3.38 — weeknotes — do you actually have to physically raise a hand now in a hybrid meeting?

I was in Hounslow House on Tuesday for a CLT meeting and a workshop in the afternoon. A good discussion at CLT on the next steps of the World of Work programme but the hybrid experience is a bit meh! Half the group were in the room and half at home but being able to have both to have the same experience is a challenge. Basics like not being able to share slides consistently to both or see who has raised hands etc.

You end up needing to log onto the virtual meeting, even though you are in the room, so you can present slides and see chat/hands and even then it wasn’t great. I appreciate some of this is just getting used to the new normal, some of this is the tech and some of it is just being really clear how some of this needs to work now.

The thing that really threw colleagues the most was whether you have to physically put your hand up if you were in the room. All very confusing, took a bit of time to get into a routine with it. But good progress on the World of Work approach and taking it to the next stages.

In the afternoon we then had a great hybrid workshop for our Digital Community Experience programme. A mixture of colleagues in the office and colleagues at home — breakout groups worked really well with actual post it notes in the office and Miro boards at home. Actually all worked well and we were able to have a good discussion and ensure that everyone was involved and engaged.

The Hounslow Digital Festival continues this week with more excellent sessions. We have heard about the work taking place on developing tourism in the borough and our new https://inhounslow.com/ website. We have continued with sessions from Microsoft on CVs and preparing for Job Interviews and more from the amazing Ealing and Hounslow Community Voluntary Sector.

One highlight for me was the session we had with Theo Blackwell who is the Chief Digital Officer for London. He gave us an update on the work that he and his team are doing at the GLA. Lots of links with the work that we are doing at Hounslow already but the team had the opportunity to ask him questions and found a few more links and things to think about. Was a really good session.

Final highlight of the week this evening is the Digital/OD Quiz at 5 today!!! Obviously my team is going to win…not!

Video — seems appropriate given the title of this weeknote: Ottawan — Hands Up