New Music

I’ve worked for my current employer for 24 years. On the day I had my interview, I bought two albums on the way home. Once was Kid A by Radiohead, the other was Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven by Godspeed You Black Emperor!. It amuses me that this week I’m writing about two records that are made by some of the same people, and then one that definitely wasn’t.

My three records for 4th October are:

I think I know what I’ll be listening to on Friday.

Reflections on Brave New Work by Aaron Dignan

Reflecting on Brave New Work by Aaron Dignan (a book I have been reading and thinking about a lot recently), I think the concept of organisational debt is key. This would be anything where the way the work is being done slows down delivery or adds unnecessary layers of bureaucracy. In my organisation we have loads of this, and I wonder if we would do better at getting rid of it if we referred to it as debt.

I also found the list of aspects to consider when designing an organisational operating system matched quite closely to things I am already thinking of. These are listed on page 54:

  1. Purpose: The fundamental reason for the organisation’s existence beyond profit.
  2. Authority: How decisions are made and who has the power to make them.
  3. Structure: The organisation’s architecture, roles, and teams.
  4. Strategy: The approach for achieving the organisation’s goals and staying competitive.
  5. Resources: Allocation and management of the organisation’s assets.
  6. Innovation: The process and culture around new ideas and improvements.
  7. Workflow: How work gets done and processes are managed.
  8. Meetings: The role, frequency, and structure of gatherings.
  9. Information: How data is collected, shared, and utilised.
  10. Membership: How people join, leave, and belong to the organisation.
  11. Mastery: Development and growth of individual skills and capabilities.
  12. Compensation: How rewards and recognition are handled within the organisation.

So for example if processes were getting in the way of work being done, this could be classed as organisational debt logged against workflow. Or if retaining key staff was an issue then it could be logged against membership. If we come up with a problem statement that articulates the issue it might allow us to more clearly see what is slowing us down.

In the retention example above, the problem statement may actually draw out the fact that whilst retention is how it manifests, it’s actually because we don’t pay good people enough, which sits in the domain of compensation. Shining a light on particular pain points may allow us to start to address them in a meaningful way.

There are also two key concepts that come up throughout the book:

People Positive is a mindset that views people as inherently capable, trustworthy, and motivated. It challenges the traditional, often negative assumptions about human behaviour in the workplace, such as the belief that employees need constant oversight, strict rules, and external incentives to perform well. Instead, People Positive organisations believe that:

  • Inherent Potential: People have vast potential and, when given the right conditions, can achieve remarkable things.
  • Trust and Autonomy: Employees thrive when they are trusted and given autonomy to make decisions.
  • Intrinsic Motivation: People are motivated by more than just money; they seek purpose, mastery, and a sense of belonging.
  • Whole Person: Recognising that employees are whole people with lives outside of work, and that respecting this leads to better engagement and productivity.

Complexity Conscious refers to the understanding and acceptance that modern organisations operate in complex and dynamic environments. This mindset acknowledges that:

  • Non-linearity: Organisations are complex systems where small changes can have large, unpredictable effects.
  • Uncertainty and Adaptation: Predicting the future is inherently difficult, and organisations must be adaptable and resilient to thrive.
  • Emergent Solutions: Solutions often emerge from the collective input and interactions of individuals, rather than from top-down directives.
  • Interconnectedness: All parts of an organisation are interconnected, and changes in one area can impact others in unforeseen ways.
  • Continuous Learning: Emphasises the need for continuous learning and experimentation to navigate complexity.

I think both of these are key, and are a different way of thinking that many organisations could benefit from.

Living through history – thoughts on the XZ vulnerability

I have been following the XZ backdoor vulnerability story with interest. Not just because I use Linux and therefore it affects the technology I rely on, but also because I’m interested in the people and processes that underpin open source software, and software development in general.

Linux has relied on volunteer contributions from the start, and in general that fosters a collective sense of responsibility for delivering a great product that meets the needs of the people who use it. But there is also a risk that there won’t be sufficiently skilled volunteers to do what needs to be done, or that the expectations of users cannot be reasonably delivered by volunteers who are likely to also be juggling a paid job and family responsibilities.

This issue has highlighted those risks, but also been a great example of a community coming together to quickly fix an issue in a way a commercial organisation probably never would. By working in public, being transparent, and delivering value quickly, the community has proved that this development and support model can work, but also that there are lessons we can learn about culture, contributor burn out, and how we can continue to release value at pace whilst at the same time maintaining the integrity of the product.

I don’t have answers, but it’s good to see people pulling together, and I do think we’re probably living through history right now.

I also think the standard is being set for documentation related to this kind of issue. These are the pages I’ve bookmarked in relation to this, either to keep up to speed with developments, or to highlight what good practice looks like when it comes to being curious enough to shine a light on things that don’t look right:

Journal Fragments

Excerpts from my journal over the last few days that fit the themes of this blog.

Technology

I have my full travel setup operational now. I did start with my small computer, but found myself missing the extra screen and the familiarity of the laptop. So the laptop is once more the primary computer for non-work stuff, which makes it easier to swap in the other laptop after Easter when I need to do some work here.

I didn’t intend to bring my docking station here, but as it was still in my bag I thought I’d install displaylink-debian to make my life easier. I have it running on my other laptop, and as of this morning I have it running on this one too.

I think I have a good understanding of what technology I prefer to use now, and as a result have an idea about what I would like my next computers to be. Right now a single USB-C cable for everything is where I’m at; especially as I have several docking stations which make this possible wherever I am.

Based on my usual criteria for laptops, and assuming I was buying new, the models I should be looking at are:

  • Thinkpad X13
  • Thinkpad L13
  • Thinkpad L13 yoga
  • 13″ MacBook Air

But none of these are upgradeable, so I am seriously considering getting something slightly bigger so that I have the option to upgrade the memory later on. Or I might just go down the refurbished route again and get something that will last me 2-3 years.

Looking at the 14″ laptops, the E14 and L14 are both very customisable, and meet the specifications I’m after on everything except for size and weight. The prices to add extra memory are really reasonable as well, so it might just be that we go for something that meets the specifications we need now, with anything else being a stretch goal. I don’t need 40 or 64 Gb of memory in a laptop, especially when I have that in my desktop and rarely use more than half of it.

Books

I finished The Internet Con by Cory Doctorow last night. It’s a really important book that anyone who uses the internet should read. Today I’ll start Dead Centre by Tim Farthing, which is the only other book I bought with me. I have my Kindle though, with a huge backlog of fiction, so it’s not like I won’t have things to read.

Music

I am listening to the new Jiin record, although once I start the book I will switch to Dead Centre by Reigns. I am also feeding Spotify with music for the family playlist. I only listen to Spotify whilst walking the dog, but it’s good to hear a few new favourites making their way into what we listen to in the car.

There is a new record shop in Newport, that has only been open 2 weeks. I bought Dresden Dolls and East India Youth CDs, and resisted buying a lot of expensive records. This is a shop I will definitely support, and will return to again in June.

Including values and feelings in the yearly review

It’s yearly review time, and as usual I’m very much enjoying reflecting on all the great things my team have achieved over the last 12 months. There are a couple of fairly new things we have added to our yearly review process that help us focus on the right things, and make the conversations more meaningful to us:

The first is values-based objectives, where we identify behaviours that align with our values, and write objectives that will make us better at consistently demonstrating those behaviours. So if collaboration is a value, then we plan to work with some different people, or if we value transparency then we develop new ways to work in public and share our ideas and decisions as widely as possible. I love this kind of objective, and I think it helps keep the values front and centre throughout the year.

The second is a new one for this year. Over the last few weeks we have started to record how tasks we have completed made us feel, and not just how well they went. Building this into our retrospectives has led to some interesting insights, so we are going to do the same with our yearly objectives. No-one is likely to feel wholly positive about everything they do, but by at least thinking about it we can start to understand the type of work that we prefer, and the things that are likely to require a bit of extra motivation to start. We have been talking about things that make us grateful in our daily stand-up for a while, and this seems like a natural extension.

My Travel Setup

As we prepare to start our third year/season of splitting our time between Birmingham and the Isle of Wight, I thought it was about time I blogged about my current travel setup. In this context, “travel” mostly refers to what I use on the island, but also partly to what I use when I am somewhere that isn’t one of the usual paces I live or work.

Things I store here

Apart from the table and chair, I think I have had most of this stuff over a decade. But it still serves me well for 9 weeks of the year.

  • Desk riser – this is one of those adjustable ones that can convert any desk into a standing desk, but can also raise a laptop or monitor to the correct eye height
  • Folding table – slatted, so that it will break down into a small enough package that it can be easily stored
  • 24″ Monitor and cables – an old one that I’ve had over 10 years and that was replaced at home by something newer
  • Desk mat – because of the slats I need something to provide a surface that my laptop, keyboard and pointing device can sit on without moving around
  • Speakers – old Logitech ones that I used to use at home before I wired up my home computer with an amplifier and dedicated speakers
  • Extension lead – to power everything
  • Webcam – I do also travel with one, but if I am working here it’s really important to have one, and the webcam in my laptop is not good enough for work. This is a really old Microsoft one that we have quite a few of in various places
  • Folding chair – from B&M, and small enough to be storable. I used to use a patio chair, but I needed something that would be better for my posture
  • USB mouse – in case I forget my trackball
  • Amazon Basics USB hub, that I use to connect my keyboard, trackball and camera to whatever laptop I am using. It’s like a docking station, but cheap and old.

Things I carry with me

Albums of the year 2023

These are the records that have been the soundtrack to my 2023. If 2022 was a bad year for the world, then 2023 was more of the same, with a side-dose of personal horror. I did the exact same job for a whole year for the first time in a while, but everything around me seemed more chaotic, with ill health and general disruption not too far away. I suspect my musical choices have been influenced by that, although it certainly hasn’t been consciously.

I’m sitting writing this on a wet and blustery evening in the Isle of Wight (for the second year running). I think the amount of time I’ve spent here over the last two years has definitely influenced some of my choices, but only in a good way. There is some music that just makes more sense in a rural location, and many of these records are definitely not particularly influenced by cities or suburbia. But also this is a list that pays a lot more homage to louder and faster music than previous years. There are less melodically beautiful records (especially outside the top 25), and more that channel the anger that so many people feel towards the world and some of the people in it.

Albums

In all cases the links below are to somewhere you can listen to and/or buy the record in question (Bandcamp or the artist’s own website). For things you can’t buy anymore I’ve linked to a description.

Singles

All of these are either one long song, or a 7″.

Other stuff

Live albums, reissues, and things that were definitely available in some format before this year.

The rest

Other things I’ve listened to this year that I enjoyed.

Ubuntu 23.10

I upgraded to Ubuntu 23.10 on my laptop last night. It took less than 20 minutes, and so far everything has just worked.

This is the kind of user experience I want on all my devices, and also the kind of experience I strive to deliver to others.

How Other People Work

After over 3 years of mostly remote working I very interested in seeing how other people set their home offices up for maximum productivity. I’ve made a lot of changes since the start of 2020, and I suspect many other people have as well. I had intentions a while ago to make a long list of people who have inspired me with their setups, but have only just got around to posting that list (which I will likely add to later).

Hopefully looking at these again will inspire me to consider if there are any changes I need to make to how I work.

My NixOS Experiments

I have been experimenting with NixOS for a few weeks, and whilst I’m not ready to run it on my main machine, I think I could if I had to. These notes are all the things I had to search, or experiment with, and are largely here for my reference, although if they help someone else then that is great.

Snippets from my configuration.nix file

# Enable the GNOME Desktop Environment.
services.xserver.displayManager.gdm.enable = true;
# services.xserver.desktopManager.gnome.enable = true;

# Enable i3
services.xserver.windowManager.i3.enable = true;

# Configure keymap in X11
services.xserver = {
  layout = "gb";
  xkbVariant = "";
};

# Configure console keymap
console.keyMap = "uk";

# Enable sound with pipewire.
sound.enable = true;
hardware.pulseaudio.enable = false;
security.rtkit.enable = true;
services.pipewire = {
  enable = true;
  alsa.enable = true;
  alsa.support32Bit = true;
  pulse.enable = true;
  # If you want to use JACK applications, uncomment this
  #jack.enable = true;

  # use the example session manager (no others are packaged yet so this is enabled by default,
  # no need to redefine it in your config for now)
  #media-session.enable = true;
};

# Enable touchpad support (enabled default in most desktopManager).
# services.xserver.libinput.enable = true;
};

# Allow unfree packages
nixpkgs.config.allowUnfree = true;

# Allow QMK to write to keyboards

hardware.keyboard.qmk.enable = true;

# needed for store VS Code auth token 
services.gnome.gnome-keyring.enable = true;

# List packages installed in system profile. 
environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
git
featherpad
pandoc
dropbox
dmenu
feh
i3lock
kitty
i3blocks
arandr 
scrot 
xautolock 
barrier
imagemagick
neofetch
zathura
pcmanfm
htop
blueman
cowsay
fortune
shellcheck
abiword
rhythmbox
brasero
sound-juicer
transmission
byobu
tmux
screen
qmk
networkmanagerapplet
protonvpn-gui
protonvpn-cli
protonmail-bridge
unixbench
zerotierone
zoom-us
caffeine-ng
copyq
vscode
];

A script to automate changes

#!/bin/sh
# Standard error mitigation
set -euo pipefail
# Replace existing config
cd /etc/nixos/
sudo mv configuration.nix configuration.nix.old
# download new config
sudo wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/teknostatik/nixos/master/configuration.nix
# Test
sudo nixos-rebuild test
# Deploy
sudo nixos-rebuild switch --upgrade
# Clean up and then go home
nix-collect-garbage -d
cd $HOME