200.

This is, interestingly enough, my 200th blog post since I moved from iWeb (here) to Blogger (erm, here).

I've known the number was approaching for a while and had a few ideas, but when I was playing with the weeWeir tonight, it all became clear.

You see, Beth is doing what we all do and growing. She's doing it pretty well too. Jenny and I are grateful for such a treasure. Beth is our wee promise in action.

So tonight, I'm breaking with my own position. You can read about that here.

This post is about my family. Beautiful and complex and delightful.

Beth was getting ready for bed and decided she'd like to wear a hat. Off she trotted to find one, but her hats were nowhere to be found. She found a pair of gloves. Infact, she found one mitten, came back asking that it be put on her hand and then went to find the other glove.

Then she was keen on a hat again. So I gave her a hat. It's spring mind, and she's in her jammies. I love this kid.

Then it was time to brush her hair. Not the most enjoyable of activities for Beth, but we got there. I, now sitting on the bottom step in our hall, asked if she wanted to brush my hair (as you do).

Beth put on her hat (at a jaunty angle), pulled on one of the mittens and stood on the step. Next made three intentional swooshes through my hair with her brush and looked intently at her work. She then put her arm on my shoulder, rested her head and smiled.

I could have wept.

Then it was time for bed.

Delightful.

So here's to you Beth, keep bringing a smile to our hearts.

(strike a pose...)

(couldn't resist including a wee snap of Mrs theWeir and I too!)

Business as Usual

I was at work today, Easter Monday. It's a holiday for many people, but there were plenty of us in the office.

I was working on a few old ideas, and trying to get some new stuff happening, when I realised something. My current role came around because I tried some new stuff out - and it worked.

Reflecting on this, I realised some of the hardest steps have been to move things from being odd, outside or just plain new into being the way things should be. And that's not really a hard thing to do - it's just not straight-forward, and generally not much fun. Often it's not a good idea either.

So I decided to go back to where the fun started - and just suggest some things that were on my mind.

What's the worst that can happen? That my perception goes down in people's eyes?

I'm really not sure that matters, because while I've read and learned a lot from Trust Agents, I'm not trying to build myself a tower of self-accomplishment.

What's my motivation for being at work?

I spoke about that yesterday here.

so what's next?

I'd hoped to write this series of posts about my current role at work over a few consecutive days. Given that the first one (here) was written on 3 September, that's clearly not happened. Let's see what can be done to rectify that.

So, a few months after I did that job for Garry, our Director, I was working in another team in our department (on secondment) as an eCommerce Development Consultant (what on earth was that?!).

Around this time, there were some stronger gusts from the winds of change than usual. It was putting pressure on the way our department was funded and how we got things done. We had enjoyed some level of autonomy and that had brought a good measure of success, but it wasn't as easy as that.

There were looming changes to reporting practices and requirements for greater levels of detail in those reports. At the same time as this, a friend from the Powerpoint band (where I was playing drums at the time, and nothing to do with Microsoft products) shared a link on his blog. It was to a presentation inspired by the style of Lawrence Lessig and it completely blew me away.

On two counts:

1) the way he spoke and the material he used to help articulate his points (his narrative) and

2) the content he was sharing.

After a few hours (over a few days) of looking at Lessig's blog (now in hibernation), finding Garr Reynolds blog on presentations (one of the *best* resources you will find) and then watching Dick Hardt's video from OSCON, I was suddenly properly aware of the power of online tools to change the way the world interacts.

You might suggest that I was hooked, and I'd probably agree. I found iGoogle and started tracking people's content online.

I shared the Lessig and Hardt videos with a colleague and friend, Robert McGill. He said "we could make something like that" about where we worked. So we did.

Storyboarded, created and distributed in about a week and a wee video about "where I worked" caught some pretty big attention from our business and IT bosses.

It didn't save the department from going through a rough time, and it probably resulted in me taking my eye off the ball a little on my day job.

Through this process I realised that communication - and really storytelling - was what I loved doing. Agile development (from a business & user perspective) is all about stories. Making our little video was all about stories. Making slidedecks is all about helping someone tell their story.

It was around this time that Garry, David and I spoke about maybe doing some work to help our area tell it's story better. But that's another story.

"do it the same - but better"

I wrote this on my blog at work, and thought I'd share it here too.

I love new things.

I enjoy the journey of discovery with something that you've never seen/held/interacted with before. But there's a lot of things that I do by heart. My bike ride to work, putting the bins out every night, packing my bag for work the night before. These are not moments I remember - or take time to remember.

We need that though. A life without rhythm can be disorienting - I think we are made to function in the balance of regularity and spontaneity. A life lived too much in the regularity camp becomes stale, dry, lacks invention and is probably very boring. if you listened to your heartbeat for a day, you'd find a couple of things:

Your heart was always beating a rhythm.

I think the same is true of our lives - we are always in a routine of some form. Good, bad or indifferent. Just recognise it's there and you can do something about it.

The tempo and timbre of your heartbeat will change throughout the day

As we do things throughout the day, change pace, get passionate about something, all that good stuff, we will find our heart adapts. Like seasons of our lives - sometimes it's intensity in ten cities, sometimes it's 48bpm and we are snoozing. Recognise where you are and appreciate the moment.

External forces will impact your rhythm

Be it chasing down a bus, dealing with a tough customer interaction or a being put in danger - all change the way our heart. How we respond will determine what happens next - right?

So, where am I going with this? My life is not boring - at least, not for me anyway - and I'm not into change for the sake of it. I enjoy my job, I have a great family and amazing friends. But inspired by this post from Seth Godin, it's time to do something different.

As you build (successful) experience in a role, a team or an organisation, it can be very tempting to rely on past achievements/experiences and think they will be exactly what's needed the next time. Often that can be the case. But that doesn't drive innovation. That doesn't see things get better. That might lead to regression, rather than keeping things "nice and stable".

So, I want to try some new ideas. Create some new approaches - no doubt inspired by something I have seen/experienced/enjoyed from somewhere else, but nonetheless, I want to bring something fresh to the table.

Are you with me? What are you going to do that will be fresh?

Maybe I'll take a different route on the bike, or book some flights to a far-off-land - just to mix it up...

Can anyone help?

As part of our personal review process at work, I was reflecting on the role I am currently working in and how the heck I got here. It really wasn't by design, despite what some people have suggested to me. So what? Well, I think it's worth trying to learn from journey that we travel to get where we are, so I'm going to share what I *think* has happened and see what I might have picked up on the way. Hopefully it's of use to others too.

First things first, a couple of years ago, I applied for a job in our eCommerce Support Team after realising that my old job was doing my head in. After a few months, an email went ‘round the team I was working in: “can anyone help Garry with some slides?” At the time I was working on some excel-based stat fest, but wasn’t really that busy ;-P. I thought it would be fun to do something different...

I wasn’t really sure who “Garry” was, just had him appear at my desk, tell me he was looking for some slides to help articulate the opportunities that lay ahead for Corporate Pensions. I took the text-only slides, added some images to augment the content and make it slightly more visual. The slides were, in the end, still very text-driven, but it seemed to hit the mark with Garry – and with his audience.

The piece of work didn’t lead to anything directly, but was a bit of fun. It gave me a chance to get better at image manipulation, and to learn more about Powerpoint. It turned out that the “Garry” was the Director of our area.

Looking back at it, I guess the lesson I learned was to be willing and do good work. That will ultimately let you enjoy what you do and that you can make a difference having fun!

Share the Joy

Today, Mrs theWeir and I took babyB to get her first pair of shoes.  She's a few weeks away from her first birthday, which will be great to celebrating.  After leaving the shop with the shoes on her feet, we spent a bit of time walking as a family - babyB holding us both by the hand and walking along in her first pair of shoes.  

What a joy!  It was great to have this moment together, to walk at a slow pace and simply enjoy being together.  A real moment of peace and joy in my heart.  I thanked God for those steps we took together.

So, it got me thinking.  Life is full of challenges, of highs and lows.  Everyday, there must be something that happens which also brings me joy.  So, why not share them?  With the micro-sharing tool of twitter, I can share the joy with you.  But the discipline will help me savour more moments of life.  And that can only be a good thing.

I'll be trying to do this everyday, and use the hash-tag #sharethejoy - if you are on twitter, why don't you join me and share the joy.

Let me know what you think - leave a comment or DM me on twitter.

Grace & Peace,

W