Week 90

A return to week notes after more than five years.¹

• This week was another of what’s quickly become my standard routine: four days in Canberra for work and back to Sydney for the remainder. But not for much longer as we’re moving soon. (And we bought a car!)

• I was pleased to see the announcement that the railways in Great Britain will be folded under a new common brand. It includes a network-wide rollout of Rail Alphabet 2, an updated version of Margaret Calvert and Jock Kinneir’s original Rail Alphabet. Here’s a video of the new wayfinding design system by Spaceagency.

• In other UK government news, GDS have a new strategy. After a few years in the trenches it’s nice to see GDS with a clearer focus and a stronger remit for delivery.

  The highlights for me are a rebooted GOV.UK Submit, a commitment to develop “whole services” around life journeys (which will be one to watch from here in Australia), and a growing hub in Manchester. Oh - and a section titled “Where we won’t be focusing” - not seen often enough in government strategy.

• After coming across it in Frances’ week notes, I picked up a copy of Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard. It’s a whistle-stop tour of organisational and societal change approaches that hit both the rational and emotional sides of our brain, and a very easy and accessible read.

• And a good week for RSS, as Chrome for Android gets a new ‘follow’ feature based on RSS feeds. I still count myself part of the RSS massive. (Here’s the feed for my blog posts if you’re interested.)