Friday marked the first day of meteorological spring, and it certainly feels springlike out there. It’s sunglasses and coat weather. One of my best friends came to visit for the weekend and we had a glorious time walking around a sunny-but-chilly Amsterdam. 

I took her to the Heineken Experience, because it’s somehow the top-rated tourist attraction in the city, and I have never been. Towards the end it included some photobooths where you can make your own ‘digital souvenirs’. These hadn’t been designed with short people in mind so results were, in their own way, the perfect souvenir.

Some things I did this week

• Working on a business case for a new intranet. It’s always a tricky balance; on the one hand, everyone wants to keep the costs as low as possible to increase the chance of approval. But it’s vital you don’t overlook non-technology costs like implementation support, content, change management, training and adoption. Intranets are only as good as the content on them, and platforms that don’t get used don’t deliver value. Failure to invest in getting content and change right risks failing the entire programme. Make that case early on or you will live to regret it.
• Spent a day on-site with a client’s team in the UK to help them plan for the next phase of work. It’s been really rewarding to see this programme making progress, and it’s a real credit to the teams behind it for navigating it through one of the most complex organisations I’ve ever worked with.
• Had a tweet (or more accurately a thread) go viral for the first time since I lost my (OG) blue tick. The replies were glorious but I’d forgotten how much of a time-suck going viral is. The trick is to mute the tweet as soon as it starts doing numbers. But in a subliminal bid to prove myself wrong, I actually used Lancaster Gate station this week.
• Went to two gigs; a surprisingly likeable shouty avant garde act at local indie venue De Nieuwe Anita, and former Super Furry Animal Gruff Rhys at Tolhuistuin for gentle tunes and excellent stage bants. 
• My mate and I also went dancing until 4am like we did when we were 18, only to remember the next day why this is something 18-year-olds do and 43-year-olds do not. 

What I’m reading

Not a lot tbh. Managed a couple more chapters of Friends: Understanding the Power of Our Most Important Relationships by Robin Dunbar, but it’s been a crazy busy week so I didn’t have much time for reading. Need to get my book mojo back.

Connections

Something I learned

My visiting friend told me that a putting copper coin in the water stops your tulips drooping. Having bought 40 tulips  and only being able to find one copper coin (who uses coins in 2024?) afforded the opportunity to A/B test this across two large vases. Three days in this appears to stand up to testing.