Weeknote 24
A tough week, but a good one. Launching The List, meeting new people, a giant melon sculpture, interesting things.
I've found this week hard, for a number of reasons, many of which are self inflicted.
I spent the previous week in America and with jet lag, lack of routine, not enough running, and terrible diet, my resilience this week was low! I'm not sure my brain really started working till Friday. Mixed in with some other challenges and a growing sense of self doubt it was just tough.
That's not to say that it was a bad week though. It actually had a lot of positives, and even some of the tough moments are necessary. Follow the rainbow Tom.
What I did
Continued some work with SOS on the Race Report. We're speaking to organisations who contribute their data. It's really interesting to hear how much they value the work and the transparency. In fact this real commitment to transparency is quite uplifting to me as it sometimes feels like banging my head against a wall with all things open.
Spoke to a small charity who are wanting a data strategy of sorts. Something I'm hearing a lot is "the CEO or Trustees are wanting us to explore AI, but we haven't even sorted x or y and our data is a bit of a mess, and if I do this, what else goes?" - indeed. I talk about roadmaps and decision making a lot. Sayings like "Yes, but..." and "No, and this is why..." . Whenever you add things, something else often has to go. Making this clear, visual, can be really helpful. Call it strategy, call it whatever you want. Does it help you make decisions?
Finally spoke with Nicola after many months and years of social media interaction. Really good talk, and very interesting to hear about some of the things they are grappling with. The Social Care sector is not one I've really been involved in since the old NAVCA and NHSE VCSE Alliance days. Talked about data (ownership, governance, decentralised, commons, cooperatives and probably some more). Hopefully we get a chance to talk and maybe work together in some form in the future.
Couple of exploratory calls with potential new clients. Work has been a bit weird across the board this year. Seems like there is more stuff coming out at the minute.
Some more work on the Organisational Resilience programme with Liz and the LBF team. We're trying to get a lot of things sorted, trying to move at pace to give us the time to get participants onboard in good time. There's a lot of things to sort, with multiple people involved who have different ways of working, schedules and approaches. I found this tough this week. But I know it will make for a better piece of work, I just need to remember that (and go running more)
THE LIST
Ok so this one deserves it's own spot this week. I've mentioned before I've been working with Jo on taking The List from spreadsheet to website. Well this week it went live! And thankfully it didn't break and people seemed to genuinely think it was good/useful. There were a couple of bumps, like when I had to increase the rate limits due to slightly unexpected sign up numbers...but that's a good problem to have right?
Jo Jeffery & Data For Action
I think the site is pretty cool. It's got a searchable database of over 6k funders, each one linked to their charity commission data and, if available, their 360Giving data. The big thing for me was trying to make sure that people can submit changes easily, and that this can then be managed by admins easily. The ability to have a visual timeline of changes for a funder is pretty nice I feel. We also have an automated weekly snapshot.
Long term there is so much potential for insight now we have a data structure. But that's for the future and if we get funding or resources to do anything more. For now, 11k views and 350+ subscribers in 4 days is pretty remarkable.
Random thoughts
I mentioned I spent time in America the previous week. I found this fun, weird and interesting in many ways. It's the first flight I've taken in a long while, partly because of climate reasons, but also because, well airports are shit aren't they? Give me a train any day. I took a couple IN America actually, which is such a weird experience. They just don't really do them. When you get the Amtrak the staff are so appreciative that you did so, unlike in the UK where you are seemingly an unwelcome visitor on a moving box. Things are slow, nobody rushes, nobody stresses. It was nice.
I thought quite a lot about community while over there. Americans are so spread, especially out of the major cities. They do have a powerful sense of community though. Often this feels slightly forced to an outsider, but actually I came away wondering about what we miss in the UK. I don't have fully processed thoughts at the minute, but there's something bouncing around my brain.
One thing that was NOT cool about America is the rivers! Sheesh. I've been doing a dip somewhere new a month for 2025. I NEEDED to get a dip in while in america. Blimey that was not easy. The rivers are not very accessible and a bit disgusting. I ended up in the Iowa river. 1/10 - would not recommend.
While over there I made my brother go on random detours to see some 'worlds biggest x sculpture" - silly. Fun.
The 'worlds' largest melon sculpture - person for scale.
Interesting things
There is a new doughnut (no not my american food diaries) - DEAL released an update version of the Doughnut with some cool new features and longitudinal approaches.
Wiring the strategic brain for STI policy
I recommend anyone working in data or tech to read this - Data Provenance in AI
A growing map of resources to re-imagine philanthropy and global development
You can't optimize what you don't have - well worth a read - I also wrote something somewhat inspired by it - The best leaders focus on effectiveness
AI Governance in the Boardroom
Can analysis ever be automated?
Why we orchestrate data governance rather than build databases
I Love Generative AI and Hate the Companies Building It
Measuring Innovation: Why Learning is the Real Engine of Innovation Funds