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Ok I feel seen ♥️

First day working at DEFRA through Public Digital. Most of it has been spent trying to remember how to use Windows so far :)

Leaving Sport England today to start something new in a couple of weeks It has been a *trip* Learned loads, made mistakes (obvs), but ultimately left the Movement Fund in a better place and created and honed a beautiful multidisciplinary team along the way ❤️❤️❤️ www.sportengland.org/movementfund

Weirdly I've made a later life change and have gone back to putting reverse-dates at the start of filenames to make them sort better. I don't think I've done this since my 20s - since then I flirted with no-sort filenames but mostly I've been numbering Lots of meetings I guess

Kneecap ♥️ Brilliant film Tunes

Trying out Günes in Walthamstow in my latest attempt to find Green Lanes outside Green Lanes

"11. Minimise environmental impact" Props to @miakepia.bsky.social and co for updating the design principles! services.blog.gov.uk/2025/04/02/a...

Just to be clear about me missing information architecture at the places I work...I'm not saying IA is dead, or no one does it any more! I'm more saying that (in the places I work) it used to be discussed as often as service design, interaction design, user research but recently it's less visible :(

Did not expect this to be the day when I experienced an outpouring of love for IA ♥️

Loving France today No citizen above the law

Also, bring back information architecture. It's the root of so many issues at all my workplaces. We miss you 💔

It's sunny. I ran this morning. I had a great weekend. And we have a clear plan for the changes we are making at work So obvs I'm feeling wildly optimistic despite it being Monday morning

Spaced repetition is close to magic One of the unexpected joys of learning to play chess - specifically memorising openings - has been getting to use modern spaced repetition software (Last time I seriously used spaced repetition was for exam revision in 2000. Pen, paper, index cards: ok boomer)

Just used a pressure washer for the first time. New fave chore

Having one of those weeks where daring to suggest the change that is needed makes me an easy target 🎯

✅ Web traffic nearly doubled to the page ✅ Record applications for a two week period ✅ Record success rate for assessing those applications ✅ Fewer calls to our investment support helpline Rarely have I been so proud (Of course it could yet be a statistical anomaly)

The way to my heart these days is chess related presents ⌛⏳♟️♥️♥️♥️♥️

It has been a labour of love to make the application guidance accurate, clear and helpful. It's the first big delivery for our team and I am very proud of the progress we have made There's lots more improvement to come. But this is a huge first step

I'm working at Sport England on the Movement Fund We give up to £15k to local projects to get people active. Especially people usually excluded from physical activity We've just put out new guidance on how to apply: www.sportengland.org/movementfund I bet you know someone who should apply :)

Taking part in a Theory of Change workshop that is being extremely well run and is proving to be very enjoyable. And I think likely to be very useful as well Love a pro delivery of a workshop :)

I ❤️ my delivery manager. Always. I've had such an incredible run of brilliant people to work with and it makes all the difference

You can tell a lot about my working relationships from who has edit rights to my work calendar and vice versa :)

Swan Lake, Matthew Bourne version. Saw it 20+ years ago and loved it but saw it again today and loved it more. Totally lost myself in the idea that the people were animals by the end. It's funny how your appreciation of artworks changes and flexes as you age 🦢

Sad to hear Mint Lounge in Manchester has closed. So many huge nights there, so many memories. Our night - C'mon Feet - was one of the first regular nights there after it opened. And its predecessor - Planet K - was actually where me and Esther first got together. All the clubs are closing down :(

Gotta break my Bluesky silence* to say how much I loved A Real Pain. Beautiful, moving, heartbreaking and somehow also funny at the same time ♥️♥️♥️ So much resonance with so many events and people in my life #neveragain * been slowing down and simplifying life after 2024 pressures tbh

The difference between working with people who trust you, and with people who are sceptical, is night and day So much of the work in teams is about the relentless, grinding, difficult work of building trust - within the team and with all the external people we work with Hard, but essential

Ding Liren ❤️ World champion. Then chronic mental health issues. Then complete collapse in form. Then written off before the match even started by *everyone* Wins the first game out of nowhere. Fights tooth and nail every game. Roars back today after losing yesterday 6-6. Two games left. Heroic

Feeling unbelievably lighter and more hopeful in my personal life after what has been a very rough year. Sometimes you just got to get through it...

@cantlin.bsky.social cantliiiiiiiiin

Watching the new Wolf Hall. Bittersweet because I (re)watched the first series with my dad earlier this year. I hoped he'd live to see the new one but no. At least I've got his old friend Jonathan Pryce as Wolsey to comfort me 💔

Just had the best day at work today - the team took something from a confusing mess (so bad it stopped me sleeping worrying about it) to a beautiful simple flow (where everything sits in its proper place) in about five hours ❤️ And then we sailed through a design review with important stakeholder ❤️❤️

Oh hi new people

I'm in awe of his autolayout skills. I change content and the page morphs. Magic

So @madebysheppard.bsky.social gave me the keys to the Figma today. I think that signifies high trust between product and design has been achieved. I hope I have not broken that trust so far 😰

"Life is a long preparation for something that never happens" William Butler Yeats (courtesy of Rivals which I'm very much enjoying for the cultural references. silly but fun)

Procuring a research recruitment agency - like, for example , People For Research - to find us participants who are unaware of Sport England. Two questions from a procurement noob: 1. Who is your favourite agency like this in 2024? 2. What government framework(s) do these agencies sit on?

"We dream the same dream We want the same thing, oh And all that we need is to see it together, oh-oh, oh-oh" Belinda dropping lessons on cross-team working right there

Also nice to bring out the old verbatim note taking as issues with our DPIA still mean we aren't allowed to record :(

Great day putting designs in front of users. It's been a long road to get to this point but a day like today just makes it all worth it. Such an invaluable part of the process

I forgot just how much I love watching a good researcher do their thing ❤️

About to observe user research as a product manager. It's so funny / weird being on the other side of this relationship these days!

Researchers - I'm a bit out of the loop. How much would you tend to offer as an incentive (think vouchers, not cash) for an hour of a research participant's time? Let's assume these are not specialist professionals who need to be paid more that the going rate - but regular people 🙏

Had a great day meeting everyone. Also - related - I love a government staff canteen

On my way to the office for the first time in months for an in person day with the team. Of the 10 people I work with day in day out I've never met a single one of them yet!

When your dad was a brass player, who wished for a New Orleans style procession from service to wake, something beautiful and joyous happens on the way to the pub. What a day, what a celebration ❤️

My sister did a beautiful job on the order of service. Or the programme as my dad would have inevitably called it

What a beautiful day ☀️

Just an exceptional day at work. I literally couldn't get to sleep with worrying about things last night but everything today went better than I could have imagined. Relief

OK, so when doing remote user research on videocalls....if you want lots of team members to observe, but you don't really want lots of intimidating silent/invisible people on the call for the participant - how might we do that?