This first week of the latter half of 2021 started with two days dominated by something unusual: face to face work meetings.
It left me with two notions:

1. I’ve very much missed the free flowing interaction, the way you can riff off each other and generate new associations and ideas. At the same time I’m wary that not all meet-ups create that effect, and I’m not keen to restart having boring f2f meetings
2. These f2f meetings that create energy and ideas were very tiring at the same time. As if the bandwidth of info and noise alike coming at me had been upped dramatically, and I couldn’t find the attenuation and filtering buttons of old

But feeling energised was the main benefit, as if a fog had lifted.
I had a week that felt right because of it.

This week I

• Explored my Foursquare/Swarm data download
• Tried to get updating part of my local markdown notes to a github repo working, but not quite there yet
• Did the monthly invoicing
• Explored existing research into the cost/benefits of interoperability (for data / digital services), wrote it up in a short overview for distribution
• Had the weekly client team sessions
• Discussed and sketched a plan for the next phase of a client project with colleagues S and E
• Wrote a rough first draft of that plan
• Had the year end review conversation with Y’s teacher
• Did a session with E and colleague I to translate some of the mission / branding related output of the ‘workation’ for daily practical use. Lots of ideas.
• Prepared and moderated a session between a client and the EC on data governance and data ethics, wrote a discussion summary and sent it out to all involved
• Had a pleasant conversation with Frank, talking about note taking, blogging, the current ‘situation’ and life in general for almost two hours
• Enjoyed a lazy weekend with E and Y, a bike ride through flowering fields, a nap in the garden at the water’s edge and some fun reading

Meanwhile the case numbers in the Netherlands have started rising dramatically, two weeks of weekend clubbing under reduced restrictions put us back 7 months it seems. This may come to mean we won’t be able to visit Denmark. If the Danish admission rules don’t change by next weekend we should still be ok, but if it means a return to quarantine obligations we can’t go.

Went for a coffee in town, next to the local pop-up space port. Image Ton Zijlstra, license CC BY NC SA

Y crossing some water, image Ton Zijlstra license CC BY NC SA