Weeknote 35/2024
It’s all very well doing weeknotes, but Dave Briggs has been doing daily notes which detail what he’s been up to and what he’s learned. It’s a good idea, and kind of a public version of what I did 15 years ago with the P2 theme for WordPress when I was Director of E-Learning. The benefit of Dave’s approach is that everyone else gets to see what you’re doing (i.e. it increases his serendipity surface); the advantage of my approach was that it was easier to search and spot trends.
I think that if I were to do some kind of daily note, I’d be tempted to use micro.blog. I currently use this service for Thought Shrapnel and blog occasionally throughout the week. I’ve then got it set to send out a weekly digest on a Sunday. If I were to do a daily notes, I think the easiest thing to do would be to send out short updates and then configure it to send out a daily digest. That approach wouldn’t be so different to Stephen Downes’ OLDaily.
This week has been a busy one, and I’m composing this around 18:30 on Sunday with my iPod playing Satin Jackets on shuffle through an iPod Hi-Fi. I’m tired. Everyone’s tired; it’s been back to school for our two teenagers, with my daughter starting high school and my son starting his last year at school.
I worked from Monday to Thursday midday on client projects, business development, and getting a third tutor-marked assignment submitted for my current MSc in Systems Thinking module. I then headed to London on the train, checked into my hotel, and then met Bryan Mathers for drinks and dinner, which was lovely.
On Friday I went to the first day of the Systems Innovation Network conference. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, and didn’t really know anyone, but had a great time. Everyone was very welcoming and friendly, with systems innovation being a broad church covering many disciplines. I learned a lot, made lots of connections, and felt validated in wanting to spend the second half of my career doing more of this kind of stuff.
Friday was also my wedding anniversary, having being married to Hannah for 21 years. We celebrated a couple of weeks ago, and I ensured flowers arrived in my absence. (I did invite her down to London, but she didn’t fancy it.)
On Friday night I met up with Indy Neogy for a drink, who I met through School of the Possible online gatherings and subsequent virtual coffees. It was nice to meet up in person. I then had dinner with Mayel de Borniol, who is one of the people behind Bonfire. Since I’ve known him, he’s lived in Greece, France, New Zealand, and Spain. Recently, he’s moved to London with his family, and this was only the third time I’ve been in the same geographical space as him — despite me borrowing his large brain when he was Technical Architect for MoodleNet!
Saturday was the second day of the SI Network conference and continued to be inspiring. The 3D mapping session was fantastic and definitely an approach I’ll use in future. When it got to 16:00 and the CO2 meter that a fellow delegate showed over 2200ppm in the room we were in, I decided it was time to head off. I watched England comfortably beat Ireland on my phone at football at Kings Cross, and then headed back home on the train.
The rest of the weekend has involved me picking up my son from a party, sleeping (my new sleep earbuds are a revelation), and then supporting my daughter and then my son during their respective football matches. He managed to score two headers as his team won comfortably in the fog in Consett. She did well against a good boys team, playing her fifth game in seven days while managing her total number of minutes while coming back from a knee injury.
Next week, we’ve got the client kick-off meeting for the Mozilla-funded Friends of the Earth ‘Greening AI’ project I’ve mentioned in previous weeknotes. We’ll put something on our blog about it soon. Also on the to-do list is starting to synthesise some of the data from our JFF/IRC project, piloting a Verifiable Credential for job readiness training for New Americans. I’ve got a meeting to prepare for where Skills Development Scotland have asked me to provide input around digital badges/credentials could be used for My World of Work.
It looks like I’m heading to the Lake District on Friday to meet up with David Rogers, who I know from OG Twitter days, but who I’ve never met in person. After a bit of a walk and a chat, I’m hoping to camp on Friday night, and then head home on Saturday. It’ll be good to get out there again!
Photo taken from my hotel room of the London skyline
