4.22 — weeknotes — Socitm President’s Conference!

Well what a week! My first face to face Socitm Conference as part of the President’s team! By no means my first Socitm conference though. I was thinking whilst I was there that I have been a member of Socitm since very very early on in my career. I had Managers at the time that were really supportive in developing me and since the early 2000’s I think I have been a member. So my first conferences would have been around this time as well — nearly 20 years of being a member! It has really changed and evolved during this time (as have I!), and not only continues to do that but continues to do it at a fantastic pace!

Highlights for me include:

• The passion, energy, experience and opportunity in the room — the dedication to the people and communities that we serve.
• The session on Enabling Place Data, hearing from colleagues at South London Partnership (David Grasty) and Norfolk (Geoff Connell) in enabling Smart Place / Internet of Things in their areas — some lessons for us as we embark on our smart place journey — and thinking about how we engage the wider regional area.
• Skills was a big piece of the agenda and how we ensure that we get the right skills in Local Government digital — some really good ideas to think about.
• Also heard from some of the colleagues who have been part of the Empowering Women course — really good to hear from them, some really inspirational moments.
• Nice to see colleagues and partners from across the Country — some really interesting things from Microsoft emerging as well — a change Agents course and really good to hear from them that they are trying to encourage joined up working.
• Hearing all about how Wales are really creating the conditions for success for digital changes across the Country.
• Was good to see some of the work that Hounslow are doing in Planning being showcased as part of some of the Levelling up agenda as well.
• Huw becoming President and then a growing realisation that I am President next year!!!!!

We even bought Deskercise to life — with thanks to my colleague, Saima, for pulling some very simple but effective yoga exercises together for me — we had a room of 200 people doing them!

Another thing that was nice about the Conference was the travel. Not often I say that, but got the train to Cardiff and even managed a short trip on the Elizabeth Line — all worked really well and almost made me miss the daily commute…. Almost… Luckily there are the train strikes next week to remind me of the reality…

Although I wasn’t able to go, LOTI undertook a Future Workplace tour across London on Thursday, looking at a number of locations across London and how they are gearing up for the future ways of working. It looked like it was a really useful event and looking forward to hearing all about it and linking to how we shape things at Hounslow.

Rest of the week, catching up with the team, with events of the start of the week and trying to progress the funding / projects that we need to as part of the Digital Strategy.

Excited about next week — next Friday we find out whether we win the Digital Transformation Awards at the MJ Awards — :-)

Tune of the week (may have already had this before but it seems very appropriate!): Dario G — Sunchyme (Official Music Video)