Weeknotes #207 — Mechanicals

Euston station, Monday at 8am. There used to be an office block between this forecourt and the buildings in the background.

A really busy week that zipped by.

This was a week in which I:

• Found that I was unable to book time with all of our senior executives to take them through the presentation to frame and launch the password manager rollout. So I have bitten the bullet and booked individual meetings with each of them. This week I met with the first three and found that the material was well-received. I now have a date pencilled in to present to our entire office in a few weeks’ time; by then I should be very well-rehearsed.
• Spent time reviewing our roadmap framework and how we intend to link it to the strategy of the organisation.
• Decided to park the location broadcasting tool, following feedback from the pilot of the software. The tool would be very useful, but the potential downsides are too great for us to push forward with it.
• Met with a vendor that is in the process of launching a digital workplace experience study, with a view to trying out the product while it is in beta. It has appeared at just the right time for us, as I have been looking for a way to baseline where we are as well as find out what people really feel that they need to help them in the digital workplace.
• Gave another demo of our Microsoft Teams Room setup to a sister company, this time to their CIO. We have some shared meeting spaces that are due for a technology refresh; if we can make them work for both organisations it will be a big step forward. I posted a question on this to the empowering.cloud community and got a swift response from the founder. We have some testing to do.
• Enjoyed our weekly ‘learning hour’ on the topic of product engineering.
• Was given a demo of MURAL. There are a lot of products occupying a similar space and it is difficult to know which one to invest in. Friends have told me that Miro is probably the best out there, but is banned for use in some organisations due to its Russian origins. We’ve been tinkering with InVision Freehand which doesn’t come up in conversation as much as the others.
• Had the first of a new series of weekly meetings with colleagues in our People and Culture, and Marketing and Communications departments. We have a lot of work that we are doing together this year and I want to make sure we stay aligned.
• Attended the weekly project meeting for the closure of one of our regional offices.
• Joined the project call for our annual investors’ conference.
• Attended an update on our diversity and inclusion forum.
• Joined an online meeting with our company pension provider to learn more about their digital offering.
• Met with a colleague in the Compliance team for a ‘random coffee’.
• Joined the excellent monthly Teams Fireside Chat meeting.
• Attended a ‘digital showcase’ meeting about a platform that we are using for digital fund administration.
• Had a school meeting with our Interim Headteacher and Acting Headteacher.
• Reviewed the minutes from our recent governance committee meeting.
• Had our annual boiler service. Finally booked in an appointment to get our very dodgy water immersion heater socket repaired, along with another electrical fault that we’ve been living with for a while.
• Attended school with our youngest son for his GCSE options evening. It’s amazing that we’re at this stage already; it’s a cliche, but they really do grow up so fast. He seems to have a clear view about what he wants to do and it was only reinforced by getting previews from each of the subject leads.
• Enjoyed the weekly cycling club ride, although it seemed to be a day of mechanical failures up and down the field. One of the riders suffered a ride-ending puncture early on and another saw the rim of his rear wheel disintegrate, locking it in place. We hadn’t had any rain overnight but the roads were strangely wet and greasy.
• Ran the line at my eldest son’s football match. They won 2-1 with an amazing last-minute cross and header into the back of the net.
• Took delivery of my new passport, in Brexit blue.
• Started series nine of Grange Hill and now feel like I’ve caught up to the episodes I watched as a kid.
• Enjoyed getting a lot of attention from this guy, the most dog-like cat that there ever was.

Next week: Half term for the family, but another packed week at work.