Tag: weeknote

This has been a better week than last week. I’m composing this sitting on an armchair in the lounge of our rental property, underneath my electric blanket. It’s the best.

I’ve finished work for a week, with Team Belshaw heading off to Portugal tomorrow until Thursday in the hopes of soaking up a bit of sunshine. The pressure is off in terms of moving house, as HSBC finally came through on our mortgage, despite seeming not to understand my income (and therefore not taking it into account!)

It’s also been nice to have a small break from my MSc work. I’m awaiting the marks of my last assessment, which might help me decide what to do, but either way I don’t think I’ll take the next module immediately. There’s too much to do with moving house and entering a busy time of client work. Also, I need to stop seeking permission to relax.

In addition to work for existing clients Participate and the DCC, we also met with NCS about a potential collaboration. It’s looking like we’ll be picking up some more work from Greenpeace soon, and we’ll get into the Toro Impact community work with CSUDH when I’m back from holiday. Weird that all of our current work is with organisations outside the UK.

Otherwise, I took our two teenagers to see Newcastle Eagles beat Zielona Gora in another great basketball game on Tuesday night. It’s started getting a bit warmer outside, and I’ve been waking up at around 05:30, which is a sure sign of the beginning of a change of season.

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Update: I found out later that I got 90% in my second tutor-marked assessment. I’m delighted, as I put so much work into it, but equally thought I could have failed it!

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Image: The Auction House, Morpeth. Hannah and I went out for lunch on Friday, and tested out Lento camera (currently unavailable on the Google Play store but the developer kindly gave me a link to the apk)

I’m tired. It’s Sunday afternoon and I’m watching Man Utd vs West Ham on TV instead of taking my son out for a driving lesson. He’s nursing an injured ankle from what sounds like a somewhat fractious match against a team who have always been known for their spicy tackling.

My wife and I had to divide and conquer as he and and my daughter had games at pretty much the same time. She also injured her ankle in while playing for a mixed team. I heard the contact from a flying slide tackle by their centre forward over at the other side of the pitch. It quite rightly earned him a yellow card. I think she’ll be OK, as will my son.

On Thursday, I managed 280kg on the leg press at the gym, which is three times my body weight. While I was impressed with myself for achieving it, I found it difficult to sleep that night as my lower back was hurting. Perhaps I’ll ease off a bit now that I’ve proved I can do it. According to Strava I’m 16.6km ‘ahead of plan’ to run 1,000km this year, which I’ve achieved by adding short 2.5km treadmill runs before my weights sessions.

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Last week, I mentioned that I’d asked for an extension for my latest MSc module assessment. I’ve started on this after finishing the activities from Part 2. It’s not easy, but then that’s the point. I like that I can immediately apply it to client work we’re doing — and, indeed, my ‘situation of interest’ (i.e. case study) concerns work we’re doing with the Digital Credentials Consortium (DCC).

We ran a Theory of Change workshop with the DCC on Tuesday. Having run these with multiple clients, I’ve written this up as a post for the WAO blog. I’ll publish it when one of my colleagues has had a chance to review it and give feedback. I’ve also been doing client work for our collaborations with Participate, the Toro Impact project with CSUDH, and a digital integration project with WEAll. Laura and I also managed to record another episode of our podcast which will go live at… some point.

After much postponement, on Friday we finally had gigabit fibre broadband installed courtesy of Virgin Media. What. A. Difference. Not only should I have the lowest ping out of my gamer crew this evening, but I shouldn’t have Zoom calls flake out on me. Thankfully, although we’re planning to be moving within a matter of weeks, we should be able to take our account with us to the new house.

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On Tuesday, we went e-karting again, this time with all of Team Belshaw getting involved. Hannah got absolutely taken out by a rando on the circuit meaning she had to apply ice to her shoulder and sit out the second session. There were some on the track at the same time as us with their own helmets and suits, so we weren’t really racing against them.

Not being competitive at all, I’ll just point out that I beat my son by over a second (in terms of our fastest lap). I’m sure he would point out that I span out several times and perhaps that you’re supposed to let the birthday boy win. Whatever.

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Next week, my MSc assignment is due so that’s going to be top of my mind over the next few days. We’ll also be starting a new user research project, running a second Theory of Change workshop with DCC, and continuing with other work.

I’m recording an episode of the Artificiality podcast with Helen and Dave Edwards on Tuesday, after they mentioned some of my thinking on the concept of a ‘serendipity surface‘. I’m also going to get back to posting regularly at Thought Shrapnel, but that’s probably going to have to wait until I’ve submitted my assignment (due midday on Thursday).

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Image: me at TeamSport in Newcastle.

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.

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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)