gds – Terence Eden’s Blog

Reflections on four years in the Civil Service

@edent — Sat, 10 Oct 2020 09:10:34 +0000

Four years ago today, I turned up in Holborn for my first day at GDS - Government Digital Service.

I've now experienced two Prime Ministers (Primes Minister?), two departments, and one pandemic. So I thought I'd take a look back at some highlights and lowlights.

I've worked for half-a-dozen brilliant managers, helped create a new department, represented the UK at events in Brussels & Beijing, done a bunch of blogs and podcasts, advised Chief Advisors and Ministers, helped open source a rather important app, and got to pet Larry The Cat. I've worked with some fantastic teams, mentored a couple of people and seen them grow beyond what they thought possible, and I've tried to spend more time listening than I do speaking.

Not bad!

It hasn't all been sunshine-and-roses though.

I've experienced the delights of two sets of Purdah / Pre Election Period - both of which interrupted fairly vital work. I've had to bite my tongue as Twitter exploded with rage about a fairly simple misunderstanding. I was castigated in the trade press. I've had training courses cancelled due to budgetary wrangles. I've had to loudly tell a racist to pipe down, and quietly tell myself to stop saying "guys" quite so much.

But the good outweighs the bad. It was a bit odd moving from a giant telco to the Civil Service. But the truth is, all big organisations are alike in their inefficiencies and peculiarities. There's no magic spell that the private sector has to improve performance, and there's no magic camaraderie in the public sector - we're all just people trying to do our best.

After 18 months seconded to NHSX, I'm now back in GDS working in the Data Standards Authority. I get a real sense of accomplishment knowing that our team is helping lay the groundwork for a better, and more efficient, data-led government.

If this year has shown anything, it's that no one can adequately plan for the future. I'm pretty sure I'm happy where I am, and I don't regret my career choices. I'm becoming more aware of my limitations - and want to see how I can improve myself. The question isn't "what's next"; it's "how do I get to next?"

Week Notes - Two Years at GDS

@edent — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 07:00:16 +0000

As of today, I've been employed by GDS for two years. Time for some reflections.

The Big

Working for the government isn't much different from working for a large business. I know people harp on about the inefficiency of the public sector - I can only assume those people haven't seen how much money FTSE100 companies waste on nonsense.

The work is important. Don't get me wrong, I loved my time selling ringtones to kids, and telling publishing companies that mobile apps were cool - but there's a real sense that I'm helping. I know I'm not saving lives, but I am nudging things in a more open and equitable direction. That feels amazing.

It's a cliché to say that the people are what makes a job - but it is true. Such a wonderful set of humans - diverse in opinion and outlook.

The Small

Expenses and payroll systems are annoying. Not much more so than in previous jobs, but enough to make me grind my teeth. I've been partly successful in agitating for change, but it is slow going.

I'm on my 6th line manager in two years. That's a bit troubling from a continuity perspective but, in truth, I don't feel like it has held me back.

There's a stack of blog posts I can't write. The Civil Service Code (rightly) prevents me from being too political. It can be frustrating at times not to join in with the global discussion - but it is probably better for my emotional state.

The Future

I was originally on a two year contract. That was upgraded last year to a permanent role.

Do I want to stay here? That's a tough question. I've applied for a couple of Civil Service jobs in the last few months. One was ridiculously ambitious - which I didn't even get an interview for, but was helpful in making me understand the process. The other - which included a secondment in San Francisco - I was interviewed for, but I knew immediately that it wasn't for me.

I'm in love with my mission. Make every aspect of the government use open standards by default. But it is tough. Gov is big and some people fear change. The job will never finish. There will always be a department which doesn't get it, or a sales-weasel who foists a proprietary solution on an unsophisticated team, or simply an employee who doesn't want to change their workflow.

I know it is a matter of when, not if, I get too frustrated to continue.

For now? Onwards!

Please don't print this weeknote

@edent — Sun, 16 Sep 2018 11:09:24 +0000

I asked a question in a meeting a few days ago. "What if we just banned Civil Servants from printing anything?"

To be clear, this wasn't an entirely serious proposal. But it's how I like to frame a discussion about available option when making a decision:

Can we just stop doing this thing?
What if we don't change anything?
Option 1...
Option 2...
...

We can't ban printers. Some people like printing (who knew‽) and some people even need to print. But it helps us to understand user-needs by asking what would happen if you took away the thing you're talking about.

That turned into a productive session on what needs we could fulfil, and which ones we couldn't. Whether eliminating printing was an inevitability and, if so, on what timescales. What do users want from printing that they don't already get - and how complicated standards in the space are.

We decided not to throw out all the printers - you'll be pleased to know.

PDF Stats

The sorry state of PDF usability continues to dog me. Again, I do understand some of the desire to have a "print ready" copy. But most of the user-needs turn out to be myths:

Users can't edit a PDF after publishing. MYTH!
It's easy to do a diff between two PDFs. MYTH!
Blind people don't want to read what we publish. MYTH!
Interactive PDFs work everywhere. MYTH!
People love PDFs. Hmmm jury's out on that one.

Hopefully next week I can post some proper stats on how many open-format documents are uploaded each week but, sad to say, PDF still dominates.

Is this a losing battle?

Reading List

What books I've read this week. Affiliate links ahead.

Fiction

The Atrocity Archives: Book 1 in The Laundry Files - Charles Stross
- I met Stross in a crypt in London several years ago. He was unknown to me as an author, so I brashly asked him what he'd written. He politely told me "quite a lot" and he suggested I start with Halting State. I've been a fan ever since.
  I picked up The Atrocity Archives because it was a quid on Amazon - and I wish I'd read it sooner. Deliciously demonic, BOFH meets Alien. Sure, the computing references are a bit dated now - but that just gives me a huge nostalgia kick. Fab.

Non-Fiction

How to be a Woman - Caitlin Moran
- I got halfway through reading this before I remembered that I'd read it before. According to my tweet, I read it in conjunction with a different Stross book. What unlikely bedfellows!

Week Notes - Sick Note

@edent — Sat, 08 Sep 2018 13:37:38 +0000

Bleugh! After an amazing time at #EMFcamp, I succumbed to the post-festival lurgy. So this week is mostly brought to you by Vick Vapour Rub and Kleenex 🤧 🤧 🤧

Presenting

I was honoured to be asked to visit the National Archives in Kew to talk about AI strategy. The whole event was streamed and you can jump to my bit at 5 hours, 5 minutes.

Accessibility

Not strictly my job, but I got roped into a very depressing conversation about accessibility. Websites have to be accessible - that's literally the law - so it's upsetting to speak to people in other departments who just don't get it.

"Surely that doesn't apply to us?" - yes, yes it does.
"We don't have the time for this!" - tough.
"Do blind people even use our website?" - OMG!

ARGH! I think we mostly convinced them that accessibility is a priority, but I'm sad that we're still running up against objections.

In Print

The Economist mentioned me in their recent story about BlockChain hype. They're referencing my Leonardo da Vinci prank from earlier this year.

Reading List

What books I've read this week. Affiliate links ahead.

Fiction

Stranger Things Happen - Kelly Link
- A bizarre and inventive series of short stories. Each one of which I'd've happily read as a novel. Perfect mix of Gaiman and Lovecraft. I picked this up in a Humble Bundle years ago - and I wish I'd read it sooner.

Non-Fiction

Secrets Of The National Archives - Richard Taylor
- A gift from the TNA, and one of my few "paper" books" It's a fine ramble through some of the fascinating documents. Like being given a behind the scenes tour of the archive, fully of fun little nuggets. I'd love an ebook version so I could zoom into the lush images.
Revolution in the Age of Social Media. The Egyptian Popular Insurrection and the Internet - Linda Herrera
- Starts off weakly, assuming the reader is familiar with the then current situation in Egypt - but it quickly improves. I knew shamefully little about Egypt's recent history. This is as much a book about marketing, branding, and state sponsored intervention as it is about social media. A vital read.

Week Notes 5

@edent — Fri, 31 Aug 2018 12:37:26 +0000

Short week! Monday was a bank holiday (mostly recovering from my mate Pete's wedding) and Friday was off to EMF Camp.

But, I managed to get some work done!

And the accompanying blog post

NHS

Majority of my time spend on helping run a design sprint for improving some NHS processes with Data Science. At my dark moments, I wonder if we can ever break free of the inefficiencies of paper and fax.

Standards

Submitted a request to The European Multi Stakeholder Platform (MSP) - the expert advisory group on ICT standardisation - for HTML5. We have to make sure that modern standards are quickly adopted and promoted.

Bugs

A little quirk with XML files. Not an earth-shattering bug, but it annoyed me. Fixed by Deborah Chua.

Reading List

What books I've read this week. Thanks to Net Galley for some of the review copies. Affiliate links ahead.

Fiction

Edna's Death Cafe - Angelena Boden
- An unconvincing soap-opera of a novel. The dialogue is sub-Archers and the "twist" is shocking to no one. There's a beautiful gem of a story in here - revolving around how we talk about death and dying. But it is smothered in a dappy plot.

Non-Fiction

Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up - Tom Phillips
- A supremely daft account of how humans have managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Written in a convivial style which is supremely tweetable. Some of the examples were already known to me, but were no less entertaining.
Mini & Me - Michael Cooper
- I watched the shocking documentary about young arsonist, "Mini" Cooper. His autobiography is tragic and frustrating. Constantly battling for self-control, it paints a picture of an abused lad trapped in a hellscape of care. And yet, it also shows a man who refuses to engage with the help he is offered and continually makes the wrong choices. A passionate and articulate writer. A complicated and, at times, unsympathetic character.
Soonish - Ten Emerging Technologies That Will Improve and/or Ruin Everything - Dr. Kelly Weinersmith; Zach Weinersmith
- Only a couple of preview chapters - but that was enough. A light-weight, folksy explanation of some cutting edge science. Peppered with SMBC cartoons, it attempts to Make! Science! Fun! But I found it a bit tedious and forced.

Weeknotes 4

@edent — Sat, 25 Aug 2018 07:02:29 +0000

Welcome back! These are my brief thoughts on what I've been working on this week.

Work

Blogging! I've written two new blog posts for GDS. I love blogging - but I sometimes shy away from doing it for work. I naïvely think I write practically perfect prose - and then a team of brilliant editors descend. They always leave my words looking better - but I struggle with the resentment of any writer who sees their precious words being reworked.

I know! I know! "Kill your darlings!" But it's easier to say than do.

There's also the issue of writing by committee. On this, my personal blog, I'm beholden to no one. On a work blog... Yeah... So I get a group of people worrying about whether each sentence matches policy.

It ends up in a better product, without doubt. But it can be frustrating.

Standards! Work continues apace. Chatting with the MoD about datasets and a totally different department about digital data standards in chicken production! This job is nothing if not varied.

We're also looking at STIX, TAXII, and 360Giving. I'm keeping on top of everything - but I sometimes dream about a website which lets cyber defence systems exchange metadata on farmyard animals...

Statistics! Busting out my R-fu to comb through three months of download stats. Finding some interesting (and some depressing) results. Can't quite ban PDF just yet - but looking at some quick wins. Gratifying to see that ODF is taking off in some places. But it is a long slog - and repeating myself is tiresome.

Mastodon! I've started using my account there in earnest. I know that it'll become the same as Twitter eventually - all networks do. But I'm enjoying the feeling of freshness and loving the decentralised philosophy.

I've released a couple of bots on there as well.

Reading List

What books I've read this week. Affiliate links ahead.

Fiction

Ancillary Justice - Ann Leckie
- I struggled a bit with this. It's a good story, but I found it confusing. One of the few books where I wished for more exposition! It also suffers from being remarkably similar to The Culture series of novels. Sentient space ships, a galaxy-spanning civilisation, a lone protagonist cut off from the tribe. It's a good, long slice of Sci-Fi, but a bit hard work.

Non-Fiction

The Princess Diarist - Carrie Fisher
- A slim but poignant autobiography. Her Highness has such a gift with words and phrases ("you're my Achilles heart") that you'll be swept along without realising that it's mostly just a string of well worn anecdotes. Still, who am I to complain?

Weeknotes 3

@edent — Sat, 18 Aug 2018 08:58:04 +0000

Work

A light-ish week - which allowed me to concentrate on my backlog. If you're getting a reply from an email you sent last year, sorry! Actually, that's not true - since switching to Google's Inbox I've found it much easier to keep on top of things. Being able to snooze mails and mark them as done is so helpful to my workflow. My only wish is that I could organise mails by folder.

Sad news that David Pearson died.

A constant presence at GovCamps - always remembered for his beautiful photos and his forthright conversations. A bitter loss to the community.

I finally got someone from MOD to open an issue on GitHub! This is perhaps more of a symbolic point. We could accept issues via email - but that's not very open. It also means that we waste time passing emails back and forth then copying them to GitHub. Bleh! Working though the Department of No is quite an important part of this job.

W3C stuff still rumbles on - syncing up with WHATWG version. I have thoughts about this which are probably best expressed over a beer. I wrote a work blog about living standards which is now going through the editing and publishing process.

Writing apps for Alexa, Bixby, Google, Cortana, etc is a pain in the arse. So I've started up a W3C Community Group to discuss if there's any way to standardise development.

This is important for Government. Our users say they want to access services via Voice Assistants - but it is expensive to build them repeatedly. And we can't easily discriminate between devices.

NHS. Heading into London when Westminster is on a security lock-down is always an odd experience. Weird seeing the capital so quiet. Relatively glad that I don't usually work in this area of the city.

Google AMP. I'm not a fan - understatement of the year - but I had a great conversation with Tobie Langel about it. Tobie is one of those people who deeply gets why communities are important, and why standards matter. Lots to think about.

I got through to the next round of the Future Leaders Scheme. Last year I flunked the aptitude tests massively. Well, not that massively, but it showed me where my weaknesses were, and I've been trying to improve. So, wish me and Sam Villis luck!

And, finally, I didn't get the job I went for. I'm happy where I am, and the work I'm doing is meaningful to me. The new role would have been massively disruptive to my personal life and might have been too much for me to do. So I'm mildly relieved. At least, that's what I keep telling myself. It's important to fail. Partly it's about building up emotional scar tissue, toughening yourself up so you're less fearful of rejection. But it is also a great way to clarify exactly what you want out of life. The humility also helps, I guess!

Reading List

What I've read this week. Affiliate links ahead.

Fiction

The Sudden Appearance of Hope - Claire North
- I loved Claire's "First 15 Lives" book - and this is more in the same vein. A (possibly autistic, definitely poetic) woman is utterly forgettable. Crimes and high-jinks ensue. The techno-thriller, Facebook-is-evil plot is laid on a bit thick, but it's a cracking read.

Non-Fiction

Pleasure of Finding Things Out - Richard Feynman
- Another set of collected works. Naturally a bit repetitive. Some of these are transcripts of talks which really don't work well when written down.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot
- Incredible and disturbing. What rights do you have over your body. Does consent matter if your body can save the world? Yes, yes it does. I found the emotional content hard to deal with. I found the intense actions and reactions of some of the people involved more frightening than the bioethical concerns.

Week Notes 2

@edent — Sat, 11 Aug 2018 06:56:53 +0000

Covering 2 weeks of holiday and 1 week of work. This is how I've spent my time...

Talks

The lovely folk at JS Oxford invited me to talk about my recent experiments with SVG.

Headlining the bill was the brilliant Nicky Thompson with her talk about CSS shapes.

Work

Mostly deleting emails, as is appropriate after a holiday. As for the rest...

Bugs in publishing.
- As part of my quest to ensure all government documents are open, I occasionally come across quirks like this.
Better ODF guidance.
- One continual (and justified) complaint we got was around letting users know what software they can use to view ODT/ODS files. Now, every file has a link telling users what software is available for Mac, Windows, Linux, Android, iOS, etc.
Dual publishing for ODF.
- I've been going around speaking to departments to make sure they know that they have to use ODF. Some are now publishing in both XLS and ODS! Brilliant!
Welsh.
- GDS has a statutory obligation to support the Welsh language. However, I've noticed that the HTML5 attribute lang="cy" is inconsistently applied. That can make it hard for screen-readers and other tools to realise they're looking at a different language. Issue raised, hopefully fixed soon. Rwy'n gobeithio y gall cyfrifiaduron ddarllen y Gymraeg yn fuan!
Unicode.
- The Open Standards Board originally fixed our approved standard as Unicode 6.2 - we wanted to update it to Unicode 11. This is about more than emoji - there's a bunch of internationalisation stuff which is really useful. Board approved the change, so now we're just updating things and communicating the change.
W3C stuff.
- Having done a huge bunch of editing on HTML5.3, I'm now taking a small step back. I need to get more people in government interested in joining working groups.
Job interview.
- I like to apply for interesting looking jobs - even though I'm happy where I am. It's a good excuse to brush up my CV. I'm enormously grateful to the people in my office who gave me a mock interview. I highly recommend getting friends and colleagues to practice with.

Reading List

I took a fortnight off. Literally all I did was read books and binge-watch Doctor Who. Bliss. Here's my reading list. I tend to alternate between fiction and non-fiction. Amazon affiliate links ahead...

Non-Fiction

Made by Humans - Ellen Broad
- My old pal Ellen has written a marvellous book about AI and the human foundations of its data. It is the most compelling & timely book on the intersection of AI, policy, ethics, and law. Well researched and perfectly argued
NASA Open Government Plan
- Good overview of how different departments in NASA are adapting to the Open Revolution. A little repetitive, and probably mostly of interest to space nerds and standards geeks like me.
Tomorrowland: Our Journey from Science Fiction to Science Fact - Steven Kotler
- A fun romp through some near-future gazing. The author is too credulous at times, a dissenting or sceptical view is rarely sought. An odd emphasis on religion in some places which I found off-putting.
Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work - Alex Williams
- Almost unreadable. The sort of book which mistakes polysyllabism for intellectual rigour. Some words were just made up, and some sentences I had to read multiple times to comprehend. I'm sure there's a kernel of a good argument in there, but it's buried too far beneath the convoluted syntax.
Never Split the Difference - Chris Voss
- What can an FBI hostage negotiator teach you about communication in business? A slightly silly book - lots of gung-ho adventures - but a decent primer on negotiation. What I most admired was, unlike many other business books, the author talks about his failures.
The Second Machine Age - Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies - Erik Brynjolfsson
- Brings home the fact that - if all robotic predictions come true - the world could be scary. What are the risks and opportunities. I can't say I learned anything new - but it helped crystallise my thoughts around the future of work. More on that later!
The Boy Who Could Change the World - selected writings of Aaron Swartz
- A time-capsule. Some of the essays are still relevant, some are deeply of their time. I'm not sure if I'd want to be judged by the posts I wrote when I was a teenager. Beautiful writing, but it put me in mind of this Jay Foreman song.

Fiction

Early Riser - Jasper Fforde
- An orphan, living in a quirky Britain, takes on a perilous quest, with quirky characters, and quirky dialogue, and quirky footnotes. A pleasant read - but nothing new for Fforde fans.
The Dark Forest (The Three-Body Problem Book 2) - Cixin Liu
- Epic sci-fi. It had been too long since I read the first book, so I struggled a bit to remember the complex plot. The second half is superb, absolutely breathtaking.
Hag-Seed - Margaret Atwood
- Astonishing. Just the most ridiculously fun mix of madness and prison caper.
Lock In - John Scalzi
- I usually love Scalzi's work - but this fell a little flat with me. In a world where people can take over other bodies, detectives struggle to solve a case. Spoiler - someone took over someone else's body.
The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock - Imogen Hermes Gowar
- Perfect! A delightful blend of historic accuracy, bawdy tales, and mystical revelations. Reminiscent of Tracy Chevalier in the way it mixes fact and fiction - and that's no bad thing. And I've just realised that Imogen, Tracy, and I all went to UEA - albeit at different times.

If you've written a book - let me know!

Week Notes - July 2018

@edent — Fri, 20 Jul 2018 06:15:23 +0000

I've never written a Week Note before, but I was encouraged to do so after an excellent session at the One Team Gov Global conference. Here, in the spirit of openness is what I've been up to, and what I've got wrong in the last few weeks.

NHS Open Source

A four hour train journey to Newcastle - and four hours back. But so worth it. Chatting to NHS BSA about their plans to open source some of their existing software and to start coding in the open! It's not going to be whizz-bang-shiney beat-cancer code - but it begins the transition to letting people see where their money is going, how their services are being run, and - I hope - will encourage other departments to share and re-use. Win!

NHS Data Science

A less traumatic journey to Central London. My usual fare of interjecting the discussion with "OPEN SOURCE!" and occasionally "OPEN STANDARDS!" I try not to shout - but I get over excited by these things.

NCSC - shhhh!

Having some user-research done on me. I'm sure there's a better term... participant! I participated in user research for a new NCSC "thing".

I was slightly mean spirited. A consultancy I’d never heard of contacted me about the research. In order to screen-share, they asked me to install a “helper” application from a website starting d11yldzmag5yn...

I said "no" - assuming that it was part of the test. I was wrong! We settled on Hangouts.

Great service - and I'm glad I stuck by my principles not to install dodgy looking apps.

BEIS Statisticians

Part of my Sisyphean task to stop people publishing important data in closed file formats. I went slideless. I'm just so bored of PowerPoint - even the stuff I've created. Turns out, I've done this talk so often that I don't need slides. Perhaps I can give them up for good? Anyway, lots of good questions about the practicality of moving to ODF. Some challenging - almost antagonistic - push back. That's fair. I'm able to defend these ideas. But I do need to get better at responding more diplomatically.

#OneTeamGovGlobal

I volunteered for this - so was facilitating five sessions, including the one that prompted this blog post!

Exhausting, but useful. Have some Tweets.

OLEV

An intersection of my interests - electric cars and open standards!

Can we find a standard for electric vehicle charging point location information?

HELL YES!

Applying for FLS

The Future Leaders Scheme in the Civil Service. I totally failed to get through last year. Cocked up the tests completely. Wasn't sure whether I wanted to put myself though it again. But... fuck it. Better to try and fail (repeatedly) than go all "I coulda beena contenda!"

Reading List

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking - by Susan Cain
- I think I'm an introvert. I found a lot to disagree with in this book. Some of the science seemed flakey and it relied on outdated nonsense like MBTI. That said, it did challenge some of my preconceptions on how I - and others - behave.
Digital Transformation at Scale: Why the Strategy Is Delivery
- The inside story of GDS (my current employers). Avoided being too self-congratulatory by being honest about some of their failures. A useful primer for people working here, or wanting to kickstart something similar.
The Open Revolution - Rufus Pollock.
- A quick read aiming to convince the unbelievers of the necessity of "open". I didn't learn anything new from it - but contains some good arguments to deploy against institutions which seek to preserve their closed nature. Free as a ePub.
One More Chance - Lucy Ayrton
- Not my usual fare! Fiction about a single-mum trapped in prison. Exciting and provocative look at the justice system from an author who really gets the subject. Well worth reading.
Iain M. Banks - Culture.
- I'm working my way through these. I was underwhelmed by "Consider Phlebas" - but the others have been rollicking sci-fi fun. Gone through the first four, might take a break for a bit.

And Breathe

I'm on holiday for two weeks, so my next notes will be delayed.

Did you find these interesting? Let me know!