Weeknote 04/2024
Yesterday, I was pulled over by the police for “driving without due care and attention”. Apparently my crime was “late signalling” onto a slip road after my wife mentioned that she needed something from the supermarket. It’s probably a good job I had my family in the car, as arguing with a police officer isn’t likely to end well.
This week, for the first time in my academic career, I asked for an extension to an assignment for my MSc in Systems Thinking. I was given an extra week, which will take the pressure off quite a bit. Here’s what I wrote as a result of my studies since last time:
- Systemic inquiry and the ‘design turn’
- My learning contract as a designed system of interest
- Snappy Systems
- The main systemic influences now operating in my situation of concern (S2)
- Juggling the M-ball (Managing)
I’ve got a busy time coming as work ramps up after an always-quiet January and we get ready to move house. Our offer on a place we really want was accepted on Monday, so we’ve been wrangling estate agents and solicitors so that we can exchange and complete as soon as possible. The vendors have already bought the place they’re moving to next, and we’re currently renting, so we’re hoping to be in by Easter.
On the work front, I’ve been collaborating on projects for Participate, the DCC, and WEAll. Having narrowly missed out with the invitation to tender NCS put out around customer journey mapping, we’re still talking to them about doing some work around Open Badges / Verifiable Credentials. We’re going to do some user research for Participate over and above the work we’re doing with them already, and I’ve had a couple of conversations that might lead to other projects. One in particular could be quite fun.
There have been cancelled training sessions for sporting activities this week, and our two don’t have a football match today. Yesterday, my son’s basketball team won and he scored a fantastic 3-pointer; my daughter’s football team won 5-0 in windy conditions on a heavy pitch. It’s the first match she hasn’t scored in… maybe this season?
The only other things to mention are that I’m on Bluesky and Strava again, and that I wrote a post about behaviours I’ve had to unlearn over the last decade or so. I also finally managed to properly migrate Thought Shrapnel over to micro.blog and published:
- The death of consensus reality
- Preparing for a year of electoral disinformation
- Doing something about the UK schooling class divide
- Shared persuasion tactics
- An ‘anti-social network’ you post to via email subject lines
Next week, we’re going e-karting again and we’ve got a meeting with the bank in which we’ll need to decide how much we want to borrow for the various improvements we want to make to the house we’ve bought. A new kitchen is a given, but there’s also an opportunity to convert part of the garage into a room and add an extension. We’ll see.
Image: Coach Marc Steutel addresses the Newcastle Eagles basketball team on Tuesday night during their 100-92 win against Liege Basket. See if you can spot me in the photos on the Eagles website! (clue: in the audience on the second and fourth pics)
