This was a work-free week.
I only opened the computer once for work purposes.
Slowly travelling back from the Helsinki Conference 2024, I took a ferry and various trains to get from Helsinki to Stockholm, from Stockholm to Malmö, from Malmö to Hamburg, and from Hamburg to Berlin. It was terrific.
When you decide to travel back slowly from your #GovDesign conference, you get terrific views across the Nordics. And save plenty of CO₂. 🇫🇮 Helsinki to Stockholm by overnight ferry ⛴️ 🇸🇪 Stockholm to Malmö by #train 🚅 🇸🇪 Malmö to Copenhagen by train 🚆 🇩🇰 Copenhagen to Berlin by train 🚄 via Hamburg 🎻
— Martin Jordan (@martinjordan.com) October 13, 2024 at 11:39 PM
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Meeting with gov design folks over coffee
In Malmö, I met with Eze from the city government. As he co-led the Helsinki conference, I gave him all the posters I had designed, printed and then carried back. He deserves them so much more than I do, and he probably has a better use for them, too.
I also gave him a dozen more Service Gazettes to share within his department and beyond. With the copies arriving so late last week, I will have to do further mailouts in the coming days.
On Sunday morning, I also met with Harry Vos for breakfast. He left GDS and the GOV.UK Forms team 2 years ago. We caught up on our lives and briefly discussed diversity in our current organisations. I mentioned to him that we are planning to run an employee demographics survey – similar to the one he, Clara Greo, Adam Robertson, and Martin Lugton described in their blog post.
With both Eze and Harry, I discussed how we are all interested in understanding where the Danish government’s designers are and why they never show up for community events. While Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland colleagues are all pretty engaged, we have heard little to nothing from Denmark. We will all investigate because Denmark is too advanced in its digital government transformation journey to be left alone. We should be able to learn plenty from them.
More Nordic gov design events are likely in the coming years, and I am very much looking forward to supporting them and the fine folks behind them.
What’s next
A lot! I have hundreds of emails waiting in my inbox, and I am sure there are the same number of Slack messages.
On Tuesday, I will welcome 2 new starters: user researchers Lena and Leonie. Before leaving Helsinki, I sent them little welcome packages from Finland, including freshly printed newspapers.
We will have our delivery offsite on Wednesday. I will have to see what the others did in my absence and make preparations, including finishing the slides and printed material needed.
On Thursday, the Digital Council of the State of Saxony-Anhalt will meet. This time, it’s not in Magdeburg but, conveniently, in Berlin. The minister herself will attend the Smart Country Convention, so we will all meet there. I might also have to contribute to a talk at the same event.