It’s pronounced ‘Jod’

This week I was told that I was God. So you can imagine what that did for my ego.

This week at work

Certification scheme development

I’ve spent a large chunk of my time this week working on future updates to our certification scheme. Following feedback from UKAS, we’re considering making a number of changes to support certification against the “gamma” (0.4) trust framework.

These changes are potentially pretty complex and I’ve been wrestling with finding a clear taxonomy to articulate the work that needs to be done as part of conformity assessment, first and foremost. I’m grateful to have access to a breadth of expertise around me to assist in making these changes testing my thinking as it develops.

Next week, we’ll be starting to reach out to stakeholders that might be affected by the changes to test our thinking before we finalise it.

Interviews are done for now

I’ve been interviewing for two roles over the past 3 weeks; one at HEO grade and one at SEO grade, to join our certification team.

We’ve finished the final interviews this week, and are now able to offer roles to some of the candidates. Fingers crossed they can start soon!

The whole process has been eye-opening and has prompted some really interesting conversations about how to effectively assess and then score candidates when you’re looking for specialist skills.

Invitations to Tender

As we reach the end of this financial year and prepare for the next, I’ve also been working on some Invitations to Tender to replace expiring contracts.

The nice thing about these ITTs is that they’re replacing contracts I tendered 2 years ago. That means I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t work with them, and can now make them better. Being able to improve on something you’ve already done in the procurement space is, weirdly, a novelty – and I’m oddly excited to be able to do it!

Blogging

A couple of new blogs have gone out this week from me on the “Enabling digital identity” blog.

The first is about how we’re making it easy to know if you’re using a trustworthy digital identity and attribute service; through a register and a trust mark.

The second looks at how we’re approaching maintaining the register itself; both in its current form and how we’re planning to adapt that approach when our Bill becomes an Act.

I have absolutely no idea if these explanations are proving helpful to our stakeholder community. We sure are pumping out a lot of them though, so I certainly hope they are!

Outside of work

Things have been a bit rocky this week, with some bad news landing across my wider family. I’ve been doing my best to help family members with their trials; but the issues are ultimately something they have to take ownership of and resolve.

Aside from that our building’s ongoing dispute with our freeholder and management company over mismanagement of our service charge accounts continues unresolved. I’m losing the will to live over it; the levels of incompetence are unbelievable.

Found interesting

The Estonian government is claiming it’s gone “100% digital” and “0% bureaucracy”, by bringing its last remaining paper-only service online. Good for them on achieving a big thing. I do find the framing odd though; removing paper elements from a process doesn’t mean they’re not bureaucratic and complex.

I still haven’t caught up with Alien: Romulus yet, but already Hulu and FX have released this trailer for Alien: Earth. Can’t wait to see more in this franchise!

The first smartwatch I ever owned was a Pebble and now it’s making a comeback!

Sony are apparently halting production of Blu-ray discs; which I find odd, given that Sony also is one of the biggest distributors of Blu-ray players, by default of shipping millions of PS4 and PS5 consoles.

If you like railway station typography, then oh boy have I got the Mastodon account for you to follow!

This ‘Bionic Reading’ font – which has been used inside my favourite RSS reader, Reeder, for years – is now available to purchase for use on personal devices. I don’t think I’d want to use it for producing anything, but I do like the idea of installing on my Kindle.