The roundup. March 2018
A quick update this month so I keep to schedule.
Overall, more travel throughout the UK. I’ve mostly been travelling between London, Glasgow and Newcastle. With a couple of visits to Manchester in between.
I also went further afield than usual and flew to Milan for 24 hours, before dashing back for my daughter’s 8th birthday celebrations. I came all the way back from Italy just in time for her meal out of choice – Pizza Express (no irony intended).
Writing
I published a few short personal blog posts this month:
- Option 1: do nothing: Thinking about why this is a very popular policy or strategy.
- It depends: Why as a designer, I very rarely say ‘it depends’.
- Quality conversations over process: Thinking about design as a series of conversations.
I also published a blog post for FutureGov about how we’re building digital capability for our government partners.
Reading
I’ve been reading How Not to Be a Boy by Robert Webb. And have started reading Hired: Six Months Undercover in Low-Wage Britain by James Bloodworth – this has been a sobering read about Amazon’s warehouses and working practices so far.
Speaking
I spoke at the Service Jam in Liverpool organised by Joe, and the following week (as I already mentioned) I had the visit to Milan to support FG Italy, speaking at a public service design event there.
FutureGov
We hired Joe (fresh from leading the Service Jam in Liverpool) and Vim who both started this month. It’s great to have them both joining the design team.
We now have more designers joining the team in the next couple of months so it feels like things are really coming together.
More next month!
This is my blog where I’ve been writing for 20 years. You can follow all of my posts by subscribing to this RSS feed. You can also find me on Bluesky and LinkedIn.