Camp Digital 2017 slides

Hi. If you came to my session at Camp Digital yesterday, thanks. Feel free to let me know what you thought, good and not-so-good. Yesterday was the only time I will be doing that session. I am making the slides from the session available for all. Not sure how much

May 2017 Bradford CoderDojo

I wrote back in January about Bradford CoderDojo returning. Since the start of the year we have run a dojo every month, generously hosted at the Innovation Centre and supported by the mentors who give their time up. Every month so far we have had all 30 places taken, and

Is your minimum viable product viable?

I am back at work after a couple of great days back helping with Leeds GovJam. (Check Leeds GovJam on Twitter.) On the opening night I raised the most pertinent question for me: >What is the problem you are solving? Know, don't assume. The teams embraced this

Accidental slogans

I am at Leeds GovJam, helping run things. There are many great things about doing this. One of them is the most excellent company I get to keep helping out. It's fun to talk design with those guys and gals. I don't get much of that

The usefulness of design patterns

Why would you want your teams to put work into and work with a design patterns library? !Screen grab of the scene in Zoolander when Muguatu says That Hansel's so hot right now Design systems are such a trend right now. So hot right now. Design systems are

Butlins wifi and not stating the terms of your transaction

We are staying at Skegness Butlins. I've got stuff to do while we are here. That stuff is on a computer. I'll need to send stuff. I will need to access the wifi. Using my iPhone I connect to the wifi. I need to choose an

Public Design WY number 1 is done

It's now two months since I wrote about getting Public Design WY going. The first meet-up is now done. Yay! My thanks to Leanne Buchan and Lisa Jeffery for stepping up to lead a session each. Leanne talked with us about designing a city's culture strategy.

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Design, Make, Learn and 'digital socialism' stickers

A couple of new stickers I have had printed. !Design, Make, Learn and digital socialism stickers The first carries a Design-Make-Learn loop. These were designed a couple of weeks back during my sabbatical. We had drawn a diagram to explain the lean design loop, and just wrapped the words round

Public Design WY number 1 is go

A few weeks back I wrote about trying out Public Design WY. We are looking to organise a get-together in West Yorkshire about design and designing for the public. Originally the plan was to hold it on Wednesday 29 March. Due to a few things (work, holidays, Article 50, general

Listening, not hearing

I am running on the path alongside the canal. My steps aren’t usually the lightest but today they feel heavier than usual. I am not really concentrating on my running, on a sort of autopilot. My head is fuzzy and full with work thoughts. Coming for a run was

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Being in the same room

There’s been a recent Government Digital Service (GDS) roadshow. Nice enough idea. At the mo there’s a lot of obvious “reaching out” and “listening” happening publicly between GDS and other bits of gov.  I guess the new(ish) senior leadership team will want to make some statements of

The cost of sitting versus the cost of standing

For my commute into work in Leeds, I get a train that goes along the Bradford Forster Square to Leeds line. The train I get on goes along the following route: 1. Bradford Forster Square 2. Shipley 3. Apperley Bridge 4. Leeds Here is a map of that route: !Map

Public Design WY

Saturday Night Takeaway is on and, my God, is that Steps? Before my brain seeps out of my ear, a quick post about something I am involved with planning. When I came back to work in Leeds, at the NHS, last summer I was keen to see if the the

Weeknotes s01e18

Week commencing Monday 27 February Episodes 14 through 16 will have to go down as “lost episodes”, like older series of Doctor Who. Episode 17 I was off from NHS Beta. I did a quick general week ending note between 16 and 17 though. A belated thanks from those “missing

A Slackbot over a coffee

I was looking around the edges of this blog last weekend, briefly, and remembered I had a page for side projects. It was more something I pulled together a couple of years ago when I was doing a few small hacks and wanted to have a simple front door to

Week ending Sunday 19 February 2017

I’ve not published any weeknotes from the day job for the past three weeks. At the start of November,  I kicked off looking through my daily notes and cutting out the non-NHS beta stuff to publish an end-of-week look back on what me and the team had been doing.

The Design Museum

We’ve been down to London for the weekend. I’ve finished off a book I started last summer and have never got round to finishing fully (that last chapter, man, but for completeness’ sake), read another from start to finish, and also started another, The Inevitable by Kevin Kelly,

Weeknotes s01e13

Week commencing Monday 23 January Monday London: Assessor training at GDS. Chuffed to be able to do this, and thankful for the nudges. Wish I’d done it sooner. No real reason why other than had my head in the sand too much over the past six months on the

Weeknotes s01e12

Friday, again. Time to peer through my week’s notes and pull out the NHS beta stuff. Monday: I was in Leeds, and spent most of the day watching user research sessions in Londson remotely. We’re looking into user needs for sexual healthy services. We listened to people talk

It’s the mission that matters

It’s late. The lights are off upstairs. I creep up the stairs to our bedroom. I quietly walk round the darkened room. My hand feeling for the bedpost at the end so I can work my way round to my side of the bed. I try to walk lightly,

Weeknotes s01e11

Week two of 2017 is done and dusted, and it’s late on a Friday night as I type this. I can hear the bells of the church in Idle chime away eleven times. It’s been another jam-packed week. I think I have just about – right now – got a

Weeknotes s01e08, s01e09, and s01e10

Sorry about the break since the last weeknotes. Think of this like you’ve had a holiday away from it all, you’ve left the generic digital TV recording box to collect the episodes of something while you’re away and there’s a little bit of catching up to

Bradford CoderDojo – back for 2017

CoderDojo is a coding club for young people, where they can learn how to code, develop websites, apps, programs, games and more. The sessions are run by volunteers and free to attend. In Bradford we hold the CoderDojos on a Saturday morning. It’s been a few months since our

Days out looking sideways

In late November I wrote about looking sideways more. I suggested it’s a thing that you should look into doing a bit more – because I find it the kind of thing that’s useful. As 2017 kicks off I find myself with a chance to do a bit more

Weeknotes s01e07

No weeknotes last week mainly because, to be honest, I couldn’t be arsed. My personal weeknotes that these are usually culled from were a little bit grumbly about work at the end of that week – and I don’t think we should air our dirty laundry in public. I