Weekly 2023.11

Um, this is the 11th weekly of 2023. It is Friday, the 24 March, and this is my reflection of the past week of what's been going on in my world. So, admin the good old first piece. No major changes this week. It's been a bit of a mixed bag of weeks, to be honest with you. We had surgery planned in the family on Tuesday, which was unfortunately phoned due to unexpected high temperatures and the pre op checks. So that's been delayed by nearly a month, unfortunately. But that also skewed my plans because obviously I didn't plan to do much this week. And then, yeah, I actually got a bit of time back. Not for the right reason. Anyway. The main change that might notice is the new thing used, the alternative audio on the Segways, which I got feedback from Adrian and a few other people on how jarring they sound. So I've used the music that I have in the intro and outro, and hopefully that's a bit more relevant. But, again, always loving the feedback. So send it my way. Work. So, again, as I say, I was planning to be out for most this week. Unfortunately, those plans changed, but actually give me a bit more capacity to do some stuff I wouldn't normally do. I'd arrange all my meetings around that. So I head into the Birmingham office yesterday for a bit of collaboration time with some other engineering managers, had some great conversations, and it actually made me realize I do enjoy those water cooler moments, those serendipitous conversations. And ideas that flow from those conversations can't go to any details, but it was those random comments that were made. You think, oh, this could help that thing or that project or that initiative or this general area that I want to work on. And it was just great to have proper conversations that were impromptu and unplanned. These were the ones that I miss having when I used to be in the office all the time. And something I feel like we're missing as part of this remote culture. How do we enable those watercolor moments and have those conversations that are completely unplanned and ideally, the great ideas that come out of them? We try to create those platforms and environments digitally, but I don't think it's quite the same. So I'm really curious to know how other people across tech and other industries actually channel those moments and identify platforms where people can have those conversations and get the great ideas coming out of nowhere. And the other thing that I really want to kind of reflect on this week is how I organized all the media reviews around two days, because I plan to be only be working for two days this week and to get them all in this week, it was intense. So, Monday and Friday today, I had five or six media reviews. These are good 45 minutes, hour long conversations, really high quality open questions. Reflections, good opportunity to try some coaching questions, if I'm honest as well. Very active listening because I really want to make sure I'm getting value out of these sessions. And at the end of every single one, I even said, is that useful for you? How would you break it? But I am drained. I'm physically drained. And I feel like if I'd have planned this better, I'd have spread them out or maybe allow a bit of flex because I was back into work mode for two days and not really planned to. I probably could have moved some things around. But this is the individual's time, it's not my time. I'm there to support them and enable them. But again, I just want to make going back to back 5 hours intense calls, talking like this digitally and trying to get more actions out of them for the rest of the year. It was very demanding, but very valuable and rewarding. Actually. I've got a huge sense of achievement this evening on how much I've achieved in those two days. And again, I like to just call it out. How do you plan those intense conversations? How do you make sure that you're giving your engineers and people the right amount of time and getting value out of all those times as well? Side projects. Bit of a quieter one this week. It's the in between week with the Met Bluff work releases. And actually I've delegated, let's say one of those responsibilities randomly. Had a moment of inspiration in the week and I reached out to my good old chum, Adrian Lunstown. Shout out to you, fella. Would he like to help editing some of the episodes? And he jumped at the chance. I was like, this is cool. This might help me to focus on the content creation a bit more and trust him to edit it if he's that way inclined. And so I've given him the next episode to have a player with. Can't wait to hear what he comes out with. And hopefully it will be going live on Tuesday next week. Keep your ears open for that one. And it just gives me a chance to focus on the guests, the content, the structure, and not stress about the edit so much. And knowing that I can rely on someone like Adrian to do that for us is such a relief. Actually, it's one of the areas which I do enjoy. I'm not against it, but I do struggle to fit in around everything else. I do with all the other stuff. Again, like house finesse. I share that responsibility with everyone. Now we've got a community of five DJs in there that are up to doing this stuff and just creating that group around any side projects has been such moment of inspiration, actually, to know that I can go to Adrian and go, what do you reckon? How should we do this one? And even some of the upcoming episodes. I can get some really good thoughts from him on that, actually. He can help me produce those in a good way. This is all news to Adrian, by the way. I've not spoke to him directly about this apart from through our little chat. So are you watching this, mate? Thanks, mom. Tech okay, so this week, as I say, we were meant to be in my wife was meant to be in surgery, but one thing she's really against is wireless headphones. She's not a fan, so AirPods a question. Big headphones at a question. She likes the old AirPods with a cable, but iPhone yay. When you plug in your earphones, you got no easy way to charge your phone. So I bought her a Qi charger to take with her. That way she could actually plug in her audio, listen to something while she was in hospital or sat around or lying around or however she was ready to listen to that stuff. But she could even still charge the device. So I was like, we need to get you a Qi charger. This is one of the design flaws in iPhone that relies on the alternative charging methods most people I know plug in. I'm one of the wireless guys. I've got wireless charging points around the house, next to my bed and at my office on my desk here. But it was something I realized, yeah, if you want to make the most of that lightning port on your device, you can't charge. You need Qi to make that work. Again, I'm curious, who else has this challenge? Is it really a problem or is it something that you've adjusted to already? Again, love your thoughts on that. And finally, entertainment. Two things this week for Mr. Shabbat. We went to see Hallelujah in the cinema this week. It was not what I expected. I'm not going to put any spoilers out there. It was sold as like this kind of dark comedy. In a way. It's got a very serious undertone, but because of the actors in there, you feel like, oh, it's going to be quite funny. There's moments of comedy, not going to lie, but it was a lot darker and more serious than I expected. Not a great one to cheer us up, if I'm honest with you. Some nice moments, but very well done. Great story. Really well produced and directed. But just a warning that it's not as jolly as you might expect. So I'll give that one three stars. And the other thing I started watching this week is a show called The Peripheral on Amazon Prime. This is like a drama from about two years ago, three years ago, maybe. Didn't check the dates, but it's quite interesting. Sci-fi like thriller sort of thing. So I'd recommend giving a go if you're your geeky inclined way like that. I really enjoyed it. There's some interesting concepts, like with gaming analogies, there's some young actors in there and it's set in the near future of using high tech augmented reality, VR sort of thing. But it got my attention straight away, purely from a geeky level. Some good acting in there, some quite interesting story plots and stuff like that, and the fact it split across the States and the UK was another win for me. It wasn't pure US, it's got some London references in there already. So I'm getting to that. Two or three episodes in now, really enjoying it. So again recommend it. I'm going for another three stars in that Bad Boy. So there we go. That's this week on reflection, all in quite a good week, very productive, very satisfying actually in some ways, quite challenging in many ways as well, and some pretty good entertainment to get back into today's. My takeaways for this week and hopefully there's some conversation started in there, hopefully some thought provoking moments for you following along with this and again always of your feedback. Get in contact. You got me on mastodon at Psy [email protected] you've got email [email protected] or you go to the website sidejoblin.com for all the other archives and details and show notes. Catch you next week.