Weeknotes #292–293 — Open office

Imagine opening a new office in New York City

A double-helping of weeknotes. I spent the last two weeks in New York City, working with our team to open our new office in Midtown Manhattan. This was the culmination of years of work that started with the search for new premises as we approached the end of our previous lease. On my first day in New York, I had a one-day handover with another colleague from London who had been leading our team on the technical fit-out, working on the physical and logical setup of the equipment. They had made massive progress, with the office at that point already meeting the minimum standard that we required to allow our colleagues to come in and work.

Last-minute prep to make the office as good as it could be

It was wonderful to see our planning and preparation pay off in such a big way. On 1 October, our New York team walked through the door for the first time, found their desks and set themselves up for work. It was seamless. We’ve moved from an office that we shared with another company that had inadequate space and technology, to one that gives our staff a wide variety of types of places to work depending on what they are doing and who they happen to be working with. The day had a ribbon-cutting, breakfast and drinks, a team lunch and an evening cocktail reception.

There are still many things on the snagging list, but all of the major items were dealt with. It feels great to get one of this year’s big projects over the finish line. My focus will now turn back to another of our offices that is undergoing major renovation. By mid-November this project should be largely complete as well. I have my fingers crossed that it will be just as smooth.

This was a week in which I:

Started to feel ill before I left for my flight to the US. I had been boasting about how many people I had hugged and kissed at my parents’ 50th anniversary without catching anything, but spoke too soon. A scratchy throat developed into a full-on head cold, which required tissues, Tylenol1 and lozenges. I tried to ignore it, going for a run in Central Park on Monday morning, but it made the first few days exhausting.

Stayed at the CitizenM hotel just off of Times Square. The UN General Assembly meeting in the first week meant that hotel rooms were hard to come by and expensive, which meant that I was relegated to staying much further from the office than usual. One of the photos on their website shows the hotel being right next door to the ‘Bare Essentials gentlemans club and lounge’ and the ‘Mixed Emotions adult video store’, remnants of the Times Square of decades ago and both of which were thankfully closed. The hotel turned out to be fine, with very small but clean rooms. Upon arrival I found out that there were no ironing boards in the rooms, but I was “welcome to use Ironing Heaven on the second floor.” I found that Ironing Heaven seemed to be overplaying its hand a bit when it turned out to be a small room with a single ironing board. The rooftop bar was lovely, with great illuminated views over New York.

Spent Sunday working in the office, getting a bunch of things off of my plate in the knowledge that the following week would be difficult to get any focused work done with so many staff and visitors in the office for the opening.

Tried out all of the meeting rooms in anticipation of them being used by our staff on day one. The team have done brilliantly in designing and equipping a wonderful variety of spaces for staff to use.

Met with the building contractor and landlord’s project manager to go through our snagging list. As the week went on we refined the list down to a more manageable set of critical things in order to increase our chances of getting them done before we opened.

Prepped for and ran the programme Steering Committee meeting.

Drafted a narrative for the New York CEO to use as input into his opening speech. I discovered that 2024 marks the start of our fourth decade in the city, and our fourth address, after the return of our company to the US post-apartheid in 1994.

Created a communication for our staff to help them get started with using the features of the new office, such as our Microsoft Teams Rooms.

Interviewed another candidate for the Digital Solutions Developer role in my team.

Met with my executive partner at our industry analyst firm for a reflective conversation about my career and where I want to go.

Discussed our plans and approach for getting a Microsoft Copilot working group up and running. We now have a small number of licences that we will deploy with the most enthusiastic members of staff that are ‘pulling’ on us to get started.

Had the regular programme and project meetings.

Watched half of the vice presidential debate from the Work Café at our new office. I called it a day and headed back to my hotel halfway through, catching up in the morning with what the media thought Alex Andreou on the Quiet Riot podcast.

Attended the book launch for The Tech Coup by Marietje Schaake, hosted by Esther Dyson with Alondra Nelson. Chatting with Esther Dyson at the post-panel drinks, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look at me with such incredulity as when I casually asked her where Princeton is. (I’d heard of it, but being from the UK I had no idea.) From her dad’s Wikipedia entry:

In December 1952, Oppenheimer, the director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, offered Dyson a lifetime appointment at the institute, “for proving me wrong”, in Oppenheimer’s words. Dyson remained at the Institute until the end of his career.

Social media advert and photo of the panel event for the launch of The Tech Coup by Marietje Schaake

Ate a couple of times at PS Kitchen, a good vegan restaurant a couple of blocks away from my hotel that gives all of its profits to charity. Their winter walnut soup was just the thing I needed when I was feeling under the weather. When I returned for the second evening I found a GIGANTIC fearless rat roaming around the tables outside, so I quickly opted for indoor dining.

Linguini Alfredo with crispy ‘chicken’ at PS Kitchen

Out for dinner one evening, got randomly chatting to the mum of Brighid Fry from the band Housewife who is currently touring the UK.

Ate at some lovely restaurants including Spicy Moon (delicious vegan Szechuan), Benoit (upscale French for a pre-go-live team dinner), Cafe Luce (lovely pasta in a cosy Italian), Salinas (delicious Spanish tapas), Simò (pizza for one), Bill’s Bar and Burger, Naya (falafel salad), Toasties (eggplant Parmesan sandwiches with wonderful marinara sauce) and the Carnegie Diner (Sunday morning waffles made with organic eggs, with fruit and granola). I didn’t starve.

Waffles with fruit and granola from Carnegie Diner

Enjoyed lots of morning runs around Central Park, sometimes just as far as a loop around Stephanie and Fred Shuman Running Track at the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir and other times covering a full loop of the road track. I had two good runs with my friend and colleague Paul who has offered me his place at the Royal Parks Half Marathon next week as he can no longer make it. I’ve only ever run one half marathon distance before, but I’m hoping it should be achievable.

Two sweaty runners on two different mornings

Signed up to the London-Wales-London Audax ride scheduled for the start of May next year. It will be by far the longest ride I’ve ever done in one stint. We start at 6am and have 27 hours to complete the route.

Enjoyed a lovely stroll around Central Park with a colleague. You would think that running the whole length of the park would give you a sense of scale, but it was actually wandering around the insides of the park and stumbling across its various delights that makes you realise how big it is.

Had a fabulous night out at Union Pool in Brooklyn to see Katie Von Schleicher. It was brilliant to finally get to see her play some of her own songs after having previously seen her as part of Julie Byrne’s band in London last year. As we had a drink in the bar, we heard music drifting in and thought that the gig had started; we stumbled into the back room and watched her and her band run through their sound check, only realising our mistake when we went to order a drink and were told that they weren’t open yet. The next two artists, Sima Cunningham and Adeline Hotel, were both launching their new albums that evening, the latter of which was produced by Katie Von Schleicher. Sima Cunningham’s drummer Dan Knishkowy morphed into the lead singer of Adeline Hotel. The net result was that the whole event gave the impression of a big musical love-in. The venue was brilliant. After the gig finished it filled up with very cool young Brooklyn hipsters, leaving me feeling a little old and out of place.

Katie Von Schleicher at Union Pool, 27 September 2024

Sima Cunningham at Union Pool, 27 September 2024

Adeline Hotel at Union Pool, 27 September 2024

Tried Sweetarts and Lemonheads again, both of which made my tongue sore.

Managed to catch the Formula One race on my flight over, paying £18.99 for streaming from the moment I sat in my seat. It wasn’t perfect — I had to restart the stream a bunch of times — but it blows my mind that I can do this as I cross the Atlantic.

F1 Singapore Grand Prix streamed on-board a transatlantic flight

Media

Podcasts

Love the concept of “employer engagement” mentioned on the WB-40 podcast. Perhaps we should measure that alongside employee engagement.

Articles

I still keep coming back to, and sharing, Molly White’s blog post on Generative AI. The technology has uses, but is it worth it?

Video

Went to the cinema to see the theatrical release of McCartney’s One Hand Clapping. Although we could only get seats right at the front of the theatre, it was a total joy from start to finish.

Watched the Netflix series on wrestling promoter Vince McMahon, which started life before the sexual assault and sex trafficking allegations. The series gives an interesting history of the development of professional wrestling and ‘sports entertainment’ in the US. My brothers and I used to watch WWF wrestling on TV when we were kids; it turns out that this ‘Golden Era’ ended soon after we drifted away from it. I found the footage from the ‘Attitude’ and ‘Ruthless Aggression’ eras to be genuinely shocking, with ridiculous and highly offensive storylines. McMahon may be an excellent businessman but he seems like a dreadful person.

Caught up with the latest couple of episodes of Slow Horses on AppleTV+. It was weird to see the last scene of episode 5 as it appears to have been filmed right outside my office.

Re-watched Rocky V (1990) for the first time since I saw it in the cinema when it was originally released. It’s genuinely terrible.

Audio

Katie von Schleicher’s Tiny Desk Concert is an absolute delight.

Web

I love that there is a Japanese word for something we’ve talked about at work for years: Nemawashi.

Nemawashi (根回し) is a Japanese business informal process of laying the foundation for some proposed change or project by talking to the people concerned and gathering support and feedback before a formal announcement.

Books

Finished reading Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma by Claire Dederer. A superbly readable book on a fascinating topic.

Picked up Taming Silicon Valley: How to Protect Our Jobs, Safety, and Society in the Age of AI by Gary Marcus. I’ve been reading his blog posts for a while. I’m giving another talk to a Board of Directors on the topic of AI in a week’s time so I figured this would be a useful update that will help me to hone my thinking.

Next week: Getting over jet lag and getting re-focused on the final big project of the year.

I spent some time in a pharmacy looking for paracetamol. When I asked an employee for help, she said “I don’t think we have that brand”. I later learned that what we call paracetamol, the Americans know as acetaminophen.