Back in the early days of my career, deciding to do something new with information technology was an expensive business. Before you did anything, you needed hardware; servers to run things on, and software to run on those servers. The things you required arrived in boxes, even the software in the form back then of … Continue reading Technology as transport
In the recent episode of Malcolm Gladwell's excellent Revisionist History podcast, there was a fascinating revelation about the significance of filling in paper forms in a conversation after the show between Gladwell and Tim Harford (from about 43 minutes into the recording). The short version: doctors in the US in some states have had to … Continue reading The significance of paper
I’ve been continuing to mull on the idea of how techniques familiar in the realm of Service and User-centred Design might be adapted to help shape data products - groups of data that can be used in various ways within an organisation for different sorts of purpose. I’ve always liked the Customer Journey Map as … Continue reading Data journey maps
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 … Continue reading Weeknote 592: Pitching
Over the past few weeks I've been thinking about concepts of "data products" and how the approaches and methods of Service Design and User-Centred design might be applied to designing data that isn't encapsulated into a user interface. Quite often people in the world of Service Design come from backgrounds that aren't particularly technical. The … Continue reading Data consumption
This week I have learned: I'm getting increasingly curious about how the worlds of user-centred design and data can become more self-supporting. As we move from data as the stuff in systems to data as a thing in itself, how can we design that data and move away from the ivory towers of ER modelling? … Continue reading Weeknote 591: designing data
This week I have learned: if you are going to have time with people in person, make sure some of it (if not all of it) is social time. I had a trip up to Manchester this week and got some face time with colleagues old and new in a pub. It was delightful. I … Continue reading Weeknote 590: travelling
Back in the early 2000s when I was working at the BBC I was starting to have to write a whole series of "Requests for Proposals" - documents outlining a particular need that we were looking for a supplier to fill. Being a diligent sort, I wanted to find a course to go on to … Continue reading On the other side
This week I have learned: that forms can be seen through a lens of "what has gone wrong in the past?" So often when we are confronted with requests for information whether through paper or increasingly digital means, it can be hard to understand why particular data are being requested. Ask the question "What bad … Continue reading Weeknote 589: settling
This week I have learned: That a half-hour bike ride in the searing heat to meet with a potential client isn't as bad as the half-hour bike ride in the searing heat back from a potential client.I'm oscillating between "I've got this" and "I've no idea what I'm doing". That's normal. Need to embrace feeling … Continue reading Weeknote 588: melting
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