Last week was a very full on week, with new challenges, and lots of thinking about how to do things . . . (and do them well).
So, 5 great things that happened:
- I did some public speaking – in front of a lot of people. And it went well*. I was super nervous, but
- I’d given myself time to prepare
- I got there in time to listen to the previous speakers (it really helps I think to connect what you’re saying to what the audience has been hearing and thinking about beforehand)
- I remembered (mostly) to breathe
Importantly though Paul Maltby is always fab to chat with, which also made it fun (once it started)
2. Matthew Cain and I delivered our pilot intro to agile course to 7 key colleagues this week. It was tiring but rewarding – and culminated in a show and tell created in an hour by the participants about what they’d learnt, and what they’re going to do next. The content is open source, and we’ll be iterating and improving it when we run it again in January.
3. On Tuesday Hackney hosted a Winter Warmer event for older residents – Jasmine had arranged for some of us to spend time there, with users, talking to them about their needs. It was great to meet a range of people, help them with some of their tech problems, and talk to them about if/how they use Hackney services online.
4. I had a great call with Joash and Nicola from Amazon about plans for the event next week. This is with Hackney employers, looking at apprenticeships and growing digital skills in the borough. I’ve volunteered to support the facilitators of the breakout sessions with some ideas and resources — I’m suggesting the 1–1–2–4 all approach from liberating structures as a way to include everyone in the discussion.
5. On Friday we spent the day at Amazon’s new headquarters in Shoreditch with some of the team thinking about what we need to do next to embed, share and improve some of our emerging custom and practice. I’d woken up with a cold, so wasn’t feeling at 100% but the energy and commitment in the room to delivering real value to users was brilliant, and made for a great end to the week.
Note: I also had major stationary cupboard envy.
What I read this week:
This was ace from Catherine Howe on focus and flow, and finding our hum
https://link.medium.com/rNOkZfFE8R
This from Gavin Beckett on his view of what’s happening across local government (disclaimer: Hackney features heavily 😉 ):
https://link.medium.com/rNOkZfFE8R
and I really liked this from Adur and Worthing on how they’ve been changing their approach to how they work
https://link.medium.com/rNOkZfFE8R
*by well I mean I think I made sense, didn’t gabble, and got across what I wanted to say. And got in a plug for #weeknotes.
Madebycatemclaur.in 
