Hi again. I’m writing this one while battling spotty WiFi on the train back from Nottingham after a fun weekend of too many boardgames and too much food. Which was a nice end to another week filled with…
Work, work, work
The LFF ticket on-sale event (aka BFI’s annual Glastonbury moment) went smoothly, for a second year running. It was my birthday, so not having a repeat of 2022’s issues was the best possible gift from my team and the cross-BFI and supplier war room. Phew, and yay.
The team had also made loads of great usability improvements on LFF’s listings site, within the constraints of the system. So it all looks, feels and works even better this year.
There were donuts of different flavours (where “donut” is BFI-speak for an all-staff showcase, short for “donut time”, involving no actual donuts):
- My digital directorate one. It went well, featuring shoutouts and OKR reminders from me, and great talks/demos from across the team on BFI Player, content design, M365 training and cyber security.
- The BFI all-staff (big donut). This was IRL in NFT1 , and I love it that we do these occasionally in person. It included an engaging talk from Jas Rai at the British Library, bringing cyber risk to life for everyone. I met her beforehand – great to be connected and share intel. Plus corporate despatches, trailers, and previews of LFF and the upcoming UK-wide Art of Action season.
I worked on-and-off on prep for next week’s leadership workshop days. It included sharpening up our articulation of current priorities in a consistent format – NCTs to the rescue!
Finished the week with a progress check-in meeting with our philanthropy partner for BFI Player. They’re delighted with where we are, and gave us useful steers.
There was also a meeting on safe AI, 2 meetings of the Exec board, some 1-1s with my directors and heads. Quite a lot when you write it all down, hadn’t realised. Weeknoting is good like that.
It’s not all work, work, work
Did I mention it was my birthday? 48 years old, suddenly. Kicked it off with a lovely natter with lovely Nettie in Bloom on the Crystal Palace triangle, before a day of working from home.
Got into a chat on BlueSky with a fellow aphant and SDAM person (sufferer?) about how weird birthdays feel when you can’t remember any previous ones or the experiences in between. 🤷🏻♂️ Oh well, onwards and upwards.
Also posted on BlueSky that my fave local curry place (which we ordered from for my birthday) has 3 items on the menu for which the descriptions end with the words “A spicy treat” – meaning I can never order anything but those. Steph quipped that the same approach could work on the title of board reports: “Digital Transformation and Cybersecurity Strategy 2025-7 – A Spicy Treat”. I like it.
My presents haul included the previously mentioned air fryer, plus a board game, edible treats from the boys, and some colanders I am genuinely excited about.
Less good, I also came down with back-to-school lurgy on my birthday. It’s mostly gone now (Sunday) but I’ve been on the max cold and flu pills and Night Nurse all week, and groggy as hell in the days.
Nottingham was fun, with old besties Mark, Alex and Ben. We played Resident Evil the Board Game, Nemesis Lockdown, and several palate-cleansing rounds of So Clover and Boss Monster.
On my way home I got spat on, on the 432 bus, by a young girl with (and because of) Tourette’s, as her mum hastily and apologetically explained. Not sure which of us enjoyed the moment less, but I get to forget about it and move on.
🔎 Found, interesting 🧐
Refreshing the homepage: Experts discuss the pros and cons of the digital government shake-up.
Million $ shot with no budget. Via Russell. I also scrapbooked a pithy quote.
Why I don’t love OKRs. Two gold nuggets in this: first, the joke that Google popularised OKRs as a way to slow down all competitors (!); and second, this dummy roadmap image below (from this original source):
Alex Shiell on building an FOI workflow with MS Lists and Power Automate
Pre-discovery: how to prepare for product discovery
Infographic of Who Does What By How Much – all of Jeff Gothelf’s OKR book, summarised.
Social media signals 2024 (via Oliver)
New Colossal website is some good design inspo.
Lloyd Davis marking 20 years of blogging
Britishcore and Britishmaxxing
Listening, watching, playing, reading, cooking
🎬 Bridesmaids. Just the right thing for a birthday rewatch. With my birthday curry. A spicy treat.
🎬 Milk & Serial. Loved this. Faultless found footage, nano-budget viral horror, free on YouTube.
📺 Veep, we are up to season 3 now. Not started new Taskmaster, but we’ll catch up.
▶️ The trailer for the new BFI 4K restoration of Watership Down. Gets me every time.
📓 The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin. A gift from Paul. Extraordinary, powerful writing.
🎧 Cont. Lost at Sea: The Jon Ronson Mysteries. The chapter on Insane Clown Posse is good value. “Fucking magnets, how do they work?”
🎧 HDTGM: The Running Man. I won’t hear a bad word about that film, but the podcast was fun nonetheless. I’m excited to see Edgar Wright’s new version when it comes. On his recommendation I read the Stephen King (Richard Bachman) novel a while back – it’s a very different beast.
🎧 Cascade by Floating Points, Dreamweaver by trentemøller, Carrot Season by Phiik and Lungs
🍳 Among other things I did a slow cooker beef brisket in onion gravy, because it’s cosy season.
Distractions
3 picks from my TikTok fyp this week:
Thanks for reading. See you next time :)
