This is weeknote 26, which means we’re halfway through 2024. And somehow I have kept this up (bar a couple of weeks I missed).

My music taste (and arguably my politics) are stuck in the 90s, and this week was bookended by moments of sheer joy watching two of my favourite bands I’ve loved since I was a teenager. More on that below.

Some things I did this week

Went to Bristol for a couple of days, where Jon and I spent some rare face-to-face time on plans for two chunky projects we’re just kicking off. On Wednesday we were joined by Nic, our new delivery and programmes lead. It wasn’t as productive as we hoped but as a distributed team I think we all quickly realised the time was better spent building team relationships. We can get the detail of work done when we’re back at desks.

I forgot to get a team photo so only have this weird pic JP and I took of our reflection in the planetarium on the way to the car park.

Suddenly we have a LOT on. One chunky programme of work with a client we’ve been working with for some time now, another with a client we’ve done a smaller discovery with before, and one entirely new client.

We’re building out new teams to help us deliver all of these, and have a lot to do in the weeks ahead to mobilise and coordinate.

In the past week I’ve done a shout-out for a technical architect and for content designers. The former got almost no response, while the latter saw my inbox flooded with high quality applications in just a few hours. I’m not sure how much of that is a reflection of the job market in both of those fields and how much is down to my adding a picture of a young Bruce Springsteen to the Content Designer post on LinkedIn.

That’s something I’ll need to A/B test as we start trying to fill other roles.

One theme this week was: what’s the right balance of ambition and pragmatism? It feels like every programme begins with great ambitions to transform the way people communicate and collaborate. And almost always the realities of timeline, budget and stakeholder pushback mean these ambitions are scaled back. Sometimes just a bit, often quite a lot, and – rarely – until the thing being delivered is little better than what it’s replacing.

Deliver something that isn’t a tangible improvement on what preceded it and you lose all credibility with stakeholders. But fail to deliver on time and you’ve let everyone down. We’re working on project scope right now, treading that fine line between ambitious and pragmatic. The trick – if there is one – is to aim for the long wow rather than the big bang.

That is to say:

The ‘big bang’ is delivering a great product on a set launch date. Sometimes this is necessary, but it will kill you getting there.

The ‘long wow’ is something that makes you go ‘that’s pretty decent’ on first viewing, but keeps on improving from there. Not an MVP, but a decent if not spectacular meeting of requirements that people generally like. Then adding features or content so it keeps on improving – and gives you regular upgrades you can talk about.

For our upcoming projects we’re trying to map out what form that long wow could take so it shows just the right level of ambition.

Non-work things I did last week

Went to the World Press Photo exhibition which is on annually at the Nieuwe Kerk here in Amsterdam. Bringing together notable and lesser-known photojournalism from the last year it’s always sobering. This year it felt especially so, as the covid bleakness of the past few years has given way to war and conflict. The memorial to journalists killed in the course of their work had a record number of new entries since last year, almost all of them in Gaza.

I saw the Foo Fighters on a blisteringly hot day in Cardiff. A ‘best of’ set, three hours of solid rock and roll with 70,000 people belting out Best Of You, Monkey Wrench and (my favourite) Everlong as the sun went down on a midsummer evening. People dunk on stadium gigs but there’s something life-affirming about a crowd that big joining in a massive moment of musical bliss.

Then at the other end of the week, and of the scale, I saw Belle and Sebastian play at the Bostheater, a little outdoor amphitheatre surrounded by twinkling lights in the woods at the Amsterdamse Bos. It was magical.

I can’t remember exactly when I discovered B&S, but it suspect it was via my standard teenage route of a Melody Maker mixtape, graduating to a CD bought from the basement of the Music Exchange in Notting Hill Gate.

And for a quarter of a century since, Boy With The Arab Strap has bought me joy. It’s not the best indie pop tune. You could argue it’s not even Belle and Sebastian’s best number. But there’s something about the mix of indie pop folk, strings, lyrics (“Colour my life with the chaos of trouble / ‘Cause anything’s better than posh isolation”) and the childish playfulness of a song namechecking a cock ring that features a playground melody played on the recorder that makes this such a likeable number.

Acknowledging its status as an indie disco banger, the band invite an organised stage invasion every time they play BWTAS live. This being far from my first rodeo, I was poised by the stage stairs ready for the opening bars, and first to get up there.

And so I ended my week on the stage, in the rain, in the middle of the forest in my favourite city, dancing like a loon to my favourite song and it was pure unadulterated happiness.

What I’m reading

I started Hags: The Demonisation of Middle-Aged Women by Victoria Smith. Powered through the first third in one sitting – it’s a compelling and well-crafted read – but not had time for more.

Hotels

A whole week at home (and at my best mate’s house). It’s been great!