Weeknote 2024/01

*The quantity not quality approach to New Years fireworks here in Amsterdam*

Inspired by Ann Kempster’s efforts, and having promised myself I’d write more this year, I’m going to start sharing a bit more about what I’m doing once a week or so*

* until I inevitably get too busy, or forget.

The new year arrived here in Amsterdam as it traditionally does… by making the city sound like a war zone. While other cities have one spectacular, giant firework display for people to gawp at, here in the Netherlands they have thousands of considerably less spectacular anarchic ones. For days leading up to oud en nieuw you’ll hear fireworks being set off everywhere, in an auditory scene redolent of Sam Mendes’ movie 1917.

12 children are reported to have lost a hand thanks to oudjaarsavond fireworks this year.

My hearing returned roughly when my New Years hangover lifted sometime on 2 January, as I pulled together my round-up of 2023.

From Wednesday I eased myself into work slowly after the festive break. I began with the Opening Of Teams And Outlook. Working with multiple organisations at a time gives one the opportunity to compare their cultures and ways of working, and this was just such an occasion. I’m currently a member of four different Teams environments. I opened each, gingerly, in turn in their respective Chrome profiles.

One: Not a peep from anyone in over a week
Another: A bunch of emails and Teams messages, including some sent on Christmas Day itself

Yes, to a degree that’s a reflection of both local/national cultures (not everyone celebrates Christmas), but the online culture of work is led from the top. If people see leaders sending emails and messages over the holidays, they’ll feel pressure to do the same.

My tip: feel free to work when’s best for you, but if you’re a leader or manager then use that schedule button and send your message in regular working days/hours, to encourage healthy working habits in those around you.

(full disclosure: I used to be absolutely dreadful for all-hours emailing when I was in-house. If you worked with/for me back then, I’m sorry).

By Thursday the break was a distant memory as projects picked up in earnest.

Some stuff I did this week

Finished a ‘comms and collaboration playbook’ for one client to help them get the most out of Teams/M365 by aligning on agreed ways of working. Microsoft don’t help their users by offering at least three different ways of doing the same thing, all with same names. And which they keep changing. I work with this stuff day in day out, and even I’m confused a lot of the time.

On the plus side, Jon accidentally discovered live gesture reactions on a Teams call this week, putting two thumbs up and accidentally injecting a firework display into a client call. To give Microsoft credit, it was both more impressive and a hell of a lot safer than your average Dutch display.

Got back into the weeds of work on an intranet programme, looking at some of the gnarly governance questions.

Landed an interesting speaking gig for later in the year. Not a bad start to the year, work-wise.

Connections

I haven’t yet written my 100 People list for 2024. But I had a couple of good not-work-related-but-kinda chats this week.

A nice call with a founder who’s interested in building something in the digital workplace space (I love geeking out on this stuff),

A splendid irl catch up with Cate McLaurin over beer and ribs.

I’m in London and Oxford next week. I’ve already got a couple of catch-ups booked in for while I’m there; if you’re around and want to catch up, give me a shout and let’s see if we can find time.

What I’m reading

Friend and regular Lithos Partner-er Lisa Reimers bought me Marie Le Conte’s Escape for Christmas. I’m about halfway through and enjoying it very much so far. It’s interesting how much is relatable, as someone who’s been extremely online from my early teens… and yet how different some of it is to my own experience as someone a good decade older, joining the party when the internet was a very different place.