Weeknote 27-04-2025
Writing about tech stacks, friends don't let friends use microsoft, open ideas, questions banks and my best race result since 1990 sports day.
What I did
It was the last week of the Easter holidays so it was a mix of family time and little bits of work. I visited Rydal cave and went paddleboarding on Ullswater. Back to work mode next week.
My daughter on the left skipping over the stepping stones in Rydal cave and a view of Ullswater in the evening.
One of the actual bits of work I did was some automation for Farming The Future for their Airtable set up (which apparently they are LOVING, which is nice).
Also put together a couple of outlines for some potential work, see if they come off.
I'd been feeling a bit down/uncertain the last couple of weeks about what I'm doing work wise, questioning whether I was doing the right things, whether I should just do more of the easier things. Thankfully a couple of things happened this week to shake me out of this!
Firstly, I got sent the trailer for a documentary about me & a friend trying to do hard things, namely running the length of the river tees in one go. I did it for a couple of reasons; to see what's possible and because I think we as people are so intrinsically linked to rivers but often don't appreciate them enough.
Secondly, someone got in touch about an idea I'd shared on https://www.openideas.uk/ and maybe want to do something with one of them. Putting things into the open can feel hard sometimes, but little things like this can really give you a lift.
I also found a bit of time to write a post about what tech stack I use. I've done a similar post a few times before, but this time I was very consciously exploring how I'm moving away from big tech tools. I'm not succeeding everywhere, but I am making progress. Link below to that one.
I started sketching out a training session I called 'Friends don't let friends use Microsoft' which aims to demonstrate how and why you might want to move away from big tech products to EU made or preferably Open Source products. It sort of started as a joke, but I actually think it could be worthwhile. And some people agree...or maybe they just hate Microsoft.
Running!
I did a last minute entry to a 24 mile trail race around Derwentwater on Saturday. What a win that was. I did this same race 5 years ago. Obviously I didn't actually win the race, which was won by some speedy fella I saw the back of for about 5 minutes.
However I judge winning by:
- spending nearly 5 hours in the mountains
- being slightly better than I was yesterday
This second one is something I tell my daughter a lot. Don't judge yourself on others, just try to improve everyday and enjoy the process. I managed to knock a whole hour off my time from 5 years ago. As someone who is definitely getting older, that was nice.
*I actually came 12th, which is by far my best race result since the 1990 sports day sprint when the stars aligned and I won. Never happened again.
Interesting things
I shared this paper Inquiry as Infrastructure which is excellent and talks about
Question literacy as a critical but often neglected competency in the age of data and AI (beyond today's focus on prompts).
A new science of questions - one that prioritizes not just answers, but how we inquire, what we ask, and who gets to shape those questions.
This is really important and something we at Data For Action have been experimenting with in a number of ways, through our question first approach and through our Question Bank which aims to allow groups of people to come together, ask, prioritise and eventually understand what makes a good question. People ask questions in different ways and the more that are asked the more we can begin understanding which ones are 'good' and lead to action.
I think I'm motivated to do more on this again 💡
It was nice to see this piece in the Stanford Social Innovation Review 'Exit to Open' in which Jim talks about enriching the commons and making things open when an organisation closes. I wrote something similar in Endings. Good composting if you will. As a big proponent of this, its good to see this kind of hit the mainstream (relatively). I would quesiton why only do this when an organisation closes though, why not just be Open by Default?
If you are interested in a more Open Sector you should join these meet ups as we try to get more of this stuff happening in a practical way
A nice piece on 'The story of how we are shifting power to people in different communities across the UK, and a guide to starting similar projects in your community' which features some of the work of Citizen Network and Data For Action
Other things of interest
Oh yeah, thanks for that Microsoft
David Neaum
Rachel Coldicutt
Benn Stancil
