Monthnote: October 2024
After most of September on the road for work, October was almost a complete contrast.
I unfortunately caught what I now think was the flu and spent two to three weeks either sick or not quite at 100%. I’m pleased to be back to full health moving into November and have booked my flu jab – something I should have done in September before all that travel.
Work was mostly internally focused this month as we managed some organisational changes with as much care as possible. This comes on the back of working through other longer term organisation changes to build our future Digital Transformation business at TPXimpact.
It’s my responsibility to make sure that our capabilities and the shape and size of our design teams are right to meet the future needs of our clients and work. As shared in September company announcements, we’ve also needed to recognise challenges of the current market environment and respond appropriately to this. It’s been a difficult time for our people but I’m confident that we will continue to deliver positive impact for our clients with the supportive environment our teams need.
In the past few weeks we’ve said goodbye to a number of colleagues who are leaving TPXimpact and I wanted especially to say thanks to some of our longer serving members of the team. These people have all been an important part of our work and growth as a design practice. They are Joe Bramall, Martin Wright, Nina Wafula, Loren Hansi Gordon and Julie Thiery. It’s been positive to see people becoming excited for their future plans and I wish them and our other leavers the very best with their next steps.
With managing my energy levels, I avoided travelling to London in October but it was nice to spend a couple of days in our Manchester hub. I also appreciated Jen Byrne (our Managing Director) making the trip to spend some in person time catching up and working together outside London.
I attended one external event (again in Manchester), which was the Digital Leaders 100 Awards, hosted at IWM North as part of Digital Leaders Week. Congratulations to all the winners and it was lovely to chat with people at the event. It also gave me chance to spend time with my colleagues Ciara MacCooey, Oliver Cook and Emma Cheshire. Emma did the honours of presenting one of the awards on behalf of TPXimpact.
In November I’m back on the road again including a trip to Edinburgh, and I’ve got time planned in our London hub.
School half term, some walking, and no escape from AI
I ended the month with a few days off over the school half term holiday. Mostly spent with my 6-year old son, Zac.
We spent a day at Whinlatter making the most of the autumn sunshine and with Zac completing his first Wainwright – 104 of 214 on my list – with a bonus Grufullo forest trail on the way back down.
The weather didn’t hold for much of the week, but we did manage a morning at the Threlkeld Quarry and Mining Museum which has a working steam railway. It’s well worth a visit if you’re in the Lakes and there was some great signage on the old mining machinery we explored.
Another morning, we headed to Wray Castle, which is also well worth a visit and has the excellent Joeys Cafe (good coffee and plant based food).
No half term would be complete without a cinema trip and we went to see The Wild Robot. It was fine but I had to warn people that it contains mild AI references and themes – there’s just no getting away from AI at the moment.
Hearing updates
I’ve not included a hearing update in any of my monthly, or yearly updates for a while.
I’m open about living with the challenges of hearing loss and about 2 years ago I was given a diagnosis of something called Meniere’s Disease. It’s more complicated than hearing loss, the problems I have with my left ear include fullness and muffled or temporary loss of hearing – something that’s triggered by noise exposure and that can also give me vertigo and affect my balance.
In the following 2 years I have carried on while trying new medication, but with the impression that this was something I would just have to live with. It’s not great, but I manage my work and make my own adjustments despite days where I have a lot of discomfort. It’s also partly why I’ve found walking so important to get moments of quiet and reset away from noisy family and work situations.
This month, I had a follow up meeting with the same senior consultant who gave me my Meniere’s Disease diagnosis. Yes, it’s taken 2 years to see the same consultant, but I’ll leave any commentary on current NHS demand and backlogs for now.
I went into this meeting with incredibly low expectations but came out with something unexpected – hope. I’m having more tests and scans, but there is a chance that this could get better with the right treatment, possibly involving surgery next year.
I’m thinking a lot about the NHS at the moment. I’m a power user if you include all my family and extended family interactions with the system in recent months. This was a reminder that giving people hope is such an important part of our health and care systems. The hope that things could get better or improve.
So thank you NHS for lifting my spirits. I was reminded of this quote from a book I read last year:
“We cannot live without hope. Hope inspires. It is the reason we persevere and press on. Sometimes, when things are desperate, we need to put ourselves in the way of hope.”
Raynor Winn, Landlines
Keep going, or something like that.
What I’ve been reading
While I was unwell I did a bit more reading this month. I’ve also started listening to audiobooks again, partly because of a new family Spotify premium account that I’ve set up for our teenagers.
Focused more on work, I listened to Tony Blair on Leadership. I’ve recommended this to a few people in conversations. It does go on a very strange tangent around AI and technology (which you might expect given the recent positioning and work of the Tony Blair Institute). But there is a lot of valuable insight here from arguably the most successful Prime Minister of my lifetime. For context, I was born the day Margaret Thatcher was elected in 1979.
I finished reading Some of Us just Fall by Polly Atkinson, and also read two other books with themes of the outdoors and time spent in the Lakes – The Lost Paths: A History of How We Walk From Here To There by Jack Cornish, and All Before Me: A Search for Belonging in Wordsworth’s Lake District by Esther Rutter.
Esther Rutter’s book is the story of rebuilding her life when she came to live and work in the Lake District at Dove Cottage, the home of William and Dorothy Wordsworth. I visited Dove Cottage at Wordsworth Grasmere for the first time in August this year. The book also tells the tale of William and Dorothy which is a part of local history I’m interested in learning more about – I’ve got Radical Wordworth: The Poet Who Changed the World by Jonathan Bate on my future reading list.
Elsewhere
I’m still regularly using Bluesky for sharing thoughts and ideas. This month there have been a lot of articles about AI which I’ve found interesting and I’ve been capturing a few short stories from my own recent digital experiences.
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.