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Month: July 2015

Reader survey: 2015 edition

Posted on by Doug Belshaw

Back in 2012, I created my first ‘annual reader survey’. You can see the results of that here. Despite my good intentions, I haven’t followed that up with a subsequent survey – until now!

Complete 2015 reader survey (4 mins)

As you’d expect, all questions are optional and all responses are anonymous. I’ll leave the survey open while I’m away during August and share back my findings on my return.

I’d really appreciate your participation – it will only take a few minutes of your precious time! I can only write for an audience I can define. 🙂

Image CC BY-NC-SA Ange

Weeknote 30/2015

Posted on by Doug Belshaw

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

[INCOMING] #BelshawBlackOps15 (part 1)

Posted on by Doug Belshaw

Every year I take some time off from publishing blog posts, composing tweets, and ‘personal’ online/screen time. I call this a digital hiatus or (more grandly) Belshaw Black Ops.

This all started in 2010 with taking three weeks off in December as I’m prone to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). However, I’ve found it so valuable that for the last couple of years I’ve disappeared for two months including November! It means I can come back full force in January refreshed, with lots of plans and ideas.

As I get older, I’m getting better at looking after myself. I’m eating more healthily, doing more exercise, and remaining more calm and centered. Part of the reason I’m able to do that is that I’m increasingly in control of my own time and, as a result, can prioritise things important to me.

I so enjoyed the family road trip we went on last year, camping and travelling around Europe. I actually chose to disconnect for a good deal of that, too. This year, then, I’ve decided to split #BelshawBlackOps15 into two – part one will be next month (August) and then I’ll be ‘away’ for part two in December.

I’ll see how I feel in terms of my ‘rules’ for December, but for August, I’ll be:

  • Keeping anything I write or create offline
  • Avoiding online social networks
  • Replying to personal emails on a weekly basis

One day, I hope to be in the position to work four days a week and for ten months a year. That would be my ideal. Until that point, and throughout both parts of #BelshawBlackOps, I still need to work on projects for clients and be available via email. That means can still get a timely response from me via my Dynamic Skillset and City & Guilds accounts.

So, practically speaking: this Sunday’s newsletter will be my last one until September; there’ll be no August episodes of the #TIDE podcast; on my return I’ll write a ‘monthnote’ for August (instead of my usual weeknotes); and for those privileged few on my private Slack channel, I’ll be around as usual. 🙂

Image CC BY-NC Jeremy Brooks

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