Weeknote 36

What a month this week has been! What do you mean it’s actually been the same length as a normal week?

This week actually started on the Sunday as I was spending two days on the Norfolk coast near Great Yarmouth as part of the LBF Organisational Resilience programme. This meant a 5 hour train journey on the sunday, which felt long. Unfortunately I spent closer to 9 hours getting home on the Tuesday. I also spent Thursday zooming up and down to London to join a workshop on Data Gaps on Poverty. So this week feels looooooong. 

What I did

• So yeah, monday and tuesday was facilitating the OR programme. Same content different place as two weeks ago. Well I say it was the same content, it was the same core content and activities, but it was such a different cohort that it mean exploring slightly different aspects, different edges, different lens. The good thing was that it felt like the content and stucture not only allowed for that, but supported that. Which is probably pretty handy as we’ve designed it with the core idea of ‘adaptability’. Great to be working with Liz on this, as I get to sit and watch all the awesome finance stuff. 
• Managed a run on the beach in great yarmouth which was nice
• Caught up with Jo on the List. It’s been a challenging few weeks with this. We don’t have the time to do the things we’d like to, as there’s no real funding attached to this. I said we’d hit the grown up stage without the grown up cash. Still we do what we can, and a research dashboard is on the way! It’s good that we can both talk openly, swear and send pictures of pastries to amuse ourselves. 
• Spent time at a workshop on Poverty Data Gaps, run by the RSS as part of the Insight Infrastructure Team at JRF. You can read the interim report here. Really interesting mix of people from various government departments, statisticians, and charity data people. Oh and I was there too. This was very focused on access to official statistics and administrative data. Many of the same challenges came up. But it was really interesting, at least for me, to hear about the government side of things, about the limitations of the digital consumer act, and what this allows and doesn’t. Also to hear about the same data culture challenges at gov level as in many organisations…no by default rather than open by default. 
  Much of the talk focused in the fact there is a lot of data out there, but knowing what, being able to access, and then being able to use are the barriers. I talked a lot about metadata, questions and a bridge between the two, both for humans and humans through AI.  I think I need to actually sketch this out properly as I’m not sure people go what I was on about. Or maybe they did, but thought it was rubbish. Either way, I feel the need to sketch it out if only for my own satisfaction. 

Writing

• Wrote a blog in my hotel room on sunday evening. It’s the second of my ideas to explore for 2026, which is about Just In Time Digital Services. A lot of time and thought went into that one. Think a couple of people read it. 
• Shared 3 slides on my “Do a theory of change in 10 minutes” approach and MANY people read that. Some kind of lesson to be learned there!
• Created the ‘Fuck it Matrix’ - hello new readers, yes I am a serious professional. 

• Doug shared a post on this below. It's something we are sketching out some support for. Considering alternatives to big american tech isn't just an ethical thing, it's possibly one of the biggest risks not on your risk register.

Interesting things

Claude Code with Anthropic API compatibility · Ollama Blog - Ollama is now compatible with the Anthropic Messages API, making it possible to use tools like Claude Code with open models.

The Field Guide to Design Futures

GitHub - projectsbyif/gds-react: An implementation of the GOV.UK Design System in React - An implementation of the GOV.UK Design System in React - projectsbyif/gds-react

Beyond the waterfall state: why missions need a different decision-making architecture - Why government keeps forcing uncertainty through systems designed for stability – and what an alternative might look like

Emerging Futures: Vol 40 - On Minds and Mindsets - Questioning: Does a mindset lead to a host of thoughts and actions?

Data unions: people-powered data control - Is 2026 the year that data collectives - unions, trusts, mutuals and clubs - tilt the balance of power in cyberspace away from mega-platforms and towards the citizen?

Public GIS Data Directory | ezesri - Browse 3,000+ public ArcGIS Feature Services from government agencies. Find boundaries, demographics, health and crime data and more.

How to activate citizen agency - if communities have half the answer, what is the other half?

Walking Backwards into the Future - Deep Time and the Work of Imagining the Future

This Infrastructure Would Save the Planet, But Cloud Giants Refuse to Build It

Other weeknotes

John Fitzgerald - loved john talking about refusing to take the easy route and use a pdf for his digital call to action report and stuck it out to make it work. Not always easy.

Adam Coulson - so much going on in this, but enjoyed the metadata chat (and the trail running photo obvs)