Data in the wild part 1 (weeknote: 2024/10/21-2024-10/27)

The first of 2 weeks spending time out of the office to connect with the Data Community in and around the GC

Will switching my writing day to Sunday make it more likely for me to actually do weeknotes? Might as well try it.

Going to try playing with different formats to lower my own expectations for needing to write something profound. This was not suppose to turn into a major writing project, Heidi!! Who me, unnecessarily overcomplicating things? Never.

Table of Contents

• 3 Highlights

• 3 Weak Signals & Rabbit Holes

• 3 Events

• Evergreen resource links

This week’s highlights

1. A new laptop, e-waste, and open source

2. Attending AccelerateGov

3. Prepping for DAMA Days

A New Laptop, e-waste, and open source

It was a packed week with AccelerateGov on Monday, colleagues visiting the NCR, and a ton of meetings. Next week, the forecast looks similarly full with DAMA Days on Thursday and Friday and I do need to find some time between meetings to do some deep work on projects like the Data Maturity Assessment and developing community based learning.

With weeks to go until Christmas break and doing 4 days a week in the office so that I can work from home to keep my immuno-compromised family sick during the Christmas holidays, it would be great if the pressure could be turned down a bit on the fire hose of Things To Do. Ooh, though I do have an extended weekend to look forward to at the end of November as well to go see the Taylor Swift Eras Tour in Toronto.

I think enough of our bosses were at FWD50 Executive Cohort that there was a suspicious void of meetings on Friday so I took a much needed personal day. Just don’t remind me of consequences of a lost day of work… It took a few hours to talk myself into it Thursday night to try and stave off a bigger crash later if I didn’t take time to rest.

However… the thing about having my special interests for my job… is that a lot of the things I would choose to do for fun end up being … the same sometimes 🤣 I’ll have to work on better separation. At the moment, I’m in a low tide period when it comes to my main offline hobbies of knitting and crocheting so not feeling very inspired to work on some of those projects.

Speaking of which, this next part is a fork off of my existing interest in pursuing as sustainable of a wardrobe as possible (given resource limitations) through both making, natural fibres, and repairing what I already had.

I've been pondering over the environmental impacts of our electronic devices, particularly as we replace them at an increasingly frequent rate and often times "interesting" design choices prevent repair/reuse (eg. voiding warranty, soldering components so they can't be removed, non-standard parts, etc). Considering that the last time I've bought a computer for personal use was .... over 10 years ago, until recently, I figured the best solution is continuing to use computer I already had.

But lately, I had been thinking about getting a personal device set up again. My previous use case of basic word processing/internet browsing has now been overtaken by

1. wanting to experiment directly with open source software and the variously hyped AI to better understand the bill of goods being pushed onto us

2. becoming really really into the idea of building a Personal Knowledge Repository/Knowledge Management System

3. eventually wanting to move toward doing original research.

   1. Don’t quote me on this later, but I’ve been really considering pursuing a MLIS and eventually, a PhD in Public Policy. I’d love to bring together the data and policy parts of my brain while exploring my more recent love of doing research/participating in knowledge creation. Have you done either before? I’d love to hear more, particularly about how to pursuing it while working and considering starting a family.

After a bit of research, we found what is reportedly the brand with the highest repairability score on the market: frame.work.

In fact, the company notes that they are proponents of the "right to repair" movement. I got the Framework Laptop 13 (as in inches, there's also a 16" available). It's intended to be entirely modular, easy to disassemble, repair, or replace/upgrade parts rather than the entire device. So while no computer is going to be 100% sustainable, it aims to reduce the amount of e-waste generated by a single user in the long run.

Zan and I went for an entirely do-it-yourself kit to both spent time together and get an idea of what the insides of a computer looks like. Hardware is not really a huge interest, but it was fascinating to learn more.

The DIY laptop was also bringing your own operating system. I'm particularly interested in Open Source/Open Standards First approach, but this has primarily been within the scope of digital government. This was the nudge I needed to finally give Linux a try in my personal life. So far ... not really a noticeable difference since I just chose a desktop environment (Gnome) that feels to me to be somewhere between MacOS and Windows.

I did have to face my deep deep trepidation of doing anything through the command line (lest I end up with a very fancy brick) to get ArchLinux installed. So let's call what we did "pair programming" rather than me asking Zan to triple check every line I typed in for about 4 hours ;)

This weekend has been very exciting times getting myself set up and exploring other open source software to replace the usual M365 subscription... Anyone have any favourites to share?

Attending AccelerateGov

Like I mentioned, the team spent the day at AccelerateGov last Monday. It gave us a great opportunity to catch up with a bunch of our MOU partners, familiar faces, and new friends alike. It was particularly great meeting colleagues who are usually located elsewhere in the country. You may recognize the cut out face in the photos below I brought with me as the same colleague who could not attend a field trip to the Library and Archives Preservation Centre with us. This conference sadly coincided with him being officially off on exciting new adventures with a new team so we had to make sure he was still represented. Congrats on joining the illustrious GCDC alumni club, you'll never be rid of us!

I got to meet some of my public service heroes, including Ima Okonny! She’s the Chief Data Officer of ESDC, is leading the first branch level Chief Data Office, and regularly one of my favourite speakers at these types of events.

The 3 topics I'm ruminating on after hearing from a bunch of smart people on and off stage is:

1. the flow between knowledge, information, data, people, and systems

2. earning trust vs earning back from mistrust in order to facilitate data collection/use

3. data ownership vs data stewardship in a government context.

These topics will likely reappear in future under “weak signals and rabbit holes” section as I ruminate on my takeaways.

My director, Chris, started off the day being deeply embarrassed by our shenanigans, but seemed to have ended the day at acceptance. Or maybe resignation.

Prepping for DAMA Days III (Tokyo Drift)

Next Thursday and Friday, I’ll be at the old Spotify headquarters for annual conference hosted by the NCR chapter of the Global Data Management Community. There are 3 spaces left for registration so message me if you would like a “friend of a speaker discount code”. Oh! I will also be attending the networking night next Wednesday to meet everyone before the conference itself.

I’m slightly hoping, but also deeply fearful that no one will show up because I’m on at the same time as Dominic Parent for “Charting the future: The New Chief Data Officer Blueprint” lol.

I will be speaking on day 2 on “Analogue Tools for Digital Change: Teaching Data with Arts and Crafts”. The focus of my presentation is to share the case study of the Data Art workshop that I’ve tested a few times. The last few weeks have been spent putting the draft together and practicing.

I’ve also refined the learning outcomes since I last write about this:

At the end of the presentation, I hope you will be able to: 

• Make the connection between art, data, and AI.

• Identify the interaction between curiosity, play, and emotion to enabling significant learning and data literacy.

• Critically reflect on hegemonic ideas about data and digital transformation and start imagining inclusive and human centred futures.

Presenting from a slide deck is really not very comfortable for me compared to speaking more conversationally, going with the flow of the conversation. Basically, I like to improv… I find it to be very generative of new ideas. I do end up going off on tangents without some structure though.

I’ve been a bit too precious about the content the first 2 times I’ve practiced it. I had a realization over the weekend that by keeping so much material in the presentation, I was actually cutting down on the time I could be spending in dialogue with whoever does come. This made it easier to lose about 10 slides from the original 50 (face palm).

I think wanting to put a ton of content is also a reaction to some of the virtual audiences I’ve presented in front of where the audiences are frequently… not actually listening. It makes for very awkward moments when there’s no engagement for questions and all the cameras are off and your staring at yourself. This is probably not an issue for a conference that you had to sign up and get your butt in transport to attend.

The aim now is to get it down to about 30 minutes or less and leave room for a Q&A. I have another practice run scheduled for Tuesday Oct 29. Let me know if you’re interested in seeing the talk and helping me with some feedback! Open also asynchronous feedback on the presentation if you feel like it.

Weak signals & rabbit holes

Quick explanation for this section: Weak signals are “signs that something new is occurring that could disrupt the system in unexpected ways”. I spend a lot of time scanning the horizon and the environment to keep up with the data field. In this section, I will be sharing both what I’m engaging with now, keeping an eye on for the future, or what I wish more people would be talking about. So it felt like a fitting title for the place where I share the things I’m reading as I fall down deep rabbit holes and turning over rocks on emerging areas where resources are still scarce or non-existence.

1. I talked about taking a much needed personal day above and a post on LinkedIn reminded me of this book I’ve had on my wish list for a while: “Rest as resistance” a manifesto by the founder of The Nap Ministry.

2. Independent Senator Colin Deacon posted this week about Bill C-27 Digital Charter Implementation Act which is looking less and less likely to make it past the committee stage before a certain democratic event. It has been undergoing a clause-by-clause review by a House of Commons Committee since September 2023. International Association of Privacy Professionals published this post speculating on whether “Ahead of 2025 federal election, will Canada pass Bill C-27?” I have to confess, I have not been following this bill all that closely in the past year. I did start doing some research and writing around regulating AI/data/privacy, but the usual things got in the way, so more time to be spent on legal landscape at some point in future.

3. I saw this post with a very interesting case where generative AI use was not necessarily malicious nor obviously unethical, but still represents a way in which it perpetuates sexist expectations:

I'm talking at a conference next month (on UX+AI).
Yesterday, I saw an ad for it with my photo and something didn’t look right.

Was my bra always showing on my profile pic and I'd never noticed? Weird...

So I opened my original photo. Nope. No bra showing. I put the two photos side by side and I was like WTF. Someone edited my photo to unbutton my blouse and reveal a made-up hint of a bra or something else underneath. 😒

Upcoming events

1. IM Backstage Pass on November 12, 2024 1-3pm ET (virtual): Participants will gain practical strategies on implementing best practices for the long-term use and integrity of information and preserving the value and accessibility of digital records.

2. GC INNOVEX GC 2024: What if? on November 19, 2024 from 12:30pm to 4pm (hybrid): Participants will learn about best practices, practical applications and proven methods of advancing innovation in public sector policies, programs, and processes.

3. Policy and Service Conference: Delivering Impact Through Collaboration on November 13 and 14, 2024 (hybrid): Participants will gain a better understanding of the policy-service continuum and will be exposed to opportunities for greater collaboration, real world examples of good service and policy integration, and how to leverage evidence, user-centred design, and multidisciplinary approaches to deliver impactful results.

4. Every Wednesday at 11am until December 31, 2024, I am pilot testing and hosting a Data Community Drop-in Office Hour (virtual). This is a peer-to-peer learning opportunity where those working in and around data in the GC can seek advice, troubleshoot their data problems, and network to identify potential collaborations or connection to support data work across silos. Download the invite to the series, and see the dates of all upcoming GC Data Community events, from our GCXchange page (internal link).

Evergreen resource list

• Connect with over 6,000 data people to share resources and job opportunities in the GC Data - Informal/Unofficial Facebook Group

• If these weekly posts are not enough, here are almost 800 links to fill your heart. This is a data resource repository I maintain to keep track of all the things I looked at or relevant to doing data in government. The curation is skewed toward things I am interested in or am actively working on.