Category: Weeknotes

This week I have learned: I got contacted by someone I know who needed to knock up a budget for a grant application with little information and very little time. We plugged his needs into Claude and asked it to create a budget modelling tool. Using a probabilistic tool to create a deterministic one feels … Continue reading Weeknote 783: Brum

This week I have learned: one thinks of Swedes as being sensible, maybe slightly reserved. Then you watch them at a football match and realise that the Viking spirit is still very strong. Bonkers displays at the weekend. actually having the actual book in my actual hands was a life moment. the ways in which … Continue reading Weeknote 782: Stockholm

This week I have learned: once again, about the delights of meeting a bunch of complete strangers. Thank you, Iain. on Monday I had an hour of randomness with the current cohort at the School of Communication Arts. That some creatives commented positively on the design on the book means a huge amount. I have … Continue reading Weeknote 781: meeting

This week I have learned: the Zen-like art of a studio rewire. Stuff had accumulated over the years. Wires were everywhere. When better than a bank holiday weekend to rip it all out and start again? I'm not a tidy person, but I can take some joy in occasional acts of extreme tidying. unless it's … Continue reading Weeknote 779: Starting

This week I have learned: I can't work out whether I've joined a new or an existing team. I'm not sure it matters much, but it's interesting nonetheless. navigating the vagaries of the way in which large organisations procure services continues to strike me as a form of witchcraft dressed up as a business process. … Continue reading Weeknote 778: onboarding

This week I have learned: if you pull your ears it helps to reduce pre-performance nerves. I learned this from a wonderful colleague, Letty, who has done much drama in her career. having the framing that I learned from Kae Tempest's interview last week about the trilogy of writer, reader and content helped hugely in … Continue reading Weeknote 777: decided

This week I have learned: the book is now not only on a boat, but we also have an ETA for mid-May. We can now start planning in earnest for the launch. This is a huge relief. You can keep an eye on where the OOCL Piraeus is on the oceans here: experiments.randomthebook.com/whereisrandom I'm fascinated … Continue reading Weeknote 776: a trinity

This week I have learned: the power of using Claude to explore my grandfather's biography. I spent some time with my dad at the weekend, and he gave me a few more details about what grandad did over his long career in electronics. As a result I stumbled across a document outlining research papers published … Continue reading Weeknote 775 – biography

This week I have learned: the power that lies within Mark Earls' deceptively simple 2x2 matrix to triage problems. how nice it can be to have a last-minute invite to something (and diaries permit that to happen). There's not enough spontaneity in modern life. it appears that getting up at 5am on both days is … Continue reading Weeknote 774: 2×2

This week I have learned: I'm getting better at understanding what gives me energy and what drains me. It's been a week where I'm probably energy neutral overall. The bigger the organisation, the harder things get. I'm convinced of this. Public or private sector, it's the scale that drives inefficiency. Unilateral activities in one place … Continue reading Weeknote 773: a throw of the dice