Weeknotes S2, Eps1, Restoring Trust…?
Phew…..
Phew…..
Ok, I appreciate its not exactly an early January weeknotes start but its definitely been so full on I’ve just had to capture it in my head and phone, post its, notebook etc. before getting a spare hour (on train down to London for the ARCADIS ‘Liveable Places’ launch) draft my ramblings into something more cogent…
So ‘Series 2’ sees a slight change in format, with “other stuff” (books, audio, events, pods, music etc.) that’s influencing my thoughts taking headline (short form) and then trying to be a little more succinct in the length of everything — this may help me keep a little more on top of regular content in 2020.
Gonna go from last week (w/c 13th) and try and cover this off in two sets of weeknotes, although its been so jam packed it might be difficult!!!!
“Other Stuff……”
Big one for me was the new(ish) Edward Snowden book ‘Permanent Record’ (in audio format) which engrossed my journeys to and from work etc, runs, gym… over the last week or two. For anyone not familiar — he’s the US former CIA/NSA systems analyst who leaked/whistle blew on the NSA/CIA surveillance post 9/11.
Whatever you think of him (personally — a bit narcissistic but definitely more hero than villain) the revelations he broke on how essentially the US and other governments intelligence communities were intercepting and collecting pretty much all our deeply personal data (FB, cloud storage, email, social media, phone, photos, browsing history) without consent and storing it for perpetuity, is one of the most disturbing and unprecedented acts of authoritarianism committed in modern times.
I urge you to have a listen as it is truly compelling and terrifying albeit probably contributed directly to GDPR and my subsequent despair around how to not be in breach of this in everyday localgov life… 😊
One….
Massive day for us as a team on the 13th January as our ‘First Conversation’ on the emerging Greater Cambridge Local Plan commenced with fanfare.
Local Plans are one of the most fundamental tools we have that will form and shape communities, place and economic and social activity/success/failure through land-use and policy in the short, medium and long term. Unfortunately no one really knows what a Local Plan is, and there is significant, deep rooted and often well justified distrust from citizens in the planning process and development in general. It is our job in 21st century local government to begin working hard a winning this trust back through better communication, simplification of impacts and involvement and participation from a much wider range of our community demographics. This is vital in ensuring we can build better futures for people, place, and planet and begin to build greater trust in a legitimate local democracy.
We have tried hard to make this fist statutory process improved in this respect and would definitely appreciate some collective hive mind feedback (one of the brighter sides of the emerging surveillance capitalism digital economy) on our approach. We have majored on aiming 90% of our (limited) resources in trying to engage with the 10% of those most difficult to reach, but for which this plan could have the most profound impact upon.
You can check it out here
Two….
On Thursday the day started with seeing Jane Green our head of built and natural environment onto our in house ILM level 5 course. It’s really great to start the new year with getting training and development going…. Jane is a key member of my management team and a super awesome person, so wishing her luck with the course and all the support she needs… (as usual I was late an missed the full managers introduction….. argh..!)
After I attended a great meet up with David Rees at PA Consulting in their Melbourne offices. They are one of our key South Cambs businesses and I was blown away to see the vast number of (metaphorical) pies they have fingers in; from advanced manufacturing to consulting, health care delivery, tech and life science… of particular interest personally (geeky) was a portable air quality sensor that harvests energy from 3G/4G/5G network and require no charging… clever! 21st century challenges require a real collaborative cross sector approach and building of relationships with experienced organisations that have transferable knowledge to help overcome some of our collective hurdles will be of huge value going forward.
Three…
Broadly the best day of the week work wise as it was our regular senior management team away day. I cannot stress the importance of these in our journey in the shared service, and how these have evolved into an incredibly productive but informal way of us driving the direction of the service and ensuring we build trust in each other, whilst having a safe place for ‘grown up’ conversations, debate and collective resolution.
This time Heather and Steven were tasked with the ice breaker and fun morning session with the ‘build something from wine gums and tooth picks in 2 teams (2 rooms) only guided by Stephen (with the P)and us being able to ask yes and no questions. What is really interesting is the really different approaches we take to tasks with some doing meticulous planning and others just jumping straight in an iterating.. this is always helpful to acknowledge when working with your teams so you can learn how to approach real life tasks and maximise individual approaches and skills/mind sets.
The main half of the day was business planning and direction and this absolutely got us fired up for being collaborative and challenging and helped the team dynamic in getting real actions and outcomes form the day.
Great start to the year but I sense some busy weeks ahead.
Happy Friday :-)