This week I have learned…
- Socialising in person trumps doing so online. I had the delight of one of Julia Hobsbawm’s events this week and it was a delight to catch up with a bunch of people who I hadn’t seen IRL for over two years.
- Change is the hard bit. People change doubly so. No matter how much the technology appears to be the issue, even the technology itself is but a socio-technical system.
- Paper might force different (valuable) behaviours. There is a fascinating observation in the recent Revisionist History podcast that tells of how doctors forced to fill in paper prescription forms thought harder and made fewer orders for dangerous drugs for their patients than when they completed the same process digitally. It’s a bit like the difference between waving your card or phone over a payment machine and actually counting out the notes and the coins, I guess.
- I’m continuing to think about Data Products and the necessary design approaches. I sense that many people involved in the world of design will regard data as “too backend”. The Front End/Back End split in the world of digital is curious. Data Products cut through both.
- I’m hopefully going to explore buy versus build again, but in an advisory capacity to leave the actual decision to someone else. I’m fascinated by what scale a business needs to be operating at if it’s not a software business for build to be the better option. Software can be built by small teams, but big complex organisations complicate matters.
- And no, not every business is a software business.
- The current politics is the most underwealming reality tv show ever. And I’m stupefied by what terrible communicators all of the remaining candidates appear to be.
Next week: school’s out. Let the shenanigans begin.
The week in photos:
mmitII 