Weeknotes s01e06

TL:DR; A bang to the head, slow progress and not much walking.

[week ending: 12/02/2021]

The ugly

This week’s weeknotes come to you in reverse order, and are somewhat shorter than usual. That comes courtesy of passing out and trying to destroy a door and a bed frame with my head on the way down. Suffice to say, I’ve had concussion and struggled to sit up or look at a computer monitor all week without feeling incredibly nauseous. I’m doing much better now (Saturday evening) and hoping a restful week has done me more good than whatever happened in my head.

The bad

I did manage to listen in to a few bits of HETT Reset from a horizontal position but missed out on a lot of the talks I was looking forward to. I’m hoping to catchup on the online platform in the coming weeks. The virtual conference system they use for HETT really is rather good and makes for an engaging conference experience.

There’s lots of follow up and discussions I’d wanted to have this week around my research and blog on NHS open source websites, that will have to wait a few more days until I can get back into it.

The good

Tesla mobile service came out to replace a leaky light unit on my Model 3 this week. A very quick and easy process, all covid secure and hassle free. Being able to book a service through their app on my phone, including uploading photos of the issue, then receiving the booking automatically and a mechanic arriving at your house with no need to travel to a service station is a great experience. Sure it’s slightly annoying that the light needed replacing at only 8 months old, but it really was very easy to resolve.

I think it’s a good example of how Tesla are really using digital to make an ordinary experience much better. So much we can learn as we look to improve experiences across health and care too.

Late in the week after a call with our Archdeacons and Area Dean, I managed to get my teeth stuck into some work for our deanery strategic plan. This is something I’ve been struggling to get going with for a while but it clicked this week and I feel like I made good progress. A reminder about “managing energy not time” that I picked up on the Rosalind Franklin programme. It also resonated with thoughts I’ve seen about how we need to change the way we work going forwards instead of just recreating office life remotely. Success and productivity shouldn’t be measured simply by time sat at our desks.

I picked up a neat trick on Twitter about making my iPhone easier to use, especially when I’m wearing gloves on a cold walk.

I setup a shortcut to open the camera app and then set the double tap of the back of my phone to trigger this shortcut. So now, instead of having to remove my gloves whenever I want to take a photo (every 5 minutes!), I can just tap the side button, unlock with faceID then double tap the back of my phone and use the volume button to trigger the shutter. Brilliant! A reminder that when we design for accessibility, we make things better for everyone.

It was also great to be featured in the WP Owls briefing podcast and newsletter this week for my article on NHS open source websites. Thanks for the shout out!

Notable conversations

• It was great to catchup with Anna and Ingrid this week and talk through the agendas for upcoming Governor meetings at GHC.
• A good chat with Archdeacon Hilary, Archdeacon Phil, Dana and Chris about our deanery strategic plan for the Forest South Deanery.
• Good to contribute to the Twitter Thread that Sonia started on what people want out of a new ESR.

Things I’m reading and watching

• A defence of the Church of England by Justin Welby and Stephen Cottrell in The Spectator – a really good and sensible article. Church buildings may be closed currently, but there is a lot of great work being done by the church online and in person still like our church youtube channel.
• Dave Coveney’s new Youtube video about why website’s are slow. I’ve known Dave in the WordPress world for over a decade and really admire the work his company do. It’s interesting to see Dave work through a website and pick up on potential issues. But I think the really powerful thing here is how this could be used with senior managers and non technical people. Interesting to explore how the Liverpool Echo have made choices from a financial viewpoint without perhaps understanding all of the technical considerations and impact on user experience. Something I think I’ll think about as I look to progress the discussion on NHS open source websites.

PS: What a great date!