The one with many highs and lows — I’ve had a very hectic fortnight, with two big week-long initiatives. Last week myself and everyone else working for the exchange lab (about 40–50 people) spent a week working in person. Following that, I’ve spent most of this week leading a hiring panel for content strategist. …

In which I somehow become a podcast guest? What went well: A big first for me, I recorded a podcast with Kevin and Sarah, my colleagues from the #DigitalBC Livstream, as well as Ari from my team. …

I’ve had a slow start to the new year — some key people on my team were off for extended breaks and there’s been less work to catch up on, less meetings than I’m used to. …

I recently completed the Year Compass for the first time, which I loved doing and would recommend to everyone — it was such a useful exercise in working through how I felt about the past year. In keeping with my new habit of writing and working in the open, I…

(Note: This is a very condensed version of a talk that was given at the SD in Gov conference in Edinburgh in September 2022. If you’re interested in the full talk, please email Martha.) I’m a service designer, and when I first joined government, I came in with high hopes…

Or how I started writing again — November 30th means #NaBloPoMo is officially over, so now it’s time to reflect on how this month went. I wrote 25 blog posts in total — I took weekends off mostly, but sometimes was so inspired that I wrote two blog posts in one day. Medium tells me I had…

Is our obsession with ‘niceness’ keeping us from being real? — When I moved from London UK to Ottawa in early 2019, something happened that I didn’t expect: I felt more isolated and lonely than I ever had. This was shocking to me because Canada’s reputation for niceness is as strong as London’s reputation for big-city rudeness. In the months prior…

I won’t pretend to be an expert at building communities, but November marks one year since I organized a few people to revive the BC Government design community and we’re still meeting regularly, sharing and collaborating both in meetings and on our online channels. Our community is, at this point…

Happy day of recieving a hundred of “deals” from brands you didn’t even realized you were subscribed to! I don’t believe in B***k Friday so will call this Grey Friday, because the outside is a grey as my tshirt and I feel a bit over it all right now. What…