Weeknote 43
Just enough structure. Saying no to neat little bows. A long week, residential, letting go of ideas, and some running
Starting to write this on the train on Friday afternoon, beer in hand. It’s been a long week. I’ve spent the last two days co-facilitating a residential for the Organisational Resilence programme. We had 5 wonderful speakers and guests over the two days, so in many ways I wasn’t ‘on’ all the time, but I was ‘on’ all the time non the less, picking up on the vibes, the ideas, the threads so that when I am facilitating I can use those. I’ve spent a lot of time asking people to reflect, recognise change, notice. And so I’m feeling both knackered and pretty reflective myself.
I think the two days went really well. As well as I could have imagined really. The guests and participants were great (thanks to Joe, Flora, Iona, Josie, Jess and Jo). People came to challenge and learn in equal measure. We had a whole range of themes starting with Joe (population trends, charitable giving, the cult of personality) - Flora introduced triangles of care and kaleidoscopes of change, Iona talked through good endings, Josie and Jess got into community organising and power, and then Jo (who is also on the programme) talked through the positive risk taking, as they create homes (not housing - important distinction, language matters) for women. There were wonderful serendipitous moments like Jo having been inspired by the work of Josie at https://eastmarshunited.org/ previously (we only learned that during the day).
We had given speakers the context of the programme, and a just enough structure, but otherwise, sort of free reign. We didn’t try to hold their sessions and insights too tightly, or fix them into what the programme is all about, which could feel risky. But one of the people on the programme said to me “I don’t know if you meant this to happen, but these two days have just sparked all the ideas and learning from the start of the programme, but made them feel more real and I can see them now”. Dear reader, yes, that was indeed the plan.
Of course, it wasn’t perfect. But maybe the imperfections are what really made it. I wrote a piece this week called The Case for Loose Ends where I argued that we as facilitators need to be comfortable with not wrapping everything up in neat little bows, and that actually intentionally designing opportunity to sit with open questions and unresolved ideas, is actually where real learning can happen. Yes, I was thinking in part about this residential. Yes we did some of that. Yes I think it worked. But a lot of thought, trust building and bravery goes into this. And it doesn’t work in every situation. That’s what I mean by just enough structure. Do what is needed, rip it up if you need to, get tighter if that is what is required. Don’t be a slave to a plan as reality is often much different.
I’ve been doubting myself a lot recently. The last two days have given me a boost when I needed it.
What else did I do
On monday (was that really only 5 days ago???!) I showed SOS the portal I’m building for them and the RACE report. It was good to show where we’re at with it, pose some questions, and get some feedback. Aiming to get this test ready for next week.
Tuesday I met with Doug up in newcastle where we did a bit of TechFreedom planning. Good to meet in person, work some things out. I’ve got some actions this time. We’ve got our first paying sign ups. We need more obviously!
On the way back from meeting doug I stopped in for a Guinness (it was the 17th) and got a pastry from Pink Lane. As I got on the train home I got a message from Jo asking if I’d got the present she sent me. Present, what present? Ladies and gentlemen it was a voucher for use in Pink Lane Bakery, and had gone into my spam. So I didn’t get to use it this time, but I will for sure next! Thank you Jo. A clear indication that she pays attention to my pastry inspired posts, and that I can and will be bribed by pastry related treats.
Spent some time on the Digital Inclusion mapping project with Tech For Good South West. Mainly adding in api lookups using https://findthatcharity.uk/ (thanks David) and Companies House api, along with postcodes.io , to help speed up and improve some of the data entry. I also spent some time exploring Airtables block skd for building advanced data visualisation and mapping. It’s more difficult than it needs to be, but it’s an improvement on when previously this was impossible. It might now just be improbable!
And that was the week.
Running notes
Despite a full on week I managed to make the most of the good weather on Saturday to hit the lakes. I dip a lap of Ullswater (the ullswater way) - it’s a lovely route 20 miles, bumpy, but with some really nice runable sections, and some wonderful views. Having done the route a few times it’s also a good fitness tester for me. I am not fit. But that’s ok. The only way to get fitter is to get running. I finished by jumping into the lake which served as my March dip, and also as a reminder of thermal inertia - just because it’s a lovely hot day in march, the lake will still be absolutely brass when you jump in.
Views from the lap of Ullswater. Glorious spring day.
Letting go of ideas
I’ve been exploring a whole range of ideas the last few months, building various things. Some are more well developed than others. Flowlance is out there getting tested and a small number of paying customers!, Llmstxt.social is being used a little bit, Open Recommendations continues to be used, I’ve even been testing my forms platform as part of the Sign Up process for TechFreedom and Flowlance.
But I think it’s also important to recognise when to let go of ideas or products. One I’ve decided to let go was an AI assisted Theory of Change builder. I wanted to test whether a conversation approach to creating a Theory of Change would work, and so I built a tool which allows users to be guided through by an LLM chat, and put in websites, docs, voice notes, and text during a directed conversation, and the AI would pick out the parts of a TOC and then ask follow up questions if there are gaps. At the end the user gets a TOC and some suggestions for ways to capture outputs and outcomes. At one point I wondered if people would pay for this. But I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a tool I need to let go of. So I put the prototype live for people to try out. If you do find it useful, do let me know. I may do an under the hood blog at some point, as the process I think is a useful one.
Links This Week
- What 81,000 people want from AI - many thoughts, none at the moment
- Writing for the Machines | Weeknotes #430 - thejaymo.net
- Welcome to the Era of Relational Intelligence (SSIR)
- Introducing Hubble: A Public Mirror for the Whole Atmosphere - AT Protocol - Bluesky is providing a grant to the creator of Microcosm to build a full mirror of public data on the Atmosphere to help make the network more resilient.
- Learning and (Un)Learning in the Social Innovation Space — Action Lab in Edmonton, Alberta - Sharing some of the (un)learning we've done in the social innovation space over the years
- Irish Potatoes - A Patchwork Province
- The Green Book - UK government guidance on appraisal.
- The “solution-first” survival playbook from GovCamp 2026 — Public Digitalpublic digitalpublic digital
- Home - The Reproducible Research Repository is a one-stop shop for reproducibility packages associated with World Bank research. The catalogued packages provide the analytical scripts, documentation, and, where possible, the data needed to reproduce the results in the associated paper.
- Research highlights from the Open Data Institute
- The Meshwork of Relational Infrastructure
- Your Climate
- Compacting... - “You can only feel it.” - always read Ben