This post started with a question from my dad. I was telling him about a trip I had made to my local bike shop to double check some repairs I had done that I wasn't overly confident in. When I was there the staff were interested in the bike and asked me lots of questions. ‘Why?’ my dad, not unreasonably asked. ‘Is it a very expensive bike?’ For some reason telling my dad that I had seen an…
I went to university in the late 1990's and this means that I will forever hold a thrillingly bad punk pop cover version close to my heart. I was listening to some of these whilst doing some DIY the other day and thought I would make a list of my top ten. Read more
I don’t like being annoyed. It is unhelpful. The reason I found myself annoyed and writing this was because of the thought – ‘we have been here before’ – was forming after reading the great post by Kit and Robin and also by Jeni and Richard mentioning something about people tending to not build APIs in modern civic tech projects. Read more
As part of a minor org shuffle this week I will no longer be working directly with Benjy . Benjy isnt a showy man, so wouldn't want a fuss, but he is a brilliant writer and his blog is one we should all keep an eye on. With this in mind, I thought it would be appropriate to write a quick post about what Benjy has taught me in our time working together. It puts me in mind that the recording of our…
Location – Live in Cardiff and work in Newport Current role – Chief Publishing Officer for the Office of National Statistics Current mobile device – Blloc for home, iphone for work Current computer (work and home) Dell for work (it is very decent) and the classic sticker covered pixelbook for home (Pictured. It is the best device I have ever owned) One word that best describes how you work –…
Hi Gang So, one year ago I wrote a post about sharing some, well, open thinking about how I wanted to do some open working and create some open data. This post contains some thoughts on a few things I have noticed whilst actually doing it in the form of developing and launching a public beta of some new functionality on the ONS web site. Read more
Things I learnt about me and my world this week 0 - I referred to the team as ‘guys' in a large meeting and have felt bad all week. Publishing as a rebuke to myself. 1 - When stuff goes really really wrong it is hard to stay calm. Read more
Week notes! Get your week notes. So, this is very unlikely to be a thing, but I have had an unusually logistically smooth week and am on a slow moving train so have given it a go. I've checked out how this is meant to go. Gifs, ‘i went to a meeting’, reflection and humour leads to riches and unicorns. Read more
I've been thinking about trust and trusting working relationships a lot recently. People trusting me to do things and me trusting others to do things. I've been thinking about it as it is something I am not very good at and something I am actively trying to improve. Read more
I found this as a draft from August. I thought I might as well publish it. Oddly, some still stands and some is very very out of date. Curious thing, agile and that. So. As was covered in Series 1 (aka. The Jukesie era) Beta is an important part of building a government thing. When I joined ONS a year and a bit ago, the idea of this discovery -alpha - beta loop all seemed a bit waterfall to me.…
I am a bad blogger. I write the start to so many posts and don’t finish, but as I was walking to work this morning, listening to a song called Storm by G!YBE a thought occurred. ‘Maybe, to be more open, I need to write about being more open’. So here it is. Read more
Doing things for the love of it is something I cherish in humans. I don't care if you’re obsessed with a football team, watch trains, answer the phone to people who need a chat or swim in the sea, I just find it exciting to see people giddy about things. On that subject, this is a quick love letter from me to the Machynlleth Comedy Festival. It started eight years ago with my wonderful friend and…
The T shape The T shape is something that often gets discussed within the digital world (and I assume other industries as well?) The idea being that someone has a thin (horizontal) set of skills in a range of things related to a job, but also is likely to have a deeper (vertical) level of knowledge about some form of specialism. What does this look like for people who think about services? Read…
1 year at the ONS So after the really big moment (that day we had cake ) the other much less important anniversary is here. I have been with the ONS digital team for a year. That is a year of me running the ONS website. A year of being hyper-aware that I need to be near a computer at 9.30am (the time at which most days we publish new statistics.) A year of hyper cubes, a year of charts and a year…
I watched the wonderful Lost in France recently. A documentary about the mid to late 90s Scottish indie music scene and more specifically, the record label Chemical Underground . Growing up in a sleepy corner of Devon meant that I didn’t really have music scene to call my own and for reasons of four boys in there corduroys , I was drawn to be something of a fan boy for what was coming out of…