Photo of Terence Eden. He has a beard and is smiling.

Regeneration: You were expecting someone else?

· 11 comments · 450 words · Viewed ~637 times.

Twenty-Twenty-Two is Twenty-Twenty-NEW. Yup - time for me to regenerate into a new job. Colin Baker's regeneration as Doctor Who. To recap - five years ago, I started at GDS in the Open Standards Team. Two-and-a-bit years later, I took a 6 months secondment to NHSX to do Open Standards. Eighteen months later, they finally let me go. I joined the Data Standards Authority to do - you guessed it - Open Standards!

I've been banging on about Open Standards for what feels like forever. I've worked with a vast array of vastly talented people. Written some well received policies and guidance. Presented to Ministers - and anyone else who'll listen. Travelled the world. All in service of Open Standards. I've had occasional forays into Open Data and Open Source. But the majority of time has been me saying "have you considered using an open standard?"0

I'm incredibly proud of all that I've achieved - both in the Civil Service and NHS - but I am a little tired. I'm weary of getting stereotyped, I'm conscious that I haven't succeed at everything I wanted1. I'm also acutely aware that it is probably time for someone else to have a go. I know I need to expand my horizons and get stuck in to something different.

So, now it is time to move on. I'm not moving very far. Still in CDDO - which is part of Cabinet Office2.

Am I part of "The Great Resignation"? I don't think so. I'm staying at the same firm. I'm staying on the same grade and salary3. I'm certainly staying in the same home-office!

My new job title? The somewhat-cumbersome "Senior Technical Architect for Domains". Basically, if it ends with .gov.uk - I'm interested. It is time for me to get my hands dirty helping people build, maintain, and protect the UK Government's domain names.

Perhaps I should have titled this blog post: "Stay calm. Just one question: Do you happen to know how to fly this thing?"

2022 is going to be different!

  1. OK, it is a bit more complicated than that. ↩︎

  2. Buy me a drink some time… ↩︎

  3. This is a personal blog etc. etc. ↩︎

  4. OK, if we're being technical, last year I was re-graded as a G7 Specialist Technical Architect at the top of the DDaT band - so I'm keeping that allowance. ↩︎

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11 thoughts on “Regeneration: You were expecting someone else?”

  11. James Body says:

    It gives me great pleasure to see you filling this position - to have someone who is clearly so passionate and knowledgeable as you in this role is very reassuring. Does this mean that we can now refer to you as ‘The .gov-ner’?
    Reply

What links here from around this blog?

  1. Terence Eden standing outside Number 10 Downing Street. Weeknotes: One Week In
  2. Still of Ncuti Gatwa as Doctor Who saying "Will someone tell me what the hell is going on?" Week Notes - "Someone tell me what the hell is going on here?"
  3. Photo of a house engulfed in flames. Photo taken by Wikimedia user LukeBam06. Soft Launching my Next Big Project - Stopping

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