Weeknote 39/2024

I’m composing this sat under an electric blanket on a relatively low setting, watching Brighton & Hove Albion come from 2-0 to score three goals after half-time. They’re currently winning 3-2. Waking up after half-time is something my daughter’s team is good at doing. They won 9-1 on Saturday, with her scoring a hat-trick, and lost 7-2 on Sunday.

We spent the afternoon at Six BALTIC, the restaurant on the roof of the centre for contemporary art. It was my dad’s 75th birthday earlier in the week, so I took him to Sunderland’s win against Derby County on Tuesday night, and arranged for our family to meet at the restaurant. It was great to see my sister and her two kids, and the food was lovely.

Both occasions were supposed to be surprises. With the football match, because of digital ticketing, I had to allocate the ticket to my dad’s digital wallet, meaning that he found out at least a week in advance that I was planning to take him. With the restaurant, he’d planned to have his Covid and flu jabs this morning, and I didn’t want him feeling rough. Thankfully, after I told him, he managed to move the jabs to next week.

My son’s toe and ankle, which I was quite concerned about last weekend, are much better. We gave him a lift to and from school from Monday to Thursday, and then he managed to walk himself on Friday. I think he should be OK to do his driving test next week, and hopefully start getting back to sport.

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On the work front, Laura’s still been away, so I’ve been working with John and Bryan on various projects. Here’s a quick overview:

• Friends of the Earth (WAO) — we’re helping them on a Mozilla-funded project to generate some AI sustainability principles. These will go into a report, once we’ve finished our desk research, got back responses from email-based interviews, and run an online roundtable event.
• Jobs for the Future (WAO) — we’re evaluating a Verifiable Credential for ‘New Americans,’ refugees and immigrants to the USA. It’s based on the International Rescue Committee’s Job Readiness Training, and we’ve almost finished the report and slide deck. The project has run over the last few months and involved quite a lot of user research with various stakeholder groups.
• N-TUTORR (Dynamic Skillset) — I’m working with Bryan and his award-winning Remixer Machine to run a couple of workshops relating to digital credentials for staff CPD.
• Skills Development Scotland (WAO) — we’re putting together a proposal for how SDS could use Verifiable Credentials with their My World of Work platform. The SCQF have been helping connect us with forward-thinking employers, who we’ve been interviewing to see how badges/credentials might be able to help with the hiring process.

We also put in a couple of responses to RFP’s for the N-TUTORR project around horizon-scanning reports and should find out about those next week. One was relating to microcredentials, the other to do with AI.

Other than the above, I’ve been working on an end of module assessment (EMA) for module TB871 of my MSc in Systems Thinking in Practice. I’ve started using Scrivener again after over a decade away from it, and it’s an absolute delight for writing anything that’s based on research. It comprises a 3,400-word report about my system of interest, and a 600-word practitioner statement. I’ve written about half of the former, and pretty much finished the latter. It’s due on the 15th, so I’ve still got next week to work on it.

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Last week, I complained about my back, putting it down to my running shoes. Although the Strava screenshot might show that my above-average ‘relative effort’ might have something to do with things, I gave them a couple more chances, and then retired them. I’m just going to use them as casual trainers from now on.

I’ve therefore started running in my new running shoes, which apparently take around 50km to ‘bed in’ so I’m going to withhold judgement about how they currently feel. I’m three-quarters of the way to 1,000km for the year which is decent progress. If and when I meet that target, I’m not sure what I’ll do next year — the obvious thing would be to up the goal to 1,200km/year (or 100km/month). I’ll see how I feel at the end of December.

My wife and I re-joined the spa at our local leisure centre and went together on Saturday. As the weather gets colder, it’s not only a great place to unwind, but it really warms your bones. There’s nothing quite like the sauna.

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Next week, I’m delighted to say that Laura will be back to contribute her large brain to our projects, along with her creativity and enthusiasm. My son’s got his driving test, I’m finishing off my MSc assessment, and it’s the first session of School of the Possible’s Project Studio, which I’ve signed up for.

I’ve put Thought Shrapnel on hiatus for a bit, probably just for a few weeks, mainly because everything I’m working on at the moment involves writing. I’ve called myself into the office again so have some stuff to get on with. Also, it’s October, or more accurately (to my mind) Vendémiaire, which is the most ‘meh’ month of the year. While it contains my wife’s birthday, it’s also a time when I lament the passing of the light, and feel like an anxious little squirrel hiding his nuts for winter (stop sniggering at the back!)

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Photo: my dad and me before kick-off at the Stadium of Light