One last busy week, the rest of the month will be slightly more slow paced, with things to finish, proposals to write, adminitrivia to deal with, and above all some time for focused work and thinking. I missed that between the various events and deliverables.

This week I

• Had a half day meeting with my business partners looking at the next year.
• Did the monthly invoicing, together with colleague F who is willing to take on a role in our team on the financial side. Ever since we started in 2011 this has been something I’ve taken care of. It’s nice to start doing it together.
• Participated in a round table meet-up at the ODI. Originally had planned to go to London to take part in person, but remote made more sense. I’ve worked with the ODI before, and my company has too. This time I was there representing a client. The topic of discussion was the role of AI in geo-information. Through the client we’ve been involved in work on the ethical issues of location data, and we also do quite a bit of work in AI ethics. My own role in helping shape the EU common data spaces is relevant here too: any AI, digital twin etc. will build on data in the common market, and release its outptut into it. It was a first conversation, with much attention going to generative AI, which I think is because it seems more tangible than other AI tooling. Something I want to dig into more, like I did years ago around open data, collect different and niche examples of applications to show various qualities and aspects in play. Just like ‘where is the next Google’ has always been the wrong question to establish open data impact, I think ‘OpenAI ChatGPT’ is generally the wrong answer to where it’s at w.r.t. AI applications. The EU AI Regulation having been agreed on Thursday is significant too, as it is focused on impact, domains of application and externalised effects.
• Discussed internally our work on AI ethics for police forces, preparing for next year’s efforts.
• Had the weekly client meetings
• Prepared and facilitated a half day workshop on how data, AI and ethics can/should be part of internal audit work at regional and local authorities. I always find audit work fascinating, probably because I see it as a quality assurance tool rather than for establishing or enforcing compliance. Compliance easily becomes a goal in itself, which is ever a pitfall.
• Prepared and facilitated a half day workshop on the governance and the desired stakeholders for the emerging Green Deal data space. Participants were the larger Dutch government geo-information holders. A lively discussion, with much output that I need to work through next week.
• Did some work on planning for the interprovincial ethics committee in the next year, and the national digital ethics coalition, that I’m part of through my work for that committee.
• Heard the sad news of the death of the partner of one of my colleagues at a client.
• Had a brief chat with M, whom many years ago I was on the board with of the ‘Civil Servant 2.0’ organisation bringing digital savvy to the civil service. She’s now with the national government’s training academy, and we’re planning a webinar on personal knowledge management next March. I find it intriguing how little any organisation and our educational system does on learning people to use digital tools to learn and work effectively. We’re all left to figure it out for ourselves, it’s hardly ever talked about between colleagues, and most of us are forced to use the tools centrally rolled out. Some attention to how everyone shapes their system for working with information and knowledge goes a long way to organisational KM.
• Was worried to see Y test positive for Covid over the weekend. Of course that was hours after booking a weekend trip for next weekend, so depending on developments that may be a loss.
• Fixed a new light in the bikeshed. This is still a consequence of the short circuit last summer that gave us a nasty surprise in the form of a defrosted freezer.
• Backfilled some old daily log notes from years past in Obsidian based on old material and my photo archive.

The sunlight playing through the windows in the staircase of our offices last week.