Thoughts
Some thoughts
Media in 2023
Books
A Year of Reading 2022
Looking back through the books I’ve read this year, my pretty random way of arriving at what to read next has delivered some nice surprises, a few slogs, more fiction than normal and several very enjoyable books.
2021 Reflections
New Job
Practical Calculated Columns in Sharepoint
I’ve been working in SharePoint lists a lot over the last year and have finally gotten round to writing up something I’ve found useful. I’ve written it up in the spirit of sharing that the web is so great for.
Rugby Biographies Lockdown Project
2019 Reflections
I’ve previously written about my method of logging tasks, and notwithstanding the limitations of just focusing on tasks, I’ve found it enlightening to reflect back on what the data is telling me about what I’ve been spending my time on in 2019. I’m sure reflection is good for you, but like dieting and focus, I struggle to do it. I’ve enjoyed others’ weeknotes, but have dropped out of the habit - perhaps a more chart based approach might give me a good base to build some narrative on. So here goes.
2018 Reflections
So common as to be a cliché, here are some of my reflections from the last year that I hope will help me process what has been a particularly interesting year professionally.
Leaving my comfort zone
I’ve recently volunteered to take part in a JISC funded project around developing data dashboards. This blog post is my way of making sense of what I did, how it went and what I learnt. Before I talk about my efforts I need to explain a little about the context. The two organisations supporting this activity are
Todo list system
Before I talk about my use of the the tool, I’d best introduce it. I use Todo.txt which is a simple concept.
2017 in lists
I consumed some media this year. I’ve listed some of the things that stood out. I’ll probably consume some more next year.
World Sketchnote Day 2016
As it’s World Sketchnote Day 2016 tomorrow, I couldn’t let it go by un-mentioned. Looks like it will be a day full of enthusiasm and evangelism for sketchnoting.
Start before you're ready
I recently read Levelling up by @iamashely, and thought it might be nice to write about it’s effect on me.
I found the article a lovely exhortation to just get started. round about the same time I saw the work of Chris Piascik which was obviously the stars aligning to make me stop procrastinating and start doing that thing I’ve been meaning to do for ages.
In my case it was a content audit for a site that I’m starting work on - exciting I know, but I’ve been reading and understanding the importance and value of these and thought now was the chance to try to begin a project with a more comprehensive brief than we’ve sometimes had before.
I think this is one of the major perils of working ‘in house’ - the desire to get things started and feel like things are progressing can lead you to maybe miss steps that are unfamiliar or were the value in doing them is less immediately tangible.
So, I procrastinated some more and used wgetget to download the existing site (I have a weakness for command line stuff, that makes me feel like I’m a proper geek), so that I could potentially move things around - see how good I am at procrastinating?
I still hadn’t started the audit at this point. Previously we’d also tried something else new in creating user personas that would be used to design and develop features for. Keeping the GDS service design manual all about user needs, in mind I tried to see what questions the content on the site was answering.
All the while through this process I was really anxious about whether I was doing it right, and whether it really would prove useful later on in the process. Maybe a bit of impostor syndrome creeping in? - a natural consequence of trying something new I guess. I persevered, knowing that it would be doubly annoying to have a half finished content audit and got it to a usable state. I still wasn’t sure what I was doing was right, so took the long shot that one of the many clever people I follow on twitter might be able to reassure or help me. @liammcmurray from Bath came up trumps and pointed me to some colleagues - @RichProwse& @copytofollow who do this for a living. There were kind enough to point me to some helpful resources and share some tips.
It was a cool example of this web community that we hear so much about.
I’ve now produced an initial version of an audit that now will hopefully, make the next stage of the project proceed more smoothly and help us create a better product.
All of that story about the mundane day to day of my work is to illustrate how acting upon a well written and positive article can be so good for your productivity and confidence.
Sketchbook Finished
Have finished another sketchbook- always a nice feeling. This time it was a cheap Moleskine imitator from Asda. I think it was a £2, which is ridiculously cheap considering the quality of the paper is pretty good, it has the Moleskine style curved corners and the handy built in elastic to keep it all together. The features where the corners have been cut are the cover and the binding. The cover is a ‘fine leatherette’ which translates as a slightly padded vinyl. It’s clearly just a cover for the cheap cardboard underneath, unlike the integral cover of a proper Moleskine, but it doesn’t impact the function of the book too much. The binding is a different matter. A brand new book is pretty neat – it doesn’t fold as flat as a Moleskine, but does pretty well when you want to do a double page spread. I tend to do that a lot since the thickness of the paper enables me to draw of both sides without much bleed through. The binding only starts to complain once you’re about two thirds of the way through the book, where it starts to come away from the spine, making the book a lot more unstable.
Scavenged Sketchbook
It’s always enjoyable when I get to the end of a sketchbook, and this one was no exception. This book lasted from the 3 Jan 2013 until the 3rd May 2013. I know this because some time ago I got into the habit of writing the dates when I drew something next to it – something that I’d recommend for anyone starting to keep a sketchbook.
Slow! Project ahead
It often seems that things that should be easy (or at least easier) are hard.
I have been around long enough to see enough projects come and go, with committees, steering groups - (A prize to anyone who can tell me What exactly a steering group is!), risk registers, away days, strategic plans and much more bureaucratic bullshit. To my mind, the point that makes my heart sink is the point when someone decides that something is important enough in the political climate of the prevailing organization to warrant the promotion from a loose collection of tasks and ideas, into a fully fledged project. Once that threshold has been crossed then the organization demands that the army of administrators and managers plan, meet and document the life out of passionate advocates for the original task.
I was struck recently when a friend relayed a phrase from her workplace “Do not mistake activity for productivity.” I’m sure we’ve all worked with people who tell all and sundry just how busy they are through all the hours of the day, but when one stops and thinks what has actually been produced or achieved the evaluation becomes pretty tricky.
I’ve been trying to work out why this happens. One idea is that there is a reluctance to put one’s head above the parapet in stating a professional opinion and then basing action upon that. It’s doubly difficult if one doesn’t have the knowledge about the subject to form a professional opinion. So a normal response is try to share the responsibility for making a decision under the camouflage of consultation and communication. These are two things that organizations often rate highly in theory, but wrestle with in practice.
Consultation is only as good as the questions you ask. If you ask rubbish questions, you’ll get rubbish answers. Similarly, I’d compare communication to going to the gym. In that same way that a full on all day session pumping iron and flogging oneself on a treadmill, might appear to do you good, it’ll never provide the benefit of regular, relaxed and steady effort.
If this is starting to ramble and sound vague, I think it’s because I’m trying to nail a particularly large jelly to the wall.
Strategic CSS Managment
My response to the very interesting @media presentation on the managment of the css design process. It was great to see that I’m not alone in struggling with long stylesheets and being afraid to tidy up and take stuff out because you can’t remember what hack you’re using, or what menu method, or what image replacement, the list goes on.
I’ve known for a longtime that my commenting of css is pretty poor, but the presentation has given me the kick up the arse to comment things.
Rachel’s words particularly stuck with me “It doesn’t matter what the method is, as long as you have one”
As for my drawing, I’ve decided that I need metaphors to help me understand and absorb things from a session. I’ve learnt that it’s hopeless to try to remember everything, and one has to try to pick out things of relevance to yourself.
For this session the different approaches of the speakers called for different representations.
This is the original drawing
You are here
I was there at the exhibition about information design. It was my first trip to the Design Museum, and I had mixed feelings. It was smaller than I’d imagined, perhaps I’ve been spoilt by the scale of other museums, but was a reasonably acceptable building and interior. The shop was gratifyingly well stocked, espcially with current design mags and the coffee was good. I wasn’t suprised to see that minimal white was the overriding aesthetic, as seems always to be the case when someone wants to invoke the designer voodoo, but at least it was broken up a bit by some ‘digital baroque’ illustrations.
How to lie with maps
I needed this information for my essay on Cartography and Design, but was drawn into the other chapters, by the frequent and interesting examples and uses of maps.