Petition for more field trips as adults (Week note - May 10, 2024)
2 fields trips and a wedding memories
First weeks in a new role are always a mix of excitement and anxiety. This week was a unique mixture of being absolutely thrilled to have the opportunity to move the needle, even a little, on how we do data in the gc on a team of truly wonderful people at the individual level, and burned out and disrespected as a human at the institutional level. Feeling too tired to unpack all of it, so just linking to…
Fieldtrip to the Library and Archive’s Preservation Campus
We don’t get enough field trips as adults! The start of my new role this week and it coincided a new partnership for the team with the Library and Archives and we got to go on a tour of the Preservation Centre. It was so cool!
You might notice that we wanted to make sure our colleague who works remotely who couldn’t go was still included. I had a lot of fun thinking of ways to place him into the photos.
![Four photos showing stops along the tour of the Preservation Centre.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F50d8bce6-16d0-4de6-b325-fe461776132c_1576x2100.png)
![Four photos showing stops along the tour of the Preservation Centre.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5cd241ac-4714-4a87-844f-875a3655a89f_1393x1857.png)
![Four photos showing stops along the tour of the Preservation Centre.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F200d39bc-135a-4903-ad6f-c9b46beba817_1669x2225.png)
![Four photos showing stops along the tour of the Preservation Centre.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe7470d2f-eaa0-47da-8196-d78346c40fe2_1512x2016.jpeg)
The details of the photos are in order of left to right over two rows:
Large grates for water drainage where enormous Ravens hang out. A cut out photo of our remote working colleague is pasted onto the image to look like the Raven is flying off with him.
The team looking up at a large scale painting of a French king with our remote working colleague’s head pasted over the king’s face.
A colleague stands next to an enormous wooden globe with her hand out to show that is the same height as her. Our remote working colleague is pasted under her hand as if she is indicating his height, although in real life he is about 2 feet taller than her.
A peek into the thousands of containers of documents that can be retrieved by a robotic arm.
I highly recommend a visit, the tour guide was so incredibly knowledgeable and patient with this pack of nerds who asked a bajillion questions about it all. The general public will have a chance to see it at their Open House May 24 and 25 from 10am to 3pm.
Policy Horizon and the Federal Foresight Network’s Futures Week
Every year, the people with some of the coolest job put on an event called “Futures Week” where they explore possible futures to identify possible opportunities and challenges that lay ahead. Think in timescales of 10, 50, or 100 years from now. From the Policy Horizon’s 101:
Foresight is often confused with forecasting. Forecasting does try to predict the future. It takes data from the past and extrapolates it into the future using a variety of tools, from statistics to simulations. Expert judgements about the underlying assumptions play a very large role in the design and operation of these tools. Forecasting helps users understand the present and the most likely future (often with upper and lower limits). However, at a time when the underlying systems are changing in fundamental ways, users of forecasting should take care to confirm that the supporting assumptions are still correct.
Working in the data field, I generally deal in the realm of forecasting, but I’ve been very fascinated with foresight work. There’s so much imagination and divergent ideas involved and it’s such a fun use of my brain to think through what the world could look like and what we want the world to look like.
Below is a snapshot of some of discussions about the opportunities and challenges that might be brought about in a scenario where technology is enmeshed with our lives where we may need to pay corporations for the privilege to disconnect. My favourite part was that although we started off very dystopian, it became much more interesting to think about what resistance or optimism might look like
Reconnecting
Because of the in person day for Futures Week, I got to connect with some new people (including the rad folks of the Infinity Network who have been doing the important work of creating space for Neurodivergent Public Servants) and catch up with friends that I haven’t seen in far too long.
The most delightful surprise was when I looked up before the first workshop to make eye contact with the truly remarkable human who officiated our wedding, Srishti Hukku. That was a truly beautiful day that coincided with the first fall of snow that year.
Zan and I being queer and wanting to define for ourselves what a partnership looks like, it was so wonderful to work with Srishti to write our own ceremony and vows. We had the ceremony at home, surrounded by friends who were all clothed in handknit clothes (either knit by me, themselves, or for them by a loved one). Click through to read the caption for all the details on the knitwear and scroll through all the photos.
Data Art to Challenge Diet Culture
I loved how Sophie used these diagrams to reframe harmful ideas about diet culture (note there are 3 images in the gallery that you need to click through to scroll).
Upcoming events that look interesting
For those with access to CSPS, join us for "Ensuring Accessible and Equitable Artificial Intelligence" with Dr Jutta Treviranus, PhD, Director of the Inclusive Design Research Centre at Ontario College of Art and Design University, who will present her research and share her insights into what AI reveals and what it obscures, especially for people with disabilities. Following the presentation, there will be a panel on these considerations in a GC context.
Join the National Galley of Canada on Thursday May 16 from 5pm to 8pm to celebrate the opening of Radical Stitch, a landmark exhibition that examines the contemporary and transformative aspects of beading.
Library and Archives Gatineau Preservation Campus’s Open House is May 24 and 25 from 10am to 3pm.
Links that I’ll try to remember to paste in every week if I remember
Connect with over 4,000 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.