Hi all, hope you are all doing great, it has been about 6 weeks since the last update. There was a lot going on. I always struggle a bit through December to stay well, and if it hadn’t been for a couple of really bad train delays I might have made it through. It was also incredibly excitingly busy at work and stressfully busy at work and there is some fairly heavy family stuff going on, now we are at the age of our parents and in laws being really quite old. So! Here we are!

It is a year since I joined CDS. Jan 2nd last year Dave and I started on the same day and started to get to know each other and the rest of the team and shape the way forward. I remember Neil and Dave being quite shocked one day when I swore about 2 weeks in and realising I must still be being on best behaviour! For me the CDS shaping has been focused a lot on creating a User Centred Design team with all that involves — making job descriptions, completing job evaluation criteria, interviews and so on. I now have a team of about 20! They are really cool. All of them new specialisms in the organisation — content design (not a more generic web author) , interaction design, product management and user research — and then the brilliant addition of our business partners. Once we have a delivery and product lead the PMs will move to their team, which makes total sense and will work really well. They wont be far and I will still regularly check in with them but they are great people so it would be weird if I didn’t miss managing them and I will. But I’m really looking forward to that final piece in the management puzzle as I know Dave is — read his review and look forward here. And Neil’s and much more on the Croydon Digital blog And Victoria one of our PMs has just joined the weeknote gang! …

Hi all, it is Sunday morning and I have much to celebrate work-wise right now. However, truth be told I have a slight sore head from *genuinely guv I swear* only one Old Fashioned last night, but it was right before bed. Plus I am feeling a bit more thoughtful and reflective than the content of my weeknote deserves but, you know, life, right? Thing is, we just had a lovely cup of tea with one of my husband’s oldest friends, Danny. My husband’s name is Paul but Danny renamed him Harold at Uni. So to his closest oldest pals and to anyone professionally he is Harold. …

Hello! Remember the funding bid from episode 1? We bid for extra funding for a User Researcher/ Delivery Manager to help with our cross-council User Research on Adult Social Care. It won! So did another bid from my team — the work to collaborate on code sharing for publishing platforms.

There were 60 applications, 18 shortlisted and 7 chosen so I am over the moon. It feels like our open collaborative approach has been validated. It feels good to receive support.

Especially so when something else I shared openly on twitter was misunderstood by someone and made for a very deflating experience at work. I‘d love to just totally work in the open : side note — I went for lovely dinner with my old boss last night and she said “so how’s work, is it as brilliant as your twitter suggests or is that just good PR?” (Heads of Comms and cynicism — Ikr unbelievable!)- but you know, sometimes it wouldn’t achieve anything positive. You get that. It IS as I tell it but obviously there are pressures and issues and I did have a rubbish moment this week that I would love to moan about but probably isn’t a good idea. …

Hi, I didn’t do weeknotes last week because the main thing I wanted to tell you about was embargoed until what was supposed to be last Tuesday. We STILL aren’t allowed to tell you. I’m pretty sure that Brexit is involved — no surprise there. Keep your fingers crossed for me for THIS Tuesday!

One embargo has gone though — we are out of consultation , so I can share that in December my team will have the Business Partners join us. I’m really pleased. They are an excellent team of hard working, dedicated and fun people. It means that all the people I manage have got working with services as a top priority. We will be focused on User needs and forming positive and collaborative stakeholder relationships. We will also be moving from being called the Digital Design team to the User Centred Design team. …

Alright? it’s Saturday morning, Oct 12th. Kipchoge just made history by running a marathon under 2 hours for the first time ever. I’ve got a bit of a sore head from sleeping funny when passed out on the sofa last night. He is probably just a bit pooped whereas I’m realllly tired.

Previously on Annie’s weeknotes — a trailer to this episode involving a small dance by the boss at a new development — which is….the team have created a step by step process on our Alpha website redesign! Using the GOV.UK one and applying it to our Adult Social Care process. We are super chuffed, it is such a great team effort from code through to content. …

**Senior Content Designer for Children’s services amazing job**

Hi, how are you feeling? It is hard to know when the world is on fire eh? I have found it difficult not to voraciously consume the news this week and get slightly addicted to the sensation of panic, fury and crisis. It is fascinating and frightening, and most definitely a week that will go down in history. Supreme courts and impeachments, holidays ruined and hedge funds bonanza’d, journalists being allowed to say on television that riots should happen but not allowed to say racism is bad.

When deciding whether to mention the external happenings in this weeknote I thought about when I first worked in Housing. I had to prep all the paper tenancy files for scanning and there were many that went back to the 60s, some even further. When I found one from a date in history that was A Big Deal, I would always be a bit disappointed the event wasn’t mentioned. Like it was a missed opportunity to record social history. Funnily enough though the letters never went “Dear Housing Officer. My three children are cramped in one small damp bedroom. I have been on the waiting list for a bigger house now for 10 months! Isn’t it amazing that England won the world cup?! We are having a street party! Please come and repair our gutter.” …

Morning! Episode 2, I have achieved continuing the project past inception at least. Aphex Twin selected ambient works is playing (Tha) and we are chilling, happy to have a weekend of no plans.

I got the funding bid in, so keep your fingers crossed for that. It is to help a joint cross-council piece of User Research be successful — to have someone to both help with the User Research and Delivery Manage some of the issues that can prevent cross-collab happening like finding a tool everyone can use, agreeing methods, formats etc. …

Series 1 : Episode 1

It’s bizarre that this is series 1 episode 1, as I have been in local government for 10 years. If I had started when I got my first job in the customer focused digital transformation world 7 years ago, this would be Series 4. If I had started series 4 when I first got the new AWESOME job , this would be approximately episode 34.

Why now?

Well I have often pondered joining the weeknotes gang and honestly the main problems were fear of commitment and the usual human self doubt stuff- will people read it, have I got anything worth saying, will they want me in the gang, what if I don’t keep it up? I hate failing. Not failing is a huge motivator for me. …