Weeknote 44/2022
Back to the bullet points! This week, I’ve been:
- Spending more time than I like dealing with spreadsheets. We’ve got a ‘State of the Co-op Union’ one which we’ve always had to basically ensure that we’re solvent. As we’re maturing and growing, John and I have created a new one which takes into account more factors and allows us to do more forward planning.
- Getting stuck into a new project with a client we had about four years ago. I’m not entirely sure what I can say about it, as we’ve signed an NDA but also the work is focused on community. So I’ll clarify that and hopefully be able to talk about it from next week onwards.
- Planning the next Open Working workshop that we’re running for Sport England’s innovation and digital accelerator later this month, funded by CAST. Part of this work includes Open Working badges, which Laura wrote about recently and which anyone can earn.
- Writing a couple of blog posts, the first entitled Sticks and stones (and disinformation) about content moderation in the wake of Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter going through. The second was The Fediverse is made up of cities, towns, and villages which is about how while it’s great lots of people are migrating from Twitter to Mastodon, there’s a lot more to the Fediverse than that!
- Updating a wiki page (see above screenshot) to show which Fediverse platforms are available from different managed service providers. It was obviously helpful, given the number of times it was boosted and favourited. However, apparently I made too many changes to the wiki without asking first, so my changes were reverted. 🙄
- Setting up an instance of Misskey for testing at wao.wtf. I’m not sure how long it’ll be around for, but if you’d like to try out a Japanese-flavour Fediverse platform, let me know!
- Getting back up-to-speed with various client projects with Laura and Anne after taking the previous week off for a half-term holiday (and being at a conference the week before). John and I are wrapping up a bit of work we’ve been doing for the Wellbeing Economy Alliance in collaboration with Happy Porch and Common Knowledge, and are hoping to continue working with them on some digital strategy.
- Attending a post-16 ‘inspiration’ event at my son’s school, where he ended up talking to a Royal Marines Commando Reservist for a good while. I looked at the test to get into the Commandos and thought I could probably do the running component. Er, I tried and… not quite! 😅
- Confirming that I’ll be down in London on November 16th (probably just for the day) to facilitate an in-person workshop for LocalGov Drupal. Thankfully, Aaron will be around to help!
- Playing plenty of Battlefront II and Vampire Survivors on my Steam Deck. The latter was the most-played game on that particular device last month, apparently!
- Enjoying watching Enola Holmes 2 as a family. The fact that it was based on a real historical event made it even better!
To be honest, although I found the platform extremely useful between about 2007 and 2014, it’s actually been great to see the inevitable happen to Twitter. Decentralisation is inevitable in a situation where you need content moderation that works in different contexts. Although I feel for the people laid-off and the way it was done, the fact that it’s hastened the move for so many people moving to the Fediverse is absolutely awesome.
Next week, I’m at home all week before Hannah and I are (separately) away a bit for work the following week.
Image by Annie Spratt
