A 15 minutes tops look back on the previous seven days, which I tend to do most weeks. Trying to get back to sharing these publicly (with some mindful edits/cut outs).
Work
Week 4 of (current gig product manager-ing on) an alpha at NHS England. Need to tie it up by the middle of June. Lots to do, usually come back to how PM-ing in gov/public land is usually more product owner-ing when you’ve a layer or two of management above. Also: calling something an alpha versus the alpha versus in alpha versus other things. 🤔
I’ve cribbed my thoughts about that gig here, but maybe there’s something in sharing something about that work at some point, soonish.
Had thoughts about how easy in “digital world” for people to push tech led use cases rather than people led use cases.
Had about 2 hours on Wednesday, the first for a few weeks, where I felt on top of the work I needed to do. There’s always things to do, sure, but there’s that satisfying feeling that you’re being as much (if not more) proactive than being reactive.
When a workshop has different afterwards feelings from the various people that were there. One person’s “it felt OK to me, I got what I wanted from that” is someone’s else’s, say, confused/demotivated/etc by what went on. How to capture that in a way that is… constructive.
Enjoyed Friday out from the main gig, hanging with other product people, listening, chatting, listening some more. Nourishing is how I describe it afterwards.
Maybe I was a little too positive in a session called Reasons To Be Cheerful. An opportunity don’t necessarily equate to a reason to be cheerful.
Got a ticket for the Wednesday of Agile Manchester.
Health
Wrote a run note for March 2025. Re-reading the post I seemed to find the month disappointing, despite hitting my running distance target. Something something a metric about a steady velocity something something?
Had 6 month diabetes check up. Wrote about it in the run note, but didn’t mention my HbA1c is down from 55 mmol/mol 6 months ago to 49 mmol/mol. I guess that’s progress.
Every week I try to run at least 25km. By the end of Thursday I’d ran something like 5km, hitting 25km wasn’t looking likely. But an 8km out to Regent’s Park and back on Friday morning, another 8km-er out to Arsenal’s stadium and back on Saturday and Sunday just needed a 5km. 25km, done, What a satisfying few days of running. I like a morning running adventure.
Culture and that
Went to Brasil! Brasil! at the Royal Academy. Excellent, just so well curated. Something for everyone.
Popped into the Ed Atkins at Tate Britain. I like the emotion of his stuff, just above a reminder that digital isn’t just websites, databases and that.
Enjoyed a Friday night dinner at Barrafina. Viva Espana!
Was supposed to go to Badly Drawn Boy at the Aviva Studio in Manchester on Sunday, but… just couldn’t be arsed driving over, the faff of getting into the venue and driving back for a late night on a Sunday. I should just not book tickets for Sunday gigs.
Severance finishing leaves a gap in sofa time, so finished s1 of Black Swans. Pulpy enough to keep you rolling through, all the way until it leans into a last 20 minutes or so that have some poignancy. Grand to see thrillers are having a moment (alongside Slow Horses).
Sofa traveling to Rotterdam with Travel Man and New Orleans with Bourdain’s No Reservations.
It’s been months but yet more creeping progress through How the Post Office Created America. I just need a good 2 hour block sometime to get through the rest. Just need. (Reading this book also sent me on a side quest looking into the history of fax machines.) I really liked this bit from the book, a natty snapshot of how services are designed, redesigned, redesigned, redesigned:
The automotive and aviation revolutions had sent the once-mighty railroad on which the department had depended for nearly a century into precipitous decline. In 1920, 80 percent of intercity travelers went by train; by 1949, that figure had dropped to 8 percent, and by 1957, to 4 percent. By 1969, America's 208,517 miles of railroad track had dwindled to some 54,000. The post office was forced to adjust, and it shifted from trains to motorized vehicles, just as it had replaced post riders with stagecoaches and stagecoaches with trains. To avoid the overcharging endemic to transportation contracts, the department even invested in its own fleet of trucks. The decision to return to moving the mail on America's highways and byways might have been necessary, but it complicated mail processing, which could no longer easily be done simultaneously with transportation. The new Highway Post Offices that were installed inside some trucks and buses were slower, prey to traffic jams, and less efficient than the smooth-sailing Railway Post Offices had been; they swayed more, which made sorting more difficult and induced more motion sickness. The mail had to be processed somewhere, however, and the post was forced to return to its old hub- and-spokes circulation system centered on large regional distributing post offices.
Miscellany
Eject disc. The best thing I’ve read in a long time.
On Tuesday morning the gas boiler at the house was condemned for usage during a service (as the guy servicing the boiler told me). A few months outside its five year guarantee this meant shelling out for a visit from the manufacturers’ service people. I learned a lot about how software for boilers comes on dongles that are slid onto circuit boards. Updating the software is a case of replacing the dongles.
A guy came to do a little work on our roof. He went up, sent us pictures of holes where the slates had moved leaving holes in the roof (SURPRISE!), fixed them. Need to work out a way of actually being able to look at the roof so these things are more obvious. Standing on the walls isn't making these things obvious. No, I am not buying a drone.