Weeknotes #6: Small things
A condensed week after being floored by a cold on Monday and Tuesday - although I was grateful to avoid the "daggers in the throat" version some of my team picked up.
What happened this week?
Following up from our cyber security exercise last week with some improvements to incident response documentation and workflows. The list is long and these are often items that are de-prioritised as other things come in.
Some necessary activity reporting for an upcoming board meeting.
Bashing the CRM tender into the right shape. With a multifaceted, cross-functional project it's hard to get the balance of detail and allow space for useful answers, alongside fitting into procurement templates and the requirements of a specific framework. Not my favourite thing.
Joining the Digital Preservation Steering Group which is always incredibly well run and focussed across longer-time scales than other areas.
Running my final CEO mentoring session as part the The Space's Navigating Digital Change Programme. It was good to chat to a smaller arts organisation facing similar challenges across CRM, AI usage, and the need to document their digital estate.
Libraries things
A day in bed at the start of the week meant I could consume some content and catch up on a few Library-related posts:
- This enjoyable glazing of the British Library coincided with a big PR push around the new CEO and restructuring.
- The Rest is History episode on the Great Library of Alexandria included some interesting myth-busting and factoids including the origins of the word "museum" (GoodPods).
- I enjoyed the Let's Talk Libraries podcast featuring Rachel Esson, New Zealand's National Librarian Te Pouhuaki. She spoke about a shift towards placing the user at the centre of services following the merger of facilities with the National Archives. This includes a focus on improving awareness of what users can have access to alongside then providing better access. Above all she was clear on the core mission underpinning the work: "The future is always uncertain, but libraries and archives have an enduring purpose."
- I finally watched the Oscar-nominated documentary, The Librarians, which was moving and terrifying in equal measure (iPlayer).
Interesting things
- How to create an intranet: A deep-dive into the V&A's SharePoint intranet build from Lizzy Hines
- The AI opportunity for Scotland's public services - An extensive white paper from digital agency StormID examining where AI can most credibly reduce administrative burden across Scotland’s public services, guided by a clear principle throughout: automate tasks, not jobs.
- Scribe and prejudice? - a new report from the Ada Lovelace institute exploring the use of AI transcription tools in social care. Time-savings: yes. Worrying errors: also yes. As Lara Groves, co-author of the report, says: “Delivering time savings is not necessarily the same thing as delivering public benefit, especially if these come at the cost of inaccuracy or unaccountability.”
- Resistance from Tressie McMillan Cottom to the Ai–controlled future: "The proposal for a post-human future is one where there will be human beings, but they will be treated inhumanely."
- Mark Kermode's eviscerating review of Melania (YouTube)
- Draw a horse: Lovely lo-fi internet.
- Searching for Birds: a beautiful inforgraphic-rich exploration of all things birbs. It reminded me of early examples of interactive online storytelling (from ten years ago?)
Nadieh Bremer
Watching, listening, reading, doing
📖 I'm trying to get through Hamnet before seeing it on the big screen.
📺 Small Prophets ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Mackenzie Crook's new comedy carries over many of the themes from The Detectorists, including idiosyncratic characters on the fringes of society, a helping of magic realism and the need for truth and connection. All perfectly pitched.
🏃 Park run will be attempted on Saturday to disperse the remaining germs.
