This week was pretty regular, although more meetings than I’d like due to upcoming travel and other things shifting around that. The weather brightened considerably. Still cold in the mornings, but very mild later in the days.

This week I

• Had a day of mostly internal things, like company finances.
• Had the weekly client meetings.
• Started shaping the agenda for an upcoming meeting of the tactical council of government geo-information holders on EU data legislation.
• Wrote out how no, open data platforms are not to be considered data intermediaries in the sense of the Data Governance Act, as they (intentionally) don’t fit the definition of such things. I probably should have a note available to share how to read laws like that.
• Had a meeting with E and the financial advisor that helped us back when we bought our house. Circumstances change, needs shift, and it was time for an update, and to figure out how to approach certain steps and wishes.
• Discussed the project activities for the ActivityClub foundation that we as board received some funding for. E and L will do the work, and we discussed how to start.
• Had a planning meeting for an upcoming webinar I will be giving on EU data policy, in the context of societal innovation projects from various provinces.
• As part of that chatted and caught up with long time connection J, whom I hadn’t spoken to for some years, sharing stories and experiences and life events in our overlapping networks.
• Did the monthly invoicing
• Had a long session with colleague F to do some Q2 planning.
• Worked with (the other) colleague F on the interprovincial digital ethics committee.
• Had a workshop session exploring a 100 items long list of regulatory, ethical, technological and other frameworks that play a role in how the Dutch national geo-information infrastructure is and gets shaped. We made connections and interdependencies visible in order to also order them by relevance and priority.
• Had a conversation with senior civil servant about how I and my company approach finding projects and clients, and how that might inform them to find and select another job. We have our own perspective on how the world ‘should’ be concerning a topic of interest, and where in that landscape we think interventions are needed. Projects and clients that fit that we take on, others we don’t. In other words, as a professional we have our own agenda in our field, and seek out opportunities heading in the same direction. This pro-active stance anchors our autonomy, which would be impossible if one just reacts to offers as such.
• Had a conversation with a potential new hire. They applied earlier for a role that wasn’t a fit, but we see other things that might.
• Enjoyed the weather (and Y and E an icecream) after picking Y up at school.
• Took Y to her singing lesson.
• Removed the lights from the garden (now daylight has returned), did a lot of pruning, while E cleaned the garden chairs. Enjoyed the results with a glass of wine in the sun.
• Made a small cycle tour out to a nearby farm for eggs, and to enjoy coffee outside in the sun.
• Took a walk along the nearby Laak river, with Y on her skates.
• More or less finished my exploration of how to buy ebooks outside of Amazon. Like with leaving Gmail 9 years ago, once you have a view of the various components, finding alternatives and making the switch is easy. I made test purchases in various platforms and places to see if there were any surprise restrictions. I’ll keep adding sources to a list I started. Specifically I will be on the lookout for more publishers and authors that do direct sales of ebooks (tips welcome!). It seems a given now that 2024 was the last year I bought an ebook (or any other thing) from Amazon, while it was just an intention early this year.