Yet another very busy week, so much so I didn’t get around to writing my week notes, posting this a week late.

This week I

• Had our monthly management meeting. Decided on a new hire, who will start next February. We’ll be 10 people then!
• Had the weekly client meetings
• Did the final preparations for a presentation on the EU data regulations and their meaning for the Dutch national geo-information infrastructure. Based on a range of interviews I did in previous weeks.
• Wrote a process memo for a client after a political decision maker seemed to seek to derail a project. Submitted it and discussed it with another decision maker, to figure out a way forward. I don’t much like it when not substance is the key point but process and attention to positions and ego.
• Held a board meeting of the Open State Foundation in which we looked at the year to date, approved the budget for next year and welcomed a new board member in our midst.
• Took a deeper dive into the text of EU laws that are connected to the main data strategy framework but not directly part of it. These laws impact the data holders we work with and the cross connections are sometimes hard to disentangle. Writing them up as part of the guide we keep online for these data holders.
• Went out for lunch with E
• Had a meeting with part of the team of the intergovernmental data strategy, to discuss how it’s connected with my work.
• Helped prepare a meeting with the Dutch minister for digitisation which will take place in January
• Did the monthly invoicing. We had a bit of a lull in September which had me worried, but things have picked up well again.
• Reviewed a memo for the Ministry for the Interior on the impact of the EU High Value Data list for government data owners, and how to shape the implementation process for the coming 16 months.
• Presented to the Dutch government strategic council for geo-information, and discussed the High Value data memo there as well
• Checked a project proposal and submitted it in a public procurement portal, which always means you need to ensure you’ve jumped all the various administrative hoops otherwise the buyer won’t even read the content of a proposal.
• Spent time on forming the interprovincial ethics committee we’re helping to set up. I’m doing the intake conversations with the potential members.
• Spent Saturday in town with E and Y, enjoying a lengthy pleasant Italian lunch together after the shopping
• Made some first small steps to creating my own ActivityPub server, to better understand the protocol. It’s slow going though, as a first step I have successfully created discoverable actors and profiles. The signing of postings though is the next step to crack.
• Decorated the Christmas tree together