2024 Weeknote 27 : Independence Day… for the UK

July 1 – 7

My “weeknotes” capture events, thoughts, and other items from the past week, mostly focused on work.

This week’s post will be a little shorter because (1) the holiday messed up the week, and (2) I need these to be shorter for everyone involved, especially me!

[1] Weeknotes vs. Leadership Posts

Heard an interesting podcast this week involving leadership and communication:

In this ‘cast they talk about using some software from Axios designed to aid internal communication inside any given organization. They talk about weekly newsletters and keeping things very brief and where to circulate the various pieces. It’s a pretty good set of ideas and things to think about. I even looked up the software.

This also made me think back over what I’ve been posting as #weeknotes — yes, these weeknotes right here and the others I’ve produced so far.

Perhaps 50% of what I’ve been sharing has been about things at the office, ideas, and other items employees might find useful or insightful (though I have by no means “assigned” this reading to anyone, ever). So it raised the question… should I be producing a shorter, punchier version of my weeknotes specifically to inform my coworkers about projects, priorities, and strategies?

I now work with 4 distinct teams directly, and there are several more teams across our organization, to say nothing of the 40+ customer orgs out there. Having a “leadership” series might make a lot of sense.

I gotta think more about this.

[2] Miscellanea

An interesting conversation about Product Owners vs. Business Analysts over on Reddit caught my eye this weekend. We are looking at adding more BA capacity, which will definitely interact with our (still forming) PO roles.
I watched some of the UK election returns live, thanks to streaming services. Despite the chaos and decline of the UK in the last 14 years, I have to admit I’d like to live under a parliamentary system. This two-party stuff we have in the U.S. is not working.

[3] Watch This

In tracking all the brouhaha over what happens next with the Biden campaign, I stumbled across what appears to be a new experiment in political media: 2WAY.TV, which touts itself as a new model for interactive television. It’s basically a big Zoom call with a semi-famous media host, some typical cable TV talking-head guests, and then folks from the general public joining in with commentary and questions. Here’s a Biden-focused conversation from Friday:

Is this one potential future for politically-focused TV? Maybe. Classic cable news is definitely tired and lacks input from the public. I’ll be keeping tabs on these folks.