Open Thinkering

I’m composing this on my phone while watching Liverpool vs Chelsea on TV. It’s my fourth football match of the day after my daughter’s, my son’s, and then Hull vs Sunderland.

I haven’t really enjoyed this week. It took until about midday Tuesday to get over the effects of my Covid and flu vaccines, then I had four days straight of migraines while my wife was either working in the office or down at the other end of the country at a funeral.

It’s almost the end of the month of Vendémiaire on the French Republican calendar, which given how climate change has messed with the seasons, is as good a one to use as any. I think the reason this time of the year kicks my ass is that it’s very obvious that we shouldn’t be on British Summer Time any more. Roll on next weekend.

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It was my wife’s birthday on Monday, so this was a four-day work week. WAO finalised the JFF/IRC evaluation report that I’ve mentioned in previous weeknotes, sent the Skills Development Scotland proposal that I’ve also mentioned a few times, and did some research for the Friends of the Earth AI sustainability principles project (which now has an overview page).

With Bryan Mathers, I planned work on a second N-TUTORR workshop on creating a badging policy for Irish universities. WAO has some upcoming N-TUTORR funded work around creating a horizon report, but weren’t able to start it last week for various reasons out of our control.

I continued to do some work around my Project Studio idea for putting into practice some of what I’ve learned so far in my MSc in Systems Thinking modules. I received some great feedback from peers during the session on Wednesday evening that perhaps, while what I was planning was interesting, perhaps it wasn’t particularly creatively inspiring for me?

I’ll try, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to finish the project. I’m around next week, but then in subsequent weeks I’m up in Scotland for a family wedding, and then in Paris for ePIC 2024.

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Yesterday, I supervised my son driving an hour each way so that my daughter could play game in Stockton. During that hard-fought cup match, she received her first-ever yellow card and was hit in the head with the ball three times so hard that we think she has a mild concussion. They ended up winning on penalties.

Today, she shouldn’t really have played in the wind and the rain, but insisted that she was OK. We should have followed the Football Association’s concussion guidelines, as she wasn’t her usual self. I feel a bit bad about that, but we’re going to keep her off tomorrow, as she would have been representing the school at a football tournament.

My son played fantastically in his basketball game yesterday, shooting three baskets and assisting many in a game his team won easily. His football team also won today, meaning that’s another winning weekend for him. He’s also got the personal statement written for his university application form, so he’s doing well at the moment.

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Next week, I need to present the JFF/IRC project, make progress with the Friends of the Earth one, run the second N-TUTORR workshop, and scope out the horizon-scanning report. I also need to get my presentation and workshop for ePIC sorted. Oh, and we’ve also got a co-op planning half-day to squeeze in.

My son’s got a second attempt at passing his driving test, I won’t have to drive my daughter to so many places due to her concussion, and I’m hoping to get back to running more than 25km/week.

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Photo: The beach at Low Newton-by-the-Sea, looking towards Dunstanburgh Castle, taken by me on Monday.

I’m typing this with my back to the radiator and a cup of tea next to me. I’m in the room we call the ‘spare lounge’ which, on the official floorplan to this house, is the dining room. But who has a dining room in 2024?

Yesterday, I had a flu jab in my left arm and a Covid jab in my right. I knew I’d feel rough afterwards and, psychosomatically or otherwise, I definitely do. A generous person might praise my forward-planning to have my MSc End of Module Assessment (EMA) close to finished beforehand. A less generous reading would point to an overactive brain and general background anxiety. Even right now as I’m typing this, I’m thinking of how many kilometres I’m falling behind my yearly distance goal.

That I have to feel rough, or plan in advance times when I give myself a break is pretty on brand for me. For example, last night was the first time I played on my Steam Deck we moved house almost six months ago. I probably need more fun in my life, especially at this time of year. That was one of the reasons for adding “Go to some kind of in-person event that isn’t sport-related” to my targets for this month.

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This week I ran a workshop on an introduction to digital badging for the N-TUTORR project. Although I ended up being the one who talked for most of it, the work it was based on belonged to Bryan Mathers. The images he’s created over the years make it so easy to explain things, and his Remixer Machine means it’s easy to set workshop activities. I’ve started to plan the follow-up one which focuses on coming up with a badging (as opposed to a microcredentialing) policy. It’s all about the recognition.

I continued working on projects with and for Skills Development Scotland, Friends of the Earth, and JFF/IRC. After a couple of weeks out sailing, Laura was back this week, which brought a fresh perspective to these projects. Other than that, I’ve been working on my EMA, taking my son to his driving test (he didn’t pass, but has snagged a cancellation for 10 days’ time), and getting a quotation for a new home office. The latter will probably end up involving converting about quarter of our double-garage, but we’re getting a price for one in our garden, too.

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I attended the first session of School of the Possible’s Project Studio on Wednesday. The convener, Dave Gray, describes it in the following way:

Not everybody wants a creative life, but if you do want it, and are willing to make space for it, you deserve to have it. That’s why I’m launching Project Studio, a six-week program designed to generate momentum and community for our creative projects.

[…]

This is a peer-to-peer program, and as such it will only be as good as the people who show up. We want people who are committed to doing good work and serious about finishing in six weeks.

My aim is to create some kind of business offering based on what I’ve learned during the foundational modules of my MSc in Systems Thinking in Practice. The six weeks doesn’t actually start until next week, with the session on Wednesday being about saying hello, helping us describe our projects, and getting used to the online tools we’ll be using.

As an educator and facilitator, I really appreciate the way that Dave de-centres himself and makes his sessions dialogical. Going into three separate breakout rooms with different people in each really did help me refine my thinking. For example, I realised that I really want to focus on the creative aspect of Systems Thinking, lowering the bar so that it doesn’t seem so academic to people. I guess I did the same with my doctoral thesis by writing a more-accessible book and giving a TEDx Talk about it.

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Other than the above, buying some birthday presents for my wife’s birthday, submitting some proposals for new business, and taking people to various places, that’s pretty much it for this week. At this time of the year, I feel like I’m limping towards the half-term holidays. I felt like that as a student, as a teacher, and given that I still take that week off work, I feel like that now. Only two weeks to go, and then hopefully I’ll feel re-energised for ePIC in Paris at the start of November.

Next week, I’m going to get the JFF/IRC project finished and ready to present, submit a finished proposal to Skills Development Scotland, get loads of desk research done for the Friends of the Earth project, and figure out a plan for a small horizon-scanning report we’re doing around microcredentials for Irish universities. I’m quite looking forward to getting my EMA handed in and having six months off doing academic work. I might, in fact, just get it submitted today.

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Photo: aurora borealis (northern lights) over our back garden, taken by Hannah Belshaw and edited by me.

I’m composing this sat under an electric blanket on a relatively low setting, watching Brighton & Hove Albion come from 2-0 to score three goals after half-time. They’re currently winning 3-2. Waking up after half-time is something my daughter’s team is good at doing. They won 9-1 on Saturday, with her scoring a hat-trick, and lost 7-2 on Sunday.

We spent the afternoon at Six BALTIC, the restaurant on the roof of the centre for contemporary art. It was my dad’s 75th birthday earlier in the week, so I took him to Sunderland’s win against Derby County on Tuesday night, and arranged for our family to meet at the restaurant. It was great to see my sister and her two kids, and the food was lovely.

Both occasions were supposed to be surprises. With the football match, because of digital ticketing, I had to allocate the ticket to my dad’s digital wallet, meaning that he found out at least a week in advance that I was planning to take him. With the restaurant, he’d planned to have his Covid and flu jabs this morning, and I didn’t want him feeling rough. Thankfully, after I told him, he managed to move the jabs to next week.

My son’s toe and ankle, which I was quite concerned about last weekend, are much better. We gave him a lift to and from school from Monday to Thursday, and then he managed to walk himself on Friday. I think he should be OK to do his driving test next week, and hopefully start getting back to sport.

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On the work front, Laura’s still been away, so I’ve been working with John and Bryan on various projects. Here’s a quick overview:

• Friends of the Earth (WAO) — we’re helping them on a Mozilla-funded project to generate some AI sustainability principles. These will go into a report, once we’ve finished our desk research, got back responses from email-based interviews, and run an online roundtable event.
• Jobs for the Future (WAO) — we’re evaluating a Verifiable Credential for ‘New Americans,’ refugees and immigrants to the USA. It’s based on the International Rescue Committee’s Job Readiness Training, and we’ve almost finished the report and slide deck. The project has run over the last few months and involved quite a lot of user research with various stakeholder groups.
• N-TUTORR (Dynamic Skillset) — I’m working with Bryan and his award-winning Remixer Machine to run a couple of workshops relating to digital credentials for staff CPD.
• Skills Development Scotland (WAO) — we’re putting together a proposal for how SDS could use Verifiable Credentials with their My World of Work platform. The SCQF have been helping connect us with forward-thinking employers, who we’ve been interviewing to see how badges/credentials might be able to help with the hiring process.

We also put in a couple of responses to RFP’s for the N-TUTORR project around horizon-scanning reports and should find out about those next week. One was relating to microcredentials, the other to do with AI.

Other than the above, I’ve been working on an end of module assessment (EMA) for module TB871 of my MSc in Systems Thinking in Practice. I’ve started using Scrivener again after over a decade away from it, and it’s an absolute delight for writing anything that’s based on research. It comprises a 3,400-word report about my system of interest, and a 600-word practitioner statement. I’ve written about half of the former, and pretty much finished the latter. It’s due on the 15th, so I’ve still got next week to work on it.

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Last week, I complained about my back, putting it down to my running shoes. Although the Strava screenshot might show that my above-average ‘relative effort’ might have something to do with things, I gave them a couple more chances, and then retired them. I’m just going to use them as casual trainers from now on.

I’ve therefore started running in my new running shoes, which apparently take around 50km to ‘bed in’ so I’m going to withhold judgement about how they currently feel. I’m three-quarters of the way to 1,000km for the year which is decent progress. If and when I meet that target, I’m not sure what I’ll do next year — the obvious thing would be to up the goal to 1,200km/year (or 100km/month). I’ll see how I feel at the end of December.

My wife and I re-joined the spa at our local leisure centre and went together on Saturday. As the weather gets colder, it’s not only a great place to unwind, but it really warms your bones. There’s nothing quite like the sauna.

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Next week, I’m delighted to say that Laura will be back to contribute her large brain to our projects, along with her creativity and enthusiasm. My son’s got his driving test, I’m finishing off my MSc assessment, and it’s the first session of School of the Possible’s Project Studio, which I’ve signed up for.

I’ve put Thought Shrapnel on hiatus for a bit, probably just for a few weeks, mainly because everything I’m working on at the moment involves writing. I’ve called myself into the office again so have some stuff to get on with. Also, it’s October, or more accurately (to my mind) Vendémiaire, which is the most ‘meh’ month of the year. While it contains my wife’s birthday, it’s also a time when I lament the passing of the light, and feel like an anxious little squirrel hiding his nuts for winter (stop sniggering at the back!)

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Photo: my dad and me before kick-off at the Stadium of Light