I asked if I should continue to send summaries every now and again. Well 100% of those who voted, voted yes. Ok, that was 3 of you. So for you 3 people, here you go.
Actual posts
I was supposed to do a session at a GLA event in March, but alas. So instead I turned it into a post, exploring community centered & owned data. It explores why it’s important, how I think questions fit as an important data layer, and why maybe thinking about data as conversations, rather than answers can lead us to more wisdom.
Importantly, this question-based approach adds an element of permanence to conversations. Often questions, responses, and discussions are ephemeral, quickly lost in the flow. We forget the journey, only knowing the destination. Capturing questions, responses, and discussions systematically, especially in an era increasingly shaped by Large Language Models (LLMs), helps establish a lasting record. This permanence enables us to track changes over time, understand evolving perspectives, and build richer, fuller conversations that inform future actions.
Stop designing for efficiency, design for resilience instead
Clearly on a roll, I wrote two posts in two days. This one is something I come back to again and again, the efficiency trap.
We can look around us in nature to see efficiency and resilience in action. Imagine two forests. The first is a perfectly planted, uniform pine plantation, every tree identical, growing quickly, easy to harvest. It’s incredibly efficient at producing timber, but a single disease, or a change in water supply, or a rise in temperature can wipe it out completely. Now imagine a rainforest: messy, dense, chaotic. No two trees are the same, and it’s full of redundancy. It might not produce as much timber per acre, but if something changes, like weather, pests, disease, there’s enough diversity that the forest adjusts, adapts, and survives. It thrives through its messy complexity, not despite it.
In this one, which I pretty much wrote in my head during a run in the mountains, I explored how we can make endings be beginnings. Some bits from my personal experience, and other bits I’ve seen and worked on.
But I also think we need to think broader about endings and composting. Not just when an organisation ends, but when programmes and projects end. What about all the research reports, the data from projects, the experiments that worked and those that didn’t. What about all that knowledge, what about all that potential wisdom.
Weeknotes
This is where I write about the things I’ve done that week, things I’ve thought about that don’t maybe warrant a full post themselves, and then each week a collection of interesting things I’ve seen from other people. Also probably some pictures of mountains.
Weeknote 7–3–25 — Lot’s of planning and organising for next week. Messing about with some new tools.
Weeknote 14–3–25 — Principles for data and being human. Organisational resilience. And a long rambling section on approaches for Open working & Infrastructure. Includes these data principles
Weeknote 21–3–25 — Lots of planning, some exploration of community centred & owned data or ‘data as conversations’, some rambles on AI & Tech. Some interesting things as well and my March cold water dip.
Weeknote 28–3–25 — Pushing at the edges, experimenting with a new idea, but mainly its all about the running and the mountains and the lakes. Honestly you should just click on this one for the photos.
Bonus weeknote 5–4–25 — Yes this one is for april, but I’ve just done it, so, here you go. Some obligatory mountain pictures, thinking about maps and citizenship, more building on an app and some interesting things about health, reports, infrastructure and more
