Inspired by lots of the magnificent folk who post weekly notes, I’ve decided to give it a go myself. In the ethos of ‘starting small’ (and slow) I’m committing to a monthly cadence as I start which may be a cop out, but we’ll see how it goes .

I start these posts in late 2024, and I’ll talk to key pieces of mahi (work) I am leading and part of.

The work / mahi

It’s been a busy month, with the last of the main Census NZ 2023 datasets published, and the release of a new ‘Summaries’ service; a nifty data visualisation tool for users wanting to delve into some of that census data. The service was delivered in partnership with Christchurch based Made Curious. It has been a while in the making so it’s great to get it released, as we plan for its evolution and future use cases. Great team work all round - ‘ka pai’, as they say here!

I’m also busy preparing for a leadership team workshop next month looking at our strategic vision for Technology Services at Stats NZ. The intent is to collate and co-design a compelling vision that aligns clearly with organisational (and environmental) context, distilling key objectives to realise that vision, articulating concisely what we are about, where we are going. Easy eh?

It’s good work to do, and something I feel that is needed as it permeates everything; from conversations about informed innovation (yes looking at you, AI), to how we ‘consciously decouple’ from those legacy shackles, to future skills and workforce planning. I’m looking forward to the workshop in December.

The rest

I attended a roundtable session organised by Adobe, talking about modern digital government in New Zealand. It was an interesting discussion with peers about challenges and opportunities working in digital here, though some of the problems highlighted are becoming too long standing; much to do I feel.

Innovation beats procrastination

On the other hand, encouraging stuff at the Public Sector Network’s Innovate Aotearoa Showcase day. I’m particularly interested in the Digital Public Infrastructure idea; essentially wrapping up common, reusable services for government (and others) to plug in to with obvious benefits. Implementing this in a compelling way would be game-changing I feel and is long overdue here.

I attended some information sessions on the GovGPT proof of concept (POC) work for NZ government. A recurring theme of what I term ‘AI dazzlement’ at executive level here, has been obsessing on ‘chatbots’ as if this is the AI opportunity. This chatbot will be ok I’m sure, but I feel there are other areas we should be focusing on too.

For example, reporting back on our poor data and information practices, processes and structures would be interesting.  I hope that at the very least this POC will shine a light on some fundamental issues, which makes NZ government services far less interoperable than they should be…with any technology, for any user.

Bluesky thinking

Interesting to see the leap in Bluesky users coinciding with the US election results. I have had my profile set up for about a year now and do find it far more ’nourishingly’ informative than Twitter / X which has been deteriorating in quality of experience for a while now. I will keep my profile there though my engagement has dwindled, which could be the algorithm, or just my poor content!

We are seeing such polarisation continue via social networks as they reinforce divisive dynamics; for someone of a generation where an open interenet represented the opposite, this is profoundly sad tbf. I’ve always valued observing, experiencing opinions different from one’s own, rationally; it is so important in building more wholesome, diverse societies, and it’s regrettable that many of the algorithms that permeate our lives vis these ‘social services’ now seem to fly against that.

The play

This post is getting way too long so I’ll be quick here.

• 🎵 I’ve been listening to the new Cure album, which I love - I have missed them tbh and I hear a new album’s on the way in 2025 - yay!

• 🎵 I’ve also been loving the new Fionn Regan album, some great tracks as we head into summer on this side of the globe.

• 📺 not so much of late, mainly the Day of the Jackal, which is ok (a tad overstretched?), with a rather great soundtrack.  Beyond that, I’ve been tuning into coverage of the Irish election; I’m always keen to check in on politics back home and how it relates to the SDLP in Northern Ireland etc.

• 📖 I’ve nearly finished Overreach, which has been enlightening if a little depressing!…also I took delivery of a hard copy of The Agile Comms Handbook which I’ll get through next week hopefully.

Anyway, that is it for my first ‘weeknote-type’ blog post….I need to watch my word count in future tbf but for now, sin e an scéal (that’s the story).😀

Laters.