Tag: Weeknotes

My wife and I are currently away to celebrate our wedding anniversary. While the actual date isn’t for a couple of weeks, logistics at the start of the school year dictates that it’s now or never. We haven’t gone far; we’ve left our eldest home alone, while our youngest is staying over with my parents.

The weather has started to feel autumnal this week, which is no great surprise, I suppose, given that we’re at the back end of August. We’re entering one of my favourite times of the year to go camping — although for various reasons (moving house, the weather, logistics) I didn’t go last year. I almost snuck out on Friday night, but it was ridiculously windy.

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I published a fair amount this week. Here, it was all related to my Systems Thinking module TB871:

• Miscellaneous CSH stuff
• The ‘eternal triangle’ of systemic triangulation in CSH
• Systemic boundary critique in CSH
• Systems vs Reality in CSH
• Comparing CSH boundaries with SSM boundaries

Over at the WAO blog I also published the first post in a three-part series of An Introduction to Systems Thinking. Meanwhile, at Thought Shrapnel, I released the following onto an unsuspecting public:

• Begetting strangers
• The thorny problem of authorship in a world of AI
• Government and algorithmic bias
• ‘Meta-work’ is how we get past all the one-size-fits-none approaches
• Reimagining misinformation
• Where in the world is that shadow?
• Dark data is a climate concern
• There is no such thing as a life that makes sense
• Google Calendar illustration trigger words
• You get water from food as well, you know
• Tugging at metaphors
• You don’t need permission, you need advice 

On the work front, we continued work on the JFF and IRC project around user research and evaluation of the latter’s Job Readiness Credential. I’ve mentioned this a few times, and so regular readers might be wondering what it looks like (click to enlarge):

We didn’t have a hand in designing the credential, and so there are some things which are coming out of the research with IRC staff, clients, and employers, that we expected — but also some things that we didn’t. As I always say: badges and credentials are a ‘trojan horse’ for organisational change and better-serving your audience.

We’ve been responding to some tenders this week, in one case organising a call for potential consortium partners. This went really well and, even if we don’t get that particular bit of work, it’s good to build relationships for the future. I also had an interview right after a migraine with Friends of the Earth about a potential ‘Greening AI’ research project. We should hear back about that last week.

One bit of work which is going ahead involves helping Skills Development Scotland for a few days as they think through how they might be able to use Verifiable Credentials with My World of Work. Hopefully that will lead to a longer engagement, as it’s a great use case.

Although we didn’t go to Colorado for The Badge Summit this year as we have in previous years, Anne did submit an updated version of her talk about how Open Recognition is a feminist practice to the Virtual Badge Summit. It’s well worth a watch.

Other than that, I’ve been sending my sister congratulations on her birthday, taking my son to work and my daughter to the opticians, running (~30km this week). I published my weeknote too early last week to mention that my son scored on his debut for his new football team, a brave header from a corner. As a defensive midfielder, he doesn’t score many, so it’s nice for him to have grabbed one.

I’ve got my next MSc assignment due in a couple of weeks’ time so I need to knuckle down for that. I haven’t treated this module the same as my previous one, taking the provided activities more as ‘suggestions’ than things I have to do. I’m still not sure what to do r.e. study after these two foundational modules, as I’m not keen to be studying over Christmas again. We’ll see.

Next week, it’s Bank Holiday Monday tomorrow and so a shorter working week. Our two teenagers start back at school halfway through the week after next, with my daughter starting high school, and my son going into his final-ever year of school. He’s currently thinking about Geography at university, but that may change.

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Photo of Durham cathedral taken by me earlier today

Famously, but apocryphally, Hemingway advised to “write drunk, edit sober”. My best writing flows from writing while angry, and editing while calm. Right now, I’ve had three hours sleep, just given both barrels to the builders who left the generator on at the site near our house. The words are flowing.

This week I’ve been back to work after three weeks off. I’m still in some pain from my ribs, caused by coming off a mountain bike three weeks ago. Getting old isn’t all it’s cracked up to be (especially when your ribs might be cracked). I had one day off ibuprofen on Thursday and was miserable. My exercise regime is all over the place.

As expected, I haven’t been very busy at work. It’s still summer, and this week is Bank Holiday weekend. So things will pick up next week. It’s been good to catch up with Laura, though, and get my head back into some projects. We’re experimenting with a newsletter via LinkedIn called WAO Weekly, because that’s where most of the work-related chat is these days.

Talking of newsletters, an issue of the Thought Shrapnel roundup that I used to do monthly is going out tomorrow. I make no apologies for the fact that there hasn’t been one since January, and instead direct you to the insights of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who stated, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds… With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall.”

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Our son got his GCSE results this week, and then went back into school to get his grade breakdowns. Given the pandemic and the fact that he was so ill during the first few days of exams he almost didn’t go in for them, he’s done well. The grade breakdowns showed that in many subjects he was only a couple of marks away from the next grade up. He’s planning to study A Levels in the Sixth Form of the school he’s at, and is still firming up his final choices.

Meanwhile, our daughter has been ordering her kit for Sunderland ETC, which she’ll start next month. We had to take her to a physio as the injury to her toe which she sustained made her over-compensate when walking, which affected her knee. She’ll be OK.

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After test driving several EVs last weekend, we thought we were going to apply to lease a Skoda Enyaq iV. However, a subsequent conversation led us back to the Polestar 2. I realised that the test car had literally all of the options, including the dual motor which takes the car from 0-60mph in 4.2 seconds. The single-motor version, which we’d be getting, is still quick, but not quite so ‘lurchy’. I’ve also found out how you can make the ride less firm, which might help with my wife feeling a bit car sick.

Last time I applied for a business lease, I was turned down. I ascribed this to the fact that while doing so, our shortest-serving Prime Minister was doing her best to tank the UK economy. If I don’t get approved this time, I can only think it’s down to the way that I pay myself through my business (mostly through dividends).

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After a year of running it, and with domain renewal time approaching, I considered shutting down exercise.cafe. It’s not that I don’t think it’s a good idea, it’s just that after an initial flurry, it hasn’t had quite the traction of people posting that I’d hoped for.

Thankfully, as I explained in this post, I’ve managed to hand over ownership to the most active user on the site. He’s pleased about it, and so am I. Win/win.

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It’s Bank Holiday weekend in England this weekend. I took Friday off to do some life admin. What we really need to do during the gloriously-sunny weather is to find somewhere to live. As I explained last week, we’re still selling our house, but we currently have nowhere to go.

Next week, I’ll be ramping up work through the WAO and doing some business development to help keep us gainfully employed over the coming months.

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Screenshot from Sniper Elite 5, which I’ve played a lot this week.

This was my last week at work for three weeks. Just as I did in 2022, this year I’m taking three weeks off in April, August, and December, as well as a few days here and there. I find that it’s only in the third week away from work that I can truly unwind.

Unwinding is different to relaxing. I’m not really someone who find pleasure in long periods of relaxation, if I’m perfectly honest. Life is short and I need things to do. So I’ll be spending my time on holiday with Team Belshaw in Scotland, doing DIY, and walking at least half of The Pennine Way. I’ve swapped running for walking 20,000+ steps each day in preparation for the latter. In fact, I’m just back from a walk with the rest of Team Belshaw which encompassed some of the best of Northumberland (mud! beaches! ice cream!)

Talking of exercise, Morpeth Riverside Leisure Centre, which I’ve been to ever since moving here nine years ago, closed on Wednesday. That is because the new leisure centre (also next to the river, just a bit further round!) opens next Wednesday. I’m not sure why they had to have a week inbetween, and they haven’t informed us of a refund. But you can have a look around the new place for yourself (no, it’s not a parody! I like their enthusiasm).

Also on the exercise front, our kids haven’t had any football matches this weekend, nor have they any scheduled for next weekend. As a result, I was up on the field at the top of the hill helping my daughter with various skills. The photo above shows the high-tech solution I came up with to practice getting it in ‘top bins‘. My son has been a little unwell and so hasn’t been playing sport or training this week.

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Blog posts continued tumbling out of me this week:

• The old ‘chicken and egg’ problem about microcredentials kind of misses the point
• Reinventing the Fortress: using Open Recognition to enhance ‘standards’ and ‘rigour’
• Embracing the Full Spectrum: towards a new era of inclusive, open recognition
• Open Recognition + Critical Pedagogy = empowerment, dialogue, and inclusion
• Reimagining hiring with Open Recognition

I also finished the resource for Catalyst on Open Working. On the same topic, Anne published a post rounding up the work we did via CAST for Sport England. Adam Freeman-Pask, who is Head of Digital Innovation for Sport England also published a post heavily influenced by the programme. That’s the end of that project, which we started back in May last year.

We’re replacing this work on our roster with three smallish projects for the Member Learning group of workers.coop. We’ll be turning the MVP of the CoTech Digital Candle service into something a bit more fully-featured. In addition, we’re creating an email-based course (see others) on the basis of worker co-ops, as well as doing some user research to see what kind of support existing network members would like.

In addition, I worked on other client projects for Greenpeace, Participate, and the Wellbeing Economy Alliance. That involved doing a whole range of things from to figuring out badge pathways, installing and configuring a wiki, booking flights to Badge Summit, and writing more of a digital strategy. I had some interesting conversations including about Navigatr, drafted another email course (on ‘Reframing Recognition’), did some invoicing, and submitted a proposal for ePIC 2023 in December.

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Next week I’m on holiday and walking around a lot.