monthly basis; whether this is blogging, publishing code, producing an infographic, presenting at an event etc we feel it is super important that as the bulk of our work is Public sector-focused we share this far and wide so others can use and learn.
A new member of our Senior Team joined us to lead our People, Charmaine Coleman. I'm delighted we have somebody at a senior level who is helping us shape up our People strategy and helping us with our Operating model work and perhaps most importantly help us refine how we manage and lead across the business, reinforcing our values in our work and ensuring that the what and the how that we do is of equal importance in how we operate.
On a personal note; I joined some of the team I had met out at Arab Health earlier in the year to fundraise for the lack of PPE across the Carers community we have stood up https://kit4carers.org with the aim of raising money for kit. Please have a read about the work we are doing and help us with a donation.
May 2020
I started to get into a slightly better rhythm personally from May in way of a programme for me about how I was handling the pandemic and I ramped up walks in the morning and started to prioritise things that calmed me down on a weekly basis; typically my desire was for adrenalin-fuelled activities but that would have been counterproductive so the paddleboard was dusted off and every chance I have had I have been out on the water!
Difrent lost out on some health work with Blood and Transplant that I really wanted us to win and think we would have been a great partner for which is a shame and something we have looked at extensively in way of running a retro on our approach to this bid. We will always want to learn, refine and improve! On the positive side, we pitched and landed our first gig with GDS since I worked for them; this is a global piece around Wardley Mapping that our Business Change team are leading on! We also managed to semi-formally launch four of our business change services;
- Remote first delivery
- Service Delivery
- Wardley Mapping
- Rich Pictures
Jun 2020
Started with a bang as I was shortlisted for the National Business Women's Award (Small) referring to the size of Difrent rather than me (post lockdown!) and more importantly, one of my team picked up the Health Tech Hero award for his work leading the team building the home testing for COVID19. I’m absolutely delighted and a huge thanks to HTN for selecting Difrent!
It's been a SUPER busy month in way of speaking events with three under my belt; feel free to have a watch and listen with the links below.
- I was asked to join my largest panel during lockdown discussing Digital Health Readiness, during and post the COVID19 Pandemic. Thanks to CECOPS and Brian Donnelly.
- The Stationers hosted a panel to debate the controversial track and trace and discussing how digital transformation was helping during the pandemic. I was delighted to see my old mate Tom Bryant on the panel alongside Carol Tullo my colleague from The National Archives chairing.
- I joined an all-star cast at the opener of the #WITSUMMIT yesterday organised by the Women in IT Awards discussing Same Year Different World and the impact COVID19 is having on us all! Jo Hodgson and I debated Tech4Good in this era of COVID19 and the positive things we hope people and companies take from the pandemic!
I've also had the privilege to join some other cracking events this month; a shout out to Dynamo20. Genuinely is was the slickest event I have attended since lockdown kicked off and so heartening to hear from NHS tech and digital staff about the work they have been doing! Hat tip to Lisa Moran!
I couldn't close out this month's update without mentioning the awesome event that Lesbians who Tech Virtual pride Summit put on during the third week of Jun! Absolutely storming in way of content and speakers and I got to listen in on Arlan rocking it and sending us all away with a smile on our faces!
