Day 54 – 24 March 2014
It’s not every day that you get interviewed for a magazine but today was one of them. It wasn’t until after lunch.
Back to this morning, Tony, the Digital Durham programme director is off all week and so I have no one to ring from the car first thing. He’s an early starter and we usually talk to each other, hands free of course from before 8 o’clock until I get to Pity Me. It all depends upon signal quality. Normally everything is fine once I get south of the Tyne, just past the Metro Centre and through the Team Valley. We have a break as I make my way up the Bowes Incline and start talking again once I get down the hill to Chester le Street. When we’ve got broadband up and running I need to think about our mobile signal.
It was time for the second round of presentations to ICT Services for this year. I’ve already covered these in January and this time I am delivering them with Steve. There were two today, Meadowfield and Spectrum. As these are the ones closest to the start of the new financial year we’re talking mostly about our plans for the coming twelve months.
As an aside, we (ICT Services) are governed by three annual cycles; the calendar year (January to December); the financial year (April to March) and; the academic year (September to August). This makes for some interesting planning opportunities. Whilst we are busy most of the year our main peaks of activity are around the end of the financial year and the start of the academic year. Twin peaks? For some reason this causes us a particular challenge around holidays as the end of the holiday year coincides with one of our busiest times.
We raised this at the presentations.
Just before we got underway, l leant down to plug in my laptop and had a major wardrobe malfunction in the trouser department. I carry many things with me but a sewing kit is not one of them. I think it was beyond that anyway and so I had to wear my jacket all day. Talk about seat of the pants management.
Steve covered eleven of the key projects for the year ahead including work on our planning, people, finance and customer systems and I covered (quickly) the twenty eight that make up our service plan. Steve also did a bit on how our finances come together and the importance of balancing the corporate and traded sides of the business, while I talked about the ins and outs of the team.
There have been forty babies born to team members and their partners since I started. I can’t take any credit for them but there have been three boys since the last presentations including our second set of twins. Something worth celebrating.
After lunch it was a telephone call with Peter from Computing Magazine. I had expected a face to face meeting but when he rang me from a Greater London number I guessed it was not to be. We talked about some general issues but my focus was mainly on the opportunity that ICT presents in the economic regeneration of the county. I hope the article turns out OK.
My next tier 4 manger was Ray, the Strategy and Partnerships Manager in Regeneration and Economic Development. It took me a while to work out how his role differed from Donna on day 46 but his focus is entirely centred on economic regeneration, improving business and improving skills. He had a train analogy to help a little. He described his team as both the coal tender that fuels the engine and the brake van that brings up the rear. I always like railway analogies but will have to think about this one.
We talked about some general issues but our focus was mainly on the opportunity that ICT presents in the economic regeneration of the county.
I told him about Dynamo.
Finally I had another presentation on the Digital Durham deployment plan at Chester le Street AAP.
Learning points for today: 60% of job types advertised in Durham didn’t exist ten years ago; never work with children, animals and rubbish technology; ten minutes in front of a waiting crowd is a long time and; I need a new suit.
Today’s enjoyment rating 8/10 – could have been more embarrassing.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 