Hello world.
It’s been 17 months since I last published a weeknote. Since then I’ve made the jump from local government to the private sector, but haven’t written about it. As it’s nearly 3 months since I made the change it felt like it was time to catch up.
It’s been harder to find my voice and start writing again about work since my move. It’s not because of any worries about repercussions, more the sensitivity of writing about work in a private company and its customers without betraying any confidences. Somehow it all seemed a lot more straightforward in local government, where the only barrier felt like getting the nerve up to do it.
So my solution is to focus on writing about me and how I adapt to this new role and life a new sector (lucky you). Not sure these will be ‘weeknotes’ as such, but occasional notes perhaps.
This change came out of the blue, really.
When I moved to Dorset to work for Dorset Council I figured that was that. I certainly had no ambitions to do anything else than work in the public sector. I’ve often referred to myself as a ‘lifer’ in local government, reflecting just how long I’ve been knocking around in various councils over my career (It’s been 38 years in total).
But then an opportunity presented itself, and it coincided with some thoughts that had been forming about moving away from just doing website management. Sometimes the stars just align and you need to take the red pill.
I had expected the change to feel monumental — to be something I would mourn, or be uncomfortable adjusting to. But actually it feels fine. Even quite natural. The first question localgov people ask me is “how are you adjusting”, but my honest answer is, “it was easy”.
I joined Placecube as a Product Owner in September 2022, and am stupidly excited about this change for lots of reasons.
Firstly, no one had ever asked me what I like doing at work before. Ever. Has anyone asked you that? Actually, it put me on the back foot for a while — what did I enjoy doing? It was quite cathartic. I was hooked.
It helps that I really believe in what the company is about; public sector focused, using an open source/low code platform, adopting a ‘re-use not re-invention’ approach and encouraging collaborative development. I also love their mantra of ‘do the right thing’.
Having worked alongside the Placecube team for nearly 18 months as part of Dorset Council’s platform deployment, and in particular its CMS migration, I already knew some of the team fairly well. Unfortunately this means they also knew me, but so far they’ve been very forgiving. I’m waiting for the first dead fish to be sent through the post, of course.
The idea of scale is palpable here. I never got completely comfortable at a unitary council as it was just too big to comfortably fit within my concept of where I sat within it; a kind of localgov total perspective vortex. Where I am now, I can more easily touch the sides — I’ve met nearly everyone at least once and it’s easier getting to know people more quickly.
The thing that messes with people is the idea that Placecube is an entirely remote organisation (yes, they were doing this pre-COVID. No, we don’t have an office). With colleagues working in Spain, India and all over the UK it couldn’t be any other way really. Although I was pretty much 100% remote in my last role there was always the nagging feeling that it could change at some point in the future.
Moving from local government has meant changing from Microsoft Teams to using Google Workspace and Slack for day-to-day work. However, since most of our customers use Teams there’s no real escape.
Another key tool we’re using is Prodpad, which I’m still getting to grips with. It works by setting high-level goals for what we want to achieve from our products, and assigning ‘ideas’ of how to achieve them, gleaned from customer feedback (including some of mine from Dorset!), colleague input and market assessment. It also pushes out a public roadmap, separate to our internal view of the wider product landscape.
And, of course, Jira. I’ve seen a lot of hate on the interwebs about Jira, and I think I can understand where this is coming from. But to be honest I’m *sort* of loving it. I guess it feels like a grown-up Trello with code to me (or — God help us — a Teams Planner with a brain). It will be interesting seeing if my opinion changes as I use it more.
The change in moving to a proper agile role has shown me how much I still have to learn.
On the delivery side I’m a novice. My colleague (no names used here — I’ve been burned by this in the past) is SO on top of this, and I watch in wonder. On the flip side, I think I’ve got a good grip on the current market and what current trends/preferences are, so we all have our strengths in different areas I guess.
There are still books to read, courses to complete and colleagues to learn from. But I think the real stuff will come from the doing, the conversations, the mistakes, the inspiration. Certainly, I need to pick up my game in the New Year as we shift up a gear.
The bit I’m really loving so far is interacting with customers. Having been on the other side of the call I’d like to think I know where they are coming from. In the past I’d never been a believer of the ‘us-vs-them’ psychology of dealing with suppliers, and always found that making a personal connection was far more productive than anything else. So I’m making that core to how I work.
Twitter appears to have become a dumpster fire lately. When I first moved into a digital role, signing up for Twitter was almost the first thing I did (on my way to my first UK Gov Camp in 2015). A shame my first tweet isn’t more profound….
I’ve been slowly moving across to Mastodon, bit-by-bit, with a significant degree of reluctance (why should I have to turn my back on the prime vehicle I’ve used for my connecting with the digital community?) At the moment I’m still straddling the divide, with a foot in both camps, in the hope that someone can pull it together and keep us all talking in one space. There’s a hefty follower penalty for the move, and no sign of any localgov corporate accounts so far, but the conversation is kinder and more friendly.
(If you are thinking of making the move, a couple of tools I’ve found handy are Movetodon, which links to your Twitter and Mastodon accounts to find people you follow and link up, and Mastodon Twitter Crossposter, which as the name suggests allows you to cross-post between platforms automatically).
I’m still part of LocalGov Digital and keeping in touch with digital peers just as I used to. Thankfully, the team there recognise that suppliers are part of the “conversation about how we can work together to improve public services” (there’s a code of conduct in place to set out the rules) and there are plenty of us happy to use the network as it was intended.
Well, that will do for now.