3.35 — weeknotes — coming to buildings with purpose
I usually start these weeknotes with some sort of statement around what a hectic week it’s been but was reminded by colleagues today that every week is like that. Getting busier with more and more taking place! All of this is good but do need to ensure that I find a balance with everything — and I probably haven’t got that quite right at the moment.
Also need to try and keep an oversight on a number of things and think I have failed on doing that on budget management over the past couple of months. Not enough input / thinking across the team, which has created some challenges over the last couple of weeks. Have put in some additional steps / thinking to correct that this month and into the future.
Started the week this week in Hounslow House bringing all the Mangers in Digital & IT together into the building, a chance to catch up, meet colleagues who some have only met online, to think about our successes and challenges, to think about the future and to support the local economy (lunch was nice). For the lunch we signposted colleagues to the new Hounslow Marketplace which has a large number of food stalls from all over the world. There was actually too much choice and I ended up walking around the place twice before deciding on what to eat!
Had the Socitm Share National conference this week on service design and transformation. I was only really about for the middle hour or so on the first day and the first couple of hours on Wednesday but was excellent. Some really useful and relevant presentations and reminding us to ensure we link back to our communities in the design and transformation of our services.
World Ethics Day on Wednesday, I attended a Socitm event in conjunction with St Georges House on ethics and especially linked to data and emerging technology. Some fantastic speakers there, really big and challenging topics and far too much to think about. Was excellent.
I also spoke at an event on Wednesday evening — on Social Value and technology. I was wearing my Socitm hat (and my Hounslow one at the same time) with some examples from a number of Local Authorities, including Hounslow. The presentation was to the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists — a livery company of the City of London — ethics came up here as well — just because we can should we join data? Had a great discussion after and starting to think about the next steps of working together.
On Thursday we had our Hounslow Leadership Group (HLG ), the top managers of the organisation come together on a monthly basis. This one was one that was a bit later than usual in coming together from a planning point of view but that just adds to the excitement of the event!!! Not! Actually it was a really good meeting in the end — loads of really good updates from the previous couple of HLG’s. The main event was an update from our Director of HR and OD on the My Experience Matters Survey that went to all staff in the summer.
I went to Gold on Friday to discuss going to the next stage of our World of Work planning — which is to change the messaging slightly to colleagues — from work at home where possible to come into buildings with purpose — in reality this doesn’t change the fact that the majority will be at home for the foreseeable future. But important to move forwards in a positive manner, whilst ensuring that colleagues are safe and supported.
Tune of the week: From the movie version of Everybody’s Talking About Jamie — This Was Me — Everybody’s Talking About Jamie Scene
