Week 5
Confit greens and egg breakfast bap at Franks Canteen — 9/10
I’ve been thinking about two main things this week, neither of which have been related to day to day work tasks.
A shared pattern or user research library for death + dying
I noticed an interesting tweet from one of our board members on Wednesday. It reminded me of an idea I had with Ivor years ago about how we might reduce the duplication of work in the end of life sector.
I don’t think the end of life sector is unique, but having worked in it for approaching 10 years I think it’s quite bad with duplication of work. What I think this means is that there are many busy and talented people whose energy and passion isn’t being used in the best way. There are many problems with how we deal with death and dying in the UK, and sometimes it’s exasperating because I think we have the answers and solutions to most problems — it’s just that processes, systems and stuff just gets in the way. I think some form of pattern or user research library for the end of life sector could address some of these problems. If you don’t know what this type of library is — I am no expert but these are some useful links and examples:
- Data patterns catalogue by IF— helps teams make decisions about how, when and why to collect and use data about people.
- Interesting blog from Service Transformation team at Essex council about prototyping a service pattern library.
- Mental Health Patterns Library — created by designers, developers and mental health practitioners and researchers who saw a need to collect and share best practices for mental health digital services.
- Local Government User Research Library — helps local government teams share, discover and connect user research.
Not quite sure how to move this forward — I guess that’s the problem of these ‘shared infrastructure’ problems. The classic ‘public good’. Who will pay for it? Who will spend the time needed to work on it?
I went to a funeral
The mum of a close friend died quite suddenly recently which was very sad. I can’t really imagine what it must be like. I spent a few days thinking about whether it was appropriate or if I should attend the funeral. I think I’d possibly met the mum years ago, but I would more be going for my friend. I asked lots of people what they thought and to see what was the ‘done’ thing in these types of situations. I’ve not been to many funerals, so maybe I’m not ‘funeral literate’ enough to just know what to do. I just think it’s interesting how these situations arise, and what you think about and how life gets in the way. I imagine it’s an age thing. I did go in the end and I’m glad I went.
Borrow My Doggy update
Pictured: Guiness the staffie and dalmation cross
I looked after Guinness (pictured above) for about an hour and he tried eating:
- slippers
- placemat
- rug
- plants
- my head
A nice little insight into dog ownership!