Weeknote 2024.22

A week where things I’d been working on for a while suddenly came together.

Saturday

My day started at Waterloo to view the classic car meet-up along Lower Marsh. https://waterlooclassics.com/

I am not often deterred by the weather, however scrapped my plans to walk to London Bridge and then get a bus to Shoreditch High Street due to torrential rain, and instead hoped on the Jubilee Line and Overground, emerging into brilliant sunshine.

I took a few pictures around the station until the rest of the photography group arrived, and after a quick briefing and tea-stop, walked around Shoreditch and down Brick Lane. You see a lot of photographers around here, and there’s always something new to snap. I’m pretty sure I saw Lucy Davis, who played Dawn from The Office in a full length, bright pink, furry coat ducking into a club, and you don’t photograph that every day.

Sunday

Personal administration, including completing and publishing my weeknote, submitting my photography course homework and submitting my next photography club competition entries took all morning.

Engineering work on the Overground made it too onerous to join any of the Ramblers walks this weekend, so I accompanied my eldest back to Kings Cross for their last stint in York before graduation, and then walked from Whitechapel to Shoreditch High Street and back again to soak-up a bit more of the culture.

Monday

My day started and ended with project boards. I promised to share a copy of the one-side of A4 highlight report I’ve been using for the last decade, only to discover I don’t have an electronic copy anywhere in my personal files, so I’ll have to recreate it from an ancient paper copy. I had fun poking around the reusable collateral I created all the way back to 1997 and was slightly perturbed I couldn’t find the one thing I needed.

Tuesday

We took two massive steps forward with one of our foundational projects today, securing authority to proceed and welcoming an important addition to our team to guide us in our endeavours.

And delighted to see on LinkedIn that a former colleague had started as Director of IT and Digital in another London borough.

Wednesday

Our Town Hall All Staff meeting was the highlight of the day, saying farewell to a few colleagues and hello to other colleagues, a general catchup on the service, and excellent spotlight on secure by design principles and a chance to celebrate progress in one of our money saving initiatives.

Thursday

A true eureka moment as all the pieces of a puzzle I’d been working on since joining Enfield suddenly came together. It’s been interesting for me as I had a pretty good idea what the destination would be and knew how to get there, but the value was as much in the journey with colleagues as it was in the destination.

My train from Enfield ran non-stop from Seven Sisters to Liverpool Street, so I arrived in Shadwell unfashionably early for my photography course. Rather than sit around in the Shadwell Centre I enjoyed the chilled-out atmosphere at the Yurt Café. https://www.rfsk.org.uk/yurt-cafe with a cold drink.

A very productive portrait session, taking over 180 pictures in about 90 minutes, lots of reviewing and selecting to do, and definitely a lot of good images in the mix.

Friday

A useful meeting with a few colleagues to better understand one of our ongoing challenges that is causing some frustration. We can’t go back in time and can only move on from where we find ourselves now. We agreed some immediate actions and outlined a longer-term plan.

Then into central London for a cross-sector meeting, where it was great to meet colleagues from other London organisations. During the meeting I started making a checklist for discussions around services…

·???????? Start at the end, with the outcome someone using our service seeks.

·???????? Follow the flow of the people using our services.

·???????? Follow the flow of the information through the use of our services.

·???????? Consider the balance between broad and deep boundaries to our work.

·???????? Look at parallels that exist elsewhere.

Then I stopped as I realised I was largely recreating How to design services that work by Lou Downe. https://good.services/home.

Track of the week

Solsbury Hill, Peter Gabriel. Climbing what was then known as Little Solsbury Hill with my family is one of my earliest memories so there’s a powerful emotional connection to the song.

https://open.spotify.com/track/6vZZtivPrtpggT5SSXsYTy?si=06877a27b3614fb4

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