Note: this is my last weeknote until September due to my impending digital hiatus. I’ll write a ‘monthnote’ on my return! You can still contact me via my work email addresses but I’ll not be in social networks during August.
This week I’ve been:
- Sending out Issue #184 of my newsletter, Things We Learned This Week. Thanks again to nCube for sponsoring July’s issues!
- Travelling to London and back. I was down on Wednesday and Thursday this week as I had a meeting with Kirstie Donnelly, MD of City & Guilds UK. I stayed at Citadines Barbican which is great as it’s comfortable, spacious, and opposite the swimming pool I use.
- Recording and releasing Episode 20: ‘Entrepreneurial Standing’ of the Today In Digital Education (TIDE) podcast I record with Dai Barnes. That’s the last episode until September, so you’ve got a chance to catch up!
- Investing in a glass teapot and cup/saucer combo. It’s all about the rituals and routines to start the day. I got some camomile tea (morning) and jasmine pearls (afternoon) to go with them…
- Meeting with Jeremy Dean from Hypothes.is. We’ve started to use this free, Open Source ‘annotation layer for the web’ to gather community feedback/suggestions for the Open Badges 101 course.
- Asking for reader feedback via my 2015 reader survey. I’ve had some interesting responses so far, including my favourite: someone’s description of their occupation as ‘middle-class drudgery’!
- Indexing a completed Moleskine notebook in the way I outlined in this 2011 post. I’ve gone for the same size but with squared paper this time around and, I have to say, much prefer it.
- Improving the Open Badges 101 course with Bryan and sending out an update. We presented on the Open Badges community call this week. You might like to get involved by suggesting badges we might want to issue or by subscribing to updates.
- Agreeing the outline of a new contract with City & Guilds. It looks like I’ll be working with them for three days per week at a rate that will allow me to have a ‘development day’ to pursue my own agendas. I’ll have a spare day per week for other clients. Get in touch if you’re interested!
- Writing:
Over the next month I’ll be up and down to London, reading a lot of stuff, and steering clear of screens when I’m not working! Today we’re off for a long weekend camping in the Lake District. It’s predicted to rain the entire time. Fun.
This week I’ve been:
- Away for most of the week – down in London from Monday to Wednesday and then in Brighton on Thursday. I stayed in a City Marque Clerkenwell serviced apartment and Hotel Du Vin, respectively. The former was noisy and the latter was wonderful.
- Working with London CLC staff around a new manifesto and some digital strategy. We used Chris Messina’s recent, popular blog post about the full-stack employee as a provocation.
- Going out for meals with lots of people: Oliver Quinlan (dinner, Monday), John Bevan (dinner, Tuesday), Dan Sutch, Kieron Kirkland, and Bryan Mathers (lunch, Wednesday), and Craig Taylor (dinner, Wednesday). All great company!
- Recording and releasing Episode 19 of the podcast I record with Dai Barnes entitled Today In Digital Education (TIDE).
- Negotiating (or at least beginning to negotiate) my City & Guilds contract from September onwards. I’ll be working either two or three days a week for them from that point, with my overall aim to do four days a week for clients and one as an (unpaid) ‘Doug day’.
- Chairing my first Open Badges Strategy Group meeting for City & Guilds. I’ve halved the meeting time, ensured we have a decisions workflow that doesn’t depend on email/face-to-face meetings, and used Hackpad as an agenda/backchannel.
- Having email conversations about some potential work for some new clients.
- Enjoying the seamless experience Google Photos provides (more than I thought I would given my usual privacy concerns, etc.) I use the ‘full image’ option that counts against my 180+GB Google Drive rather than the tempting, but ultimately sub-optimal ‘high resolution’ option.
- Working on some digital strategy stuff for City & Guilds.
- Leading (with Bryan Mathers) a session on Open Badges for City & Guilds Kineo from their office in Brighton. People joined us both in the room and from their offices worldwide.
- Creating a screencast on how to add Open Badges to your LinkedIn profile (after being asked for the eleventy-billionth time).
- Writing:
Next week I’m down in London on Wednesday and Thursday and working from home for the rest of the week. We’re going camping as a family next (long) weekend and then I’m going incommunicado on the personal digital front during the first part of my Black Ops.
Photo looking down from C&G Kineo office, Brighton
This weeknote is coming at you slightly late given I was away all weekend in the Lake District doing a Mountain Skills course.
So, last week I was:
This coming week I’ll be in London for two and a half days (Mon-Weds), and down in Brighton for a session at City & Guilds Kineo on Thursday.