{"id":10430,"date":"2023-09-24T21:59:53","date_gmt":"2023-09-24T21:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/?p=10430"},"modified":"2023-09-24T21:59:58","modified_gmt":"2023-09-24T21:59:58","slug":"weeknotes-239-immersion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2023\/09\/24\/weeknotes-239-immersion\/","title":{"rendered":"Weeknotes #239 \u2014 Immersion"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Hello

Hello Johannesburg!<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n

Spent the entire week in South Africa with colleagues from our Technology and Digital teams to take part in an inaugural \u2018Digital Immersion\u2019. Organised in conjunction with The Field Institute<\/a>, we spent time with a variety of companies in Johannesburg and Cape Town.<\/p>\n

In Johannesburg we met Motus<\/a>, Teraflow.ai<\/a>, the Innovation Leadership Group<\/a>, Covalense Global<\/a>, SuperUltra<\/a> and ThoughtLab<\/a>. Cape Town was our base for meeting with Shoprite Holdings<\/a>, Predictive Insights<\/a>, Thought Machine<\/a> and UVU Africa<\/a>. As they say in South Africa, it was a \u2018hectic\u2019 week, with early starts, coach journeys to the venues, intense sessions, working lunches and little personal time in the evenings. By the time I got on board the plane to head home on Friday night I was ready to drop.<\/p>\n

\"Shoprite

Shoprite Technology<\/p><\/div>\n

Although I\u2019d been to South Africa many times over the years, I had never ventured beyond the few square miles around the airport and our offices in Johannesburg, so I was excited to head down to Cape Town. It\u2019s a two hour flight further south, which means cooler temperatures. The cloudy and drizzly weather, along with the buildings along the sea front, reminded me of an English seaside town. The famous Table Mountain<\/a> didn\u2019t reveal itself to me until the last day because of the low-lying clouds.<\/p>\n

\"Cloudy

Cloudy Cape Town<\/p><\/div>\n

People told me that from a cultural perspective, Cape Town it is akin to San Francisco; I saw a little bit of this through the weird and wonderful people at a local karaoke bar<\/a> near to our hotel. I couldn\u2019t resist getting up and trying my hand at Build Me Up Buttercup<\/a><\/em>, but only after checking whether everyone else there would be likely to know it.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

\"Fun

Fun in Cape Town<\/p><\/div>\n

On Wednesday I started feeling unwell and ended up not eating much at all for a couple of days. This made an already intense week that little bit more difficult, but by Thursday evening I had started to recover.<\/p>\n

Aside from the companies and people that we met, there was so much value in being there in person with colleagues from across our division of our company. Old friendships were deepened, new ones were formed, and we made each other think, smile and laugh in equal measure.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s going to take some time to process my thoughts \u2014 and my notes \u2014 from the trip.<\/p>\n

\"Goodbye

Goodbye Cape Town!<\/p><\/div>\n

Next week:<\/strong> Normal schedule resumes, including an online Album Club and two (two!) gigs to attend.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
    \n
  1. \nWikipedia told me that it had been a number three hit in South African 1968, so I figured I was on safe-ish ground. ↩<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

    Spent the entire week in South Africa with colleagues from our Technology and Digital teams to take part in an inaugural \u2018Digital Immersion\u2019. Organised in conjunction with The Field Institute, we spent time with a variety of companies in Johannesburg and Cape Town. In Johannesburg we met Motus, Teraflow.ai, the Innovation Leadership Group, Covalense Global, […]<\/div>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10430","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-weeknotes","7":"h-entry","9":"hentry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9270,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2022\/08\/08\/weeknotes-180-reconnecting\/","url_meta":{"origin":10430,"position":0},"title":"Weeknotes #180 \u2014 Reconnecting","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"8 August 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"I spent most of this week in Johannesburg. The main purpose of my trip was to attend a three-day workshop with the aim of rebooting the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) within our company. A few years ago it was the shiny new thing, but for a number of reasons it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Weeknotes"","block_context":{"text":"Weeknotes","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/weeknotes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Different location, same story","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/DraggedImage-3-scaled.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/DraggedImage-3-scaled.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/DraggedImage-3-scaled.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/DraggedImage-3-scaled.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/DraggedImage-3-scaled.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/DraggedImage-3-scaled.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4226,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2018\/06\/16\/weeknote-22-johannesburg\/","url_meta":{"origin":10430,"position":1},"title":"Weeknote #22 \u2014 Johannesburg","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"16 June 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"A week away on business always goes by in a flash and this was no exception. I\u2019m writing this from the plane home, sitting here on the tarmac at Johannesburg airport and not quite believing that the week is behind us already. And what a week; we finally kicked off\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Weeknotes"","block_context":{"text":"Weeknotes","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/weeknotes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AA91C589-85C7-42A2-A0DF-D4DFC7DD2FDE.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AA91C589-85C7-42A2-A0DF-D4DFC7DD2FDE.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AA91C589-85C7-42A2-A0DF-D4DFC7DD2FDE.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AA91C589-85C7-42A2-A0DF-D4DFC7DD2FDE.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AA91C589-85C7-42A2-A0DF-D4DFC7DD2FDE.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AA91C589-85C7-42A2-A0DF-D4DFC7DD2FDE.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":11776,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2025\/03\/25\/weeknotes-317-johannesburg\/","url_meta":{"origin":10430,"position":2},"title":"Weeknotes #317 \u2014 Johannesburg","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"25 March 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Beautiful morning in Delta Park, Randburg, Johannesburg On Saturday evening I flew to Johannesburg. I hadn\u2019t spent any time in person with our team there in over two years, so a visit was long overdue. Everything was familiar, but so much had changed. I said hello to new team members\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Weeknotes"","block_context":{"text":"Weeknotes","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/weeknotes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"A meadow filled with tall grass and flowers, lined with trees around the perimeter. The sky is a gorgeous blue with broken cloud covering most of it. 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When last week\u2019s Sun City-based conference was announced, I decided to extend my stay in South Africa so that I could spend some time with our team members who are based there. It wasn\u2019t\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Weeknotes"","block_context":{"text":"Weeknotes","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/weeknotes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Animation of the intrusive adverts on the South African FIFA World Cup television coverage.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260622_150949.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260622_150949.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260622_150949.gif?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260622_150949.gif?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10510,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2023\/10\/30\/weeknotes-244-bristol\/","url_meta":{"origin":10430,"position":4},"title":"Weeknotes #244 \u2014 Bristol","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"30 October 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Four days in Berlin knocked me out. Prior to the trip, I\u2019d already decided to take off an extra couple of days after I got back, as the rest of the family would be off work and school for half term. I\u2019m so glad I did. Tuesday was spent pottering\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Weeknotes"","block_context":{"text":"Weeknotes","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/weeknotes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Granary, Bristol","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Image-30-10-2023-07-18-scaled.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Image-30-10-2023-07-18-scaled.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Image-30-10-2023-07-18-scaled.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Image-30-10-2023-07-18-scaled.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Image-30-10-2023-07-18-scaled.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Image-30-10-2023-07-18-scaled.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9867,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2023\/01\/29\/weeknotes-205-summer-strategy\/","url_meta":{"origin":10430,"position":5},"title":"Weeknotes #205 \u2014 Summer strategy","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"29 January 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"The last time I was in South Africa was in August, the middle of winter. 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