What I’ve been doing
It’s been a lovely week having all the team around. I don’t mind working remotely but I do miss having the chatter with team mates online - whether text (Discord) or face to face (Zoom). That said, I’ve enjoyed photos of their travels too.
We had a Board meeting this week so ensuring things were ready for the discussions that took place and then working out what the next steps are for the actions. They’re an incredibly compassionate and generous group of Directors, I feel lucky to have time with them and learn from them.
With the whole team back it was “Meeting Monday”. I’ve mentioned before how we try to consolidate our meetings into one day, allowing more “working” time throughout the week (not that good meetings aren’t work of course). It was useful to check in on progress on various projects including one that was having its first substantive delivery session this week, and preparing for another one that we hope to be signing a contract on later this week.
I attended a webinar, run by Roots HR, about the new Employment Rights Bill/Act. There’s lots of changes coming and whilst they may not impact on Connected by Data I am taking the opportunity to keep up to speed on the changes and any practical steps that will need to be taken once it receives Royal Assent.
What I need to take care of
Finishing writing up the Board meeting notes and getting those approved. I’ve also need to chat with Adam as part of an action I have to map who is doing AI training into the public sector and education and who is providing training into unions and civil society (if you have any awareness on this please do let me know).
It is Labour Party Conference next week so there’s no Meeting Monday but I will be supporting a few meetings about PAIRS 2026 including an early logistics planning one with Aapti who are leading an in-person event in New Delhi in February.
What I’ve been inspired or challenged or moved by
I saw this trailer for a HBO documentary about Dame Jacinda Ardern. Honestly, I wept. It feels like she was such a special world leader, and a loss to that arena.
What I’ve been reading
I protected some time this week for some work related reading.
- Unconference agenda creation - blog by James Arthur Cattell - I think we have things we can learn about this after our experience hosting our first unconference so I keep an eye out for reading about people that have done unconferences
- Perspectives on leading an intentional ending - blog by a former CEO - I’m increasingly interested in organisational endings and this is a wonderful reflective piece from someone that closed a charity not due to crisis and has allowed some time to pass before sharing their learning
- Decelerator’s sharing of what they’re seeing in relation to organisational endings - every four months Decelerator pauses delivery to reflect on what they’re seeing and learning, and then they share that in this series of blogs
- What the ‘Centre’ needs - a blog by Fabian Chessell about the political landscape, how it is changing, and possible responses. There’s a particularly interesting comment in there about the need (or not) for regulation and “letting managers manage”. I have for years and years (I’m not kidding, it must be about ten years) had an idea for a blog about experts vs bureaucracy (and probably something about public in there too). This blog by Fabian reminded me of my thinking around that (although his is much more politically framed)
- Charity AI Task Force response to AI Opportunities Plan - hosted by CAST - I’m late to reading this and I’m not commenting on the Charity AI Task Force per se, but more about the positioning of a coalition responding to a Government Plan and it made me think about the role of charities and their influence
- Announcing Kinship Works - a blog by James Plunkett - James believes that there is a better, more human, way of approaching a lot of our challenges to make society better. Even more, he has put his time and effort behind that belief and started a movement to have impact, called Kinship Works. (As an aside I have been privileged to support James in some of the setup of this new venture, giving him some Operations structure - just one day a week).