It’s December, rather earlier than I expected. Time has moved faster since the summer it seems, where before the summer things felt like have slowed down. I had a busy week, in part because of playing catch-up after having been ill the week before. I released myself from quarantine, allthough for all intents and purposes that didn’t mean much for the number of times I went out. Except for cycling Y to school in the morning.

This week I

• prepared and led a meeting with the JRC and DG CNECT of the EC, as well as Dutch governmental organisations VNG and Geonovum, about digital twinning. Comparing notes on ongoing work and finding aspects where collective steps are possible.
• Prepared my contributions to the quarterly meeting of the Dutch government tactical council on EU information, whose secretary I nominally am. During the meeting I reported on actions the past quarter, the long list of news concerning the progress of proposed EU legislation w.r.t. digitisation and data, initiated a discussion on stakeholder mapping of the council’s network and led a workshop evaluating the past 18 months in terms of goals, roles and activities. I should write-up some of the EU related news in the coming days, if I find the time.
• As it was the end of the month, I started writing the monthly invoices for my company. It’s looking to be a good year, not as good as last year due to a slump in the spring, but good nevertheless.
• Had several conversations with a prospective client for next year, which gained more urgency now they are having some changes in their team. Meaning there more roles they potentially need our support for the interim.
• Cleaned up several things in my digital garden, slightly changed my day log template (from just a list, to a list divided in subsections on things done, thoughts, other notes, and things to remember for that day or the next. This is not meant to immediately place some random notes in the right section, but to be able to during the day move things around to the right spot. I am curious to see if it makes a day log a better jumping off point to other notes.
• Reread some almost 2 decade old notes about Sveiby’s perspective on knowledge management, and was surprised that the emergent structure building with an individual as starting point that Sveiby puts front and center still is an important way to look at organisations. It resonates with a conversation I had a few weeks ago about knowledge management with a client, where I pointed out they couldn’t just look at organisation level interventions but had to take into account the individual’s perspective and personal knowledge management, as well as the interaction with their outside stakeholder network. I didn’t remember Sveiby as saying the same thing, but it jumped out at me now that I read it again.
• Prepared for a client meeting with their advisory board and general board next week
• Removed some more Flickr embeds from this site, there are now just over 40 to go.
• Had a half day working session on the reference architecture for the Dutch national digital twin for the built environment.
• With E and Y went to a local grower to pick our new christmas tree to adopt. For the past years we had the same tree every year. It gets put back into the ground after christmas, and then comes back to us the next year. Our previous tree was no longer suitable, so we walked into the muddy fields to select a new one. It will be delivered towards next weekend.
• Finally saw may sister and brother in law again after a long time. I think the last time we met in person was end of May. It was good to share a meal and talk during the evening.
• Received word that my other sister and brother in law have signed the sale of their home in Brussels, and will be leaving permanently for their new home in Portugal in January.
• We celebrated Sinterklaas evening, where all the children receive gifts. We had a pleasant afternoon and evening with E’s brother and his family.
• Received my Fairphone 4. That means in the coming days I will be spending too much time on migrating to the new phone, and getting everything set-up again the way I want.

The numbered tag (0525) on our new adoptive tree for Christmas.