Weeknote 36/2024
I’m composing this while sitting on one of the sofas in what we call the ‘spare lounge’. According to the official floorplan of the house when we bought it, this is the dining room, but the previous owners didn’t use it as that — and neither are we.
They left us the two sofas that fit in here perfectly and, while they’re not the colour or style we would usually go for, they’re insanely comfortable. So much so, in fact, that last night I ended up sleeping on one of them, as I was tossing and turning with sore hips and didn’t want to disturb my wife’s sleep.
The sore hips came from my visit to the Lake District, where on Friday I walked with David Rogers near Grasmere. I then took my Polestar 2 over the Hardknott Pass using single-pedal drive mode (so much fun!) and then walked and camped in Eskdale.
While Friday’s weather had been glorious, it rained a lot overnight, so much so that a little toad took refuge in my tent! That meant the river I’d crossed easily on the way out had turned into a raging torrent on the way back. With no mobile phone coverage (not even emergency coverage), I decided not to wade across, but rather to take the long way round via a bridge.
Before I left on Friday, my son had complained of having a really sore throat and being tired. Sure enough, he came home from school early and did a Covid test which turned out to be positive. Although there’s no legal reason or even guidance to do so, he’s isolating in his bedroom so that he doesn’t give it to us, his friends, or his teachers.
I’ve got my combined Covid and flu jab in a few weeks’ time, so I’m hoping that I don’t get it again before that. While I worked through it in January 2022, it took me fully 10 weeks to get back to exercise — and of course every infection brings with it the risk of Long Covid which I definitely don’t want.
I got my third tutor-marked assignment back this week for module TB871 of the MSc in Systems Thinking in Practice I’m doing through the Open University. I got another 85% which is great, but the feedback that I needed to show more critical thinking was frustrating given extremely constrained word count. I ended up pushing a lot of stuff into the appendices as it was!
Next up is my End of Module Assessment (EMA) which is due in exactly one month’s time. That should be reasonably straightforward, I just need to ensure that I set aside enough time to get it written. After that, I’m planning to take a six month break to evaluate my options after doing the two compulsory modules, and to have a bit more of a chilled Christmas holiday period than I did last year.
I published one post about combining five systems approaches this week. I’m not sure I’ll be writing many new ones over the next few weeks, because most of what I need to do relates to my EMA. Having said that, Amber Dumbleton-Thomas kindly sent me a book which looks really interesting, so maybe I’ll publish something after reading that.
On the work front this week, we ran the client kick-off meeting for the Friends of the Earth ‘Green Screen’ Mozilla Foundation-funded project around sustainable AI. I’ll probably write a post specifically about the details around this, but essentially WAO is on the hook for desk research, convening a roundtable, and writing a ~7,000-word article around principles relating to sustainable AI.
I also had a couple of meetings with Skills Development Scotland and the representatives of statutory bodies who form part of a group focused on My World of Work. I’m advising on the potential integration of Verifiable Credentials with this system. The next step is to do some user research and put together a proposal.
The JFF/IRC project continues with us doing evaluation around a Verifiable Credential for Job Readiness Training for New Americans. We’ve finished the user research interviews and most of the quantitative survey data analysis now, so we’re busy working on the more qualitative stuff around what emerged from the interviews.
Separately to the co-op, I’m doing some work with Bryan Mathers on a couple of workshops for N-TUTORR at the invitation of Ken McCarthy. Interestingly, it’s specifically focused on creating a badging policy, as they’ve already got one for microcredentialing. I’m pleased to see this kind of maturity and nuance in the ecosystem, and we’ll be using the four quadrants of recognition to help with this.
Other than that, I’ve been watching my daughter’s team play football in a tough league where they’re losing most matches, publishing a (very) few things over at Thought Shrapnel, and not running enough. Given that my Garmin watch told me that I did 300 intensity minutes on Friday, I’ll give myself a bit of a break.
Next week, I’ll be working on the projects mentioned above, doing more business development, publishing a third introductory post to systems thinking on the WAO blog, and both retiring my shorts-wearing for the year and getting out my SAD lamp in preparation for the darkness that is to come…
Image: collage of photos relating to my visit to the Lake District.
