May 6th, 2022

In the spirit of transparency and candour, Kevin and Jill publish weeknotes reflecting on the what and why for their team.

Jill’s notes

It was a busy week trying to hit all the right meetings with Kevin on week one of leave.

the highlights

• I had an incredible #DigitalBC Livestream conversation with Steve Forland regarding: data to guide the response to homelessness in B.C. The foundational work and connection to the Data Innovation Program were clear wins.

• I loved watching the second Bright Bytes with Amy Kirtay and JP Fournier on Digital Funding, and he had some great tips. Take away = the work upfront will write the pitch.
• If you haven’t already, don’t forget to listen to Marianne Belotti’s chat with Ari on the latest Exchange podcast and check out Part 3: Legacy Modernization Finale #DigitalBC Livestream.
• I finished Day 2 with the Digital Investment Office team, covering governance [everyone’s favourite topic, the poop umbrella, if you will], Cynefin, Wardley Mapping and a reflection on our learnings.

• Finalized scope for the C&E Service Design with Domain7/Versett. We are moving along, and it’s looking like a more internal-focused scope of work to validate and align our questions before we go deeper with external research in a more coherent way.

There were a few other 1-on-1s to stay connected, and that’s the end of the week, on to the next.

Harry’s notes

Things are moving steadily with the CleanBC work streams as Kevin is away for two months and two new team members (Laura and Jackie).

I’m slowly transitioning from Go Electric into Better Homes workstream. Some major events that happened within the last week:

STB Holiday Party

We had our first branch holiday party in person. It was lovely to meet everyone in person, and I had to pinch myself that I’m working with some incredible humans. Jill and her partner were fantastic hosts, and dinner was so so good. Jill sent us home with a delicious loaf of sourdough! It was a lovely evening to celebrate one year's work anniversaries, starts and breaks at the branch.

The Art of Speaking

Public speaking makes me nervous. It’s a skill that takes time to build, and the only way to get better is by practice. I recently presented at the BC Gov Community Meet-up on CleanBC: Go Electric. The talk covered the program, research strategy, and demo of our service prototype. It felt great to show a product that involved many hands and hard work in the timeframe of delivery. Shout out to my teammates Audrey Aubertin (Go Electric) and April Piluso (Spatial Design), that were up on the (digital) stage. The project is in a refinement and implementation phase—more updates to come. I’m looking forward to more public speaking and presenting this year and building this skill. Watch here

A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats

The second part of the BC Gov Design Community was with Marie Chung and Martha Edwards on their previous experiences in the UK Government. It was inspiring to hear the stories of community development internal to the UK government, such as 80% of the time was practice and 20% was community development and mentoring. One of my passions is giving back and advancing design communities to promote design maturity and upskilling in practice. “A rising tide lifts all boats” is a phrase I come back to as I work with community of practices — The Exchange Lab and the BC Gov Design Community. What’s next in the Community of Practice? Book clubs, workshops, outside speakers, and infrastructure to foster a community of sharing and collaboration. This week, I feel excited and inspired to advance the service design practice and knowledge share.

Professional Development

Aside from volunteering with the community of practice, I’ve engaged with a career coach to help me in the next stage of professional development to help refine and sharpen skills adjacent to being a design practitioner. I’m excited to see what comes to light in the next few weeks.

Six links for this week

• International Government Design Community of practice.
• Toolbox Toolbox is an inventory of business, design, and strategy resources
• Design Education is a community to further education and learning design
• TS Check-in is endless prompts to check in and out of meetings
• Butter is a new online facilitation tool
• The Climate Game: Can you reach net zero by 2050?