The Open Road

Tomorrow I’m getting a train across France to the foothills of the Pyrenees. Over two weeks and 250 kilometres, I’ll be walking the GR11 trail in Spain, La Senda Pirenaica. So these aren’t weeknotes, really, more of a memento mei in case I die.

Extract

You might have seen the Prime Minister announce some of our work at London Tech Week, which was also covered in a press release. It’s pretty cool to have our work recognised like that, and I’m honoured to be part of the team.

As you might expect, the announcement smushes together current capability, indirect benefits and elements of a wider-ranging vision statement. It’s been interesting to see the responses on Reddit, newspaper article comments sections, and over on social media. Lots of people supporting the work but raising other (good) questions.

I’ll be helping the work from a service design perspective when I’m back from my travels, so that one of our senior product managers can lead it. But the last of May was all about handover, alpha and beta planning, plus writing submissions for No. 10 to form into the London Tech Week announcement.

Interestingly, we were asked to make some delivery commitments, hence the line about delivering Extract to all local authorities by spring 2026. I was pitching for us to do it by Christmas 2025 – hey, deadlines can be an enabling constraint, some times – but it’s nice to have some wiggle-room. My gut says the majority of the work will be around tweaking prompts to suit the various data specifications we’re working on.

Anyway, all the interesting work exploring ethical, legal, and design risks is happening while I’m away, which I’m jealous of. But there you go, it’s my own fault for making the most of being a freelancer and taking time off!

My next job

When I’m back from Spain, I’ll be going down to 2–3 days a week with MHCLG meaning I’ve got time to take on an additional client.

If you’re looking for someone to do product or design strategy, or advise on product operations, or you just need someone for 2 or 3 days a week, get in touch.

I’m really interested in principal product or design work where we can move fast in an action-focused, results-driven environment. So discovery at pace, alphas with skilled builders, and getting betas in front of users. (And the strategy work that sits over the top of all that, obviously.)

Pyrenees plans

In my last weeknote I spoke about my adaptive plan, where I’d do an alternative route if there was too much snow on my planned route. I’ve scrapped that. Instead I bought some trail-running crampons, which will open up winter hikes across Eryri.

Hiroshige

Pop along to the British Museum for the Hiroshige exhibition if you get the chance. The process of making woodblock prints is wonderful, remaining surprisingly artisanal given it allows you to produce more units.

It was wonderful to see parts of Japan and Tokyo as they were in the 19th century. Back then one could stand at the banks of the Sumida river and see Mount Fuji in the background. But not today.

Anyway, it reminded me of a passage from Three Japanese Buddhist Monks:

“The progress of each passing day is quite unlike your anticipation of it. And the same goes for a year – and for a life.”

I’m looking forward to my trip. To ‘have time to talk to myself’, as was said in a recent episode of Ramblings.

Bookmarks

· Weeknotes

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