Day 41 – 28 February 2014
For personal reasons I worked from home today. I had a couple of reports to write anyway, one on a Digital Strategy following the meeting on Monday and a second which I had not expected at all. Apparently I had an update to do on Building Schools for the Future (BSF) for a board meeting next week which isn’t in my dairy. When I looked at the minutes it turned out that I was supposed to do something ‘in the new year’. That’s the way it goes sometimes.
I made a start on the digital one along the lines of: The use of digital technologies is growing and affecting all walks of life. Within the next few years such technologies will be integral to nearly all services that consumers use. The consumerization (it’s a real word according to www.dictionary.com) and democratisation of digital will become much more prevalent and residents will be more demanding of their relationships with the Council. They will expect us to deliver more and more services through digital means. To meet this demand we will need a fundamental shift in our approach to digital from a passive or reactive approach to a much more leading edge approach.
It was easy to write some flim flam but getting down to real world actions is going to be more of a challenge. I sorted the BSF report and Pam rearranged my diary so that I could attend the meeting.
Today was the last day of month two and so a good opportunity to review progress with my resolutions.
1. Enjoy every day at work – happy with this one. I’ve had a few tens and some sevens.
2. Get to know all tier 4 managers – I’ve met with fifteen or twenty if I include my own and have a further six planned and so I’m on target.
3. Get back on the optimisation horse – We’ve discussed this at several SMTs and have work going on to understand demand, improve the service desk software and processes affecting field based engineers.
4. Understand demand – See 3.
5. Sort out Out of Hours – Not a lot of progress here but I am working with the ICT Core Group to understand the need.
6. Be a more agile service – We’ve started work on enabling far more agile working. In truth we are much more agile than we are officially as I see lots of my team in many locations. I’ve also chucked out my desk!
7. Do something with big data – Did the O2 awards thing and my thoughts are coming together.
8. Collaborate with another authority – We do a lot of piecemeal collaboration but still working away on something bigger.
9. Finish my book – Fifty thousand words so far.
10. Learn Dutch – I’m on chapter 8 of 12 but it’s the second time I’ve been through the book. I need to find someone who can speak the language.
Learning points for today: I’d like to become a deipnosophist (a person who is an adept conversationalist at table); The NHS really should read the Virginia Mason book and; It’s too easy to get distracted when trying to write a report.
Today’s enjoyment rating 9/10 – Some good news to boot.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 