Tweeknotes 11 of 2023

Bit late on these because I took last week off to spend time with my extended family. It was fun but not restful at all as other parents of small children will understand. There were lots of highlights but one of the surprising ones was almost winning our family’s croquet tournament (I am not sporty at all) — sadly I lost in the final round to (of all people, sigh) my brother.

What went well:

• My product team has onboarded two new team members, a product owner and a developer community lead — yay! After a few months as a small team that couldn’t do much, it’s exciting to gain some momentum.
• A couple of weeks ago, the BC Gov Design Community ran our most popular event yet — Designing for Neurodiversity and Avoiding Neuromyths with Will Soward. Email me if you’d like access to the recording. And we’ve already launched our invite for the next one: User research into the digital trust and credential landscape with Hannah Sloat.
• I’ve been presenting some early work I’ve done on systems mapping of the developer landscape in the BC Gov. It’s sparked a lot of conversation and connection which has been amazing.
• Not unusual but I’ve been meeting with lots of different people, in and out of my org in one on ones. These are always super helpful and enlightening but there’s one conversation I had that really sparked a lot of ideas and discussion: I met with the head of service design from the Government of Alberta about how they structure and support designers. Things are much different across the provincial border and I think there’s lots of opportunity for us to learn from each other.

What’s been difficult

• There have been some miscommunications lately that have lead to some difficult conversations in part of my work area. I’m not going to elaborate but the lessons I and others are taking away from the situations: Communication between teams is super important (maybe as important as the work itself) and safe spaces aren’t a given for everyone just because you think they are safe.
• I’ve hit a wall with systems mapping. I might write more about it.
• My anxiety has been pretty high lately. Some recent sources: Interest rate raises, vulnerability hangovers from sharing too much in a work setting, and the other things I’ve written about here.

Inspired by:

• Interesting read: Why I quit my job at google to work in local government
• An evergreen classic — twice this week, I’ve referenced the GDS Posters “It’s ok to …” Having these posters in my workplace really changed how I viewed and experienced work culture.
• Here’s an interesting twitter thread on how improvements to org culture and recruitment of front line staff lead to drastic service improvements at a GP practice.
• I’ve been slowly absorbing the many excellent talks available from
  Öffentliches Gestalten, Berlin meetup.
• Why user needs must inform business goals by Katherine Wastell.

Reading, watching, listening:

• Despite feeling like it didn’t live up to the hype for the first bit, I ended up totally loving and being obsessed with Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin.
• As everyone says, season two of The Bear was excellent. Forks was my favourite episode.
• Radio dramas aren’t usually a part of my podcast lineup, but I’ve been really enjoying People Who Knew Me from the BBC.