4.29 — Weeknotes — The 5 Second Pause / Digital Festival

After going in the office everyday last week it was a refreshing change to be at home every day this week. But I didn’t want to fall into the old habits of just being at the desk all day every day and forgetting to leave the house.

So this week I made sure that I did the morning commute, a walk around the block, half an hour or so, with a cup of coffee, just to get outside, get the blood pumping and to ensure that I had some time and space. Didn’t really start well as Monday was more than a bit wet, half way around the heavens opened and I got drenched — soaked to the skin. Luckily the rest of the week was nicer.

On Monday I attended an Understanding Autism in the workplace seminar put on by Allen Lane, together with Ambitious about Autism — it was excellent. Really good conversations and certainly raised the awareness and understanding on what being Autistic means and how this shapes (or should shape) the workplace.

There were some really practical things that were introduced, including the 5 second pause, when talking, to slow down your communications and give people processing time to respond — when asking questions or making significant points in a presentation. I think that is a tip for us all! https://www.ambitiousaboutautism.org.uk/

We had our Digital Strategy Board this week. Moving into a more strategic governance place with this group and was a packed agenda! Went through the projects and programmes; approved to progress a new projects and programmes tool; updated on our cloud journey and costs; an introduction to our enterprise architecture (including MetaModels — still no idea!!) and agreed the maintenance windows approach for the next 12 months! And we managed to finish with 2 minutes to spare…

Week 2 of the Digital Festival this week where we have had sessions on Office; Sustainability with Google; demos of our new hybrid meeting rooms and our digital champions have been out and about at Feltham Library. Phew! More to look forward to next week! https://www.hounslow.gov.uk/digitalfestival22

We have also launched our Shape Digital annual survey this week. We do this every year as I think it is so important to listen to our customers across the council. We are asking about the service, about digital in general, the tech, skills and so on — and more importantly we actually then produce an action plan and make sure that we change things as a result.

Next week getting out and about again as at going to Manchester for the Socitm Share national conference — will be another great session and not too late to sign up! — https://socitm.net/events/share-modernising-ict-service-delivery-2022/

Tune of the Week: A classic, not heard for an age. Kadoc — The Nighttrain (Official Video)