Current state and mapping strategy

This week i've been continuing a piece of work doing high level current state analysis, the initial discovery is pretty much complete, so now i'm moving into refining and analysing the information that has been captured, and starting to map this to other useful information to answer questions such as 'given the state of x, what might we need to do to ensure we deliver strategic objective y?'.

Dovetail

At work we've been using Dovetail for a few months. We are early on in our usage, but its already a valuable hub of customer insight, and its AI features are actually quite useful.

Shopify and AI

The memo from Shopify's CEO stating his thinking around AI did the rounds over the last week or so:

My reflection on it is this. I've got a really healthy scepticism around the real value of current AI tooling, and a healthy concern around the environmental and ethical implications, however there are a few things i really like about the memo.

1. There is real clarity in the memo, the CEO sets out his expectations
2. The message will drive action, its not just 'here is what i think' it's 'here is what i think, and this is what i expect us to do'
3. Whilst the current tranche of AI tools presents a minefield of environmental, ethical, and value implications, the only way to navigate that mindfield now, and build the skills to assess new capabilities in the future is to engage critically with the tools available, within the context of a framework (e.g. policies, principles, governance), to discover and build the skills that will be required in the near future to really drive value when the value proposition of AI tools catch up to meet their promise.
4. The environment (permission, tools, direction) has been created for experimentation in this area.

Work that makes my brain fizz

I've been reflecting more on the types of work i do that i find exciting and that make my brain 'fizz', with a view of thinking about how i optimise my work to maximise the amount of things i do that tickle my brain in that particular way, because thats where i think i operate at my best and at my most fulfilled. I need to do more thinking on this.

Running

I did my 9th Parkrun on Saturday, at the lovely Blickling Hall. I am very happy to have managed a 24:15/24:09 (Watch time/Parkrun time), especially given the hills on the course.

Photos

After this saturday's Parkrun, i decided to walk around with my camera and take some photos. I've been learning a bit more about how to actually use the camera, rather than just keep it on auto, sitll a lot to learn, but i was pleased with some of the photos i took. I'm trying to build up a bit of a photography habit, taking a my camera with me when i go out, I really enjoy the feeling of discovery and it forcing me to be really present and really look at things in a way i wouldn't if i didn't have the camera. A few photos from Blickling are below.