Week 144

Before I get started, I want to congratulate Pete on his new baby who was born last Sunday. The news came as a happy surprise to us all, mainly because none of us had any idea that he had a wife, let alone that she was pregnant. Nonetheless, all the best to baby Olivia and the whole family.

For the rest of us it’s been a busy week yet again for us all. Well, all of us except Chris, who’s been sunning himself in Fuerteventura. It’s the one week in the year where his standard uniform of t-shirt, beach shorts and flip-flops will fit right in. No doubt he’ll be wearing a suit instead.

On Tuesday we were interviewed by Ana from the Brazilian Globo TV about our work on Chromaroma. Jase, James Adam and I went down to our new office, both to work and be filmed. We got James to answer all the questions, while Jase and I pretended to look busy in the background. After my last experience of being videoed, I wanted to stay as far from the camera as I could manage.

Thursday saw Jason give a talk at the UKUPA, about how we run a team without leadership. It was very well received, and I’d like to think he’s inspired a few more people to run their companies like ours.

In between these talks and interviews, we’ve been making a lot of progress on our whitehall app. We’ve been wrestling with and solving a number of questions, such as who actually gives speeches (the minister or the person?), is a consultation deadline a time or date, and what’s the difference between the Permanent Secretary of each department and this list of Permanent Secretaries? All more subtle problems than you’d first think.

Next week will be the first time for a while that all five of us have been around. We’ll be working out of both Lambeth (with the gov.uk team) and our new office in Shoreditch, so if you’re near either of them come and say hi.

All the best until then,

Tom