This week has been a real mixed one, it must be said. Various bits of bad news, culminating in the news of David Lynch leaving us overshadowing the Switch 2 launch, if I’m honest. There was worse news from a close friend, and taxes featured heavily. But, determined to stay positive, it’s also been a busy and productive week. What happened?
- Last Friday evening saw the news about the WordPress sustainability being disbanded/discarded and Hannah posted a great follow-up along with Chris Adam’s thoughts. I have mixed feelings on the question of whether and how WordPress should organise around sustainability, but right now I’m just a bit sick of the trend towards one bloke making sudden, sweeping decisions in the world that impact a whole bunch of people just trying to do good work.
- Another Monday morning strategy and planning check-in with myself – in a field up the road this time, instead of a cosy cafe. More refinement of last week’s thoughts – I converted the rough list into three threads: Creative control, Clarity & Confidence, and Scaling up.I don’t know whether these are “pillars”, “OKRs” or a more general approach to navigation, but they’re useful – and as a single, self-employed person, it’s nice not to have to justify the approach taken. Maybe all these management approaches get that fundamentally wrong – are things like OKRs and North Stars and etc etc just tools for the leader/manager to help them organise their own thoughts? Is the proof in then being able to communicate ideas to others in a human way, not in a way that requires a bunch of background reading and swallowing a pill?
- I continued taking small, incremental steps along my marketing route by thinking about testimonials a little more. Caroline very kindly shared her feedback form with me and while I could just copy and paste the questions there, I’m thinking about what kind of feedback is right for me, at the moment, and I decided to keep the whole thing small by just focusing on testimonials rather than, you know, actual honest-to-god feedback for now.
- Last year’s work with Helpful Digital wrapped up with a last few tweaks to my work on their Social Simulator product. It’s been really good helping the team to modernise aspects of the code and make things (hopefully) more flexible and easier to work with – well worth a look if you’re after social scenarios and comms-team testing and training.
- I’m starting some new client work on a WordPress plugin following an audit of the codebase over the last month, which I’m really looking forward to getting my teeth into. This week I ended up doing my tax return and some invoicing, which took a bit longer than expected. Combined with some urgent tech support meant that the originally planned work will need to start in earnest next week, but it does feel really good to get the taxes submitted. I might even promise myself to sort this year’s out by May…?
- Had a lovely chat with a second-year undergrad looking for advice and a chat about careers in data and tech. Felt like I was being interviewed at times, which was weird and fun, and a chance to reminisce a bit. It’s funny, but also nice that a lot of questions people have at the start of their career still feel like they apply to me now – like anything to do with what skills to learn, how to learn, figuring out the industry and networking, and – most of all – deciding what it is you actually want to do. It’s also really nice to pass some experience on, so I figure I should make more of an effort to do this for the next generation, maybe do some more informal mentoring. If you’re reading this and know anyone that might be interested in chatting about tech careers, do get in touch!
- Had a quick chat about a new project proposal, which was a good opportunity to revisit and try out my new approach to breaking down my sustainability consulting offers, which ties back in with that clarity & confidence thing above. Also rewrote a bunch of blurb from a previous proposal which was overly-wordy, and pretty pleased with the change there, which is a lot simpler and more client-focused. Definitely feel like I’m happier talking about the need, impact and appropriateness of energy considerations at the moment.
Misc
Creating:
- Wednesday was a bit of a day, so I finished up by chilling out with Pulp’s little music editor to create a tune inspired by the Wii U’s friend list screen. If you don’t feel better after listening to that, there’s no hope left.
- Trying to get my head back into the sketchbook challenge I signed up for a few months, ago. Enjoying putting pen to paper, but I still need to set up a sponsorship page, and ask around. Plus there do seem to be a lot of pages left to fill…
Reading:
Not been able to dig into my reading backlog as much this week, but these got a read. The Cory Doctorow interview is definitely worth a look.
- The Register: Cory Doctorow has a plan to wipe away the enshittification of tech
- Envisioning a Livable Future
Playing:
- Badminton, for the first time in months! My legs hurt today, but not as much as I thought they would.
- #son2 has got us back into Boomerang Fu on the Switch. Fast and frantic, and now with a slower-paced but still surprisingly exciting Hide and Seek mode.
Watching:
- The Traitors, mostly.
Listening:
Finally, I’m determined to clean up some of my old files, starting with my “random downloads” folder. Sorting and deleting these has been worth it – so easy to forget how … tiring having chaff lying around is. Must. Get. Tidier.
All for now. Enjoy your weekend (especially if you’re heading along to UKGovCamp!)
