Weeknote 40/2020
I like the balance in the numbers of this week’s weeknote 🙂
This week has been pretty intense, in lots of ways. It’s been the first week of a four-week Catalyst-funded discovery programme, with We Are Open Co-op as one of 11 digital partners helping 103 charities. The aim is for them to have identified a problem area, done some user research, performed some ideation, and prototyped an idea.
It’s going well, and although there wasn’t enough lead-in time, we’ve got a great cohort. The hardest thing, I think, is for them to think of something which isn’t a huge change management project for their organisation, but rather something testable and achievable inside the month-long window.
Another thing that has led to this week’s intensity was the short notice I had to present a proposal to the Outlandish members circle about working with them up to the end of January 2021. Thankfully, a number of them had already helped me frame it, so the proposal passed and I’m looking forward to continuing helping them with some productisation.
There’s yet another thing that has added to this week’s intensity: the huge spike in COVID-19 cases around where I live. It’s got to the stage where we’re wondering whether to send our two children to school next week. I don’t want them to get ill, and I definitely don’t want to get infected myself. After all, I don’t get sick pay.
Finally, there’s ongoing tension within our co-op. I’m not going to go into too much detail, but mediation has proved unsuccessful, so I’m not sure what’s going to happen next.
Due to the above, I didn’t end up writing anything here this week, but on Thought Shrapnel I published the following:
- Like the flight of a sparrow through a lighted hall, from darkness into darkness
- university classes during a pandemic? Why?
- ‘Rulesy’ people
- The importance of co-operation
- One is not superior merely because one sees the world in an odious light
- to give advice
- The truth is too simple: one must always get there by a complicated route
Next week I’m primarily focusing on Catalyst stuff, although I’ll also be adding some Outlandish and Greenpeace into the mix.
Image of Bluebell Wood, not too far away from where I live in Morpeth, Northumberland, England.
