Welcome to The Long View!
👋🏾 Hello, people!
Thanks for stopping by to check out The Long View: informal, personal weeknotes that I will publish on a Friday, for your entertainment and to keep me connected to the theoretical “you” out there: friend, colleagues, mischief makers.
Why weeknotes?
Last week, I stepped down from my role as co-founder of JustRight Scotland a charity with an amazing team of 22+ colleagues, and into a new project: Lawmanity (just me).
I knew this would be a shift, and much as I love the freedom to do something different, that I would also miss having people around, all the time, for a bit of chat and reflection.
So, enter weeknotes: a practice that I first learned about from Laura ffrench-Constant and Ricarda Fillhardt in our social enterprise JRS Knowhow.
Weeknotes were invented and promoted by science and tech people 🤖 but they can be used effectively in any work context to help individuals reflect and learn, as a team building tool and to strengthen comms between teams in larger orgs.
☕ What can we expect (if we visit again)?
I’ll try to include cool things I’ve seen and heard, what I’m thinking about this week – and sometimes ask you for help, ideas 💡and feedback.
That’s what we would do over coffee at work, right? ☕
Staying consistent
Challenges for me are: posting consistently every Friday, and sticking to a strict 30 mins’ drafting time.
My inspiration here is my partner Andrew Burnett who has done a Facebook Live video called Beer eau Clock every Friday at 5pm since early 2021. He talks about “what was, what is, and what will be” while reviewing an AF (alcohol-free) beer, and has done this every week, faithfully. I admire his consistency, and the result: an honest, unedited record of how his interests have shifted and how he and his business have grown over the past 3 years.
I have watched about a handful of these videos myself. Because I am a very bad girlfriend. 🍻
So what’s up for this week?
Last week, I brought to a close seven years of work at a charity that I co-founded, an organisation that is doing exciting, vital and important work and whose team and mission I care about – probably beyond reason.
This is a bit like raising a child and realising in their teenage years that you need to get out of the way so that they can live their life – and because you hope they will exceed your expectations, and more importantly, their own.
So this week is a bit of an empty nest moment. 🪹
Although not quiet! I have had a lovely round of coffees with old friends and new, and also some work in the door for Lawmanity to keep me busy.
And what’s cool? How to plan better endings 💡
Have you heard of The Decelerator? This is a free support service for civil society organisations who are working on transitions and planning good endings. They offer free online tools and one-off 121 advice on:
- Seven principles for a better endings
- Tools for organisational closure and merger
- Tools for leadership transition
- Tools to support you to wind down a project or programme
A fellow activist once told me that when you build a movement with others, you should do so with a clear understanding of what a good ending could look like. I agree, and would add that holds true not just for movements but for projects, teams and individual contributions to collective work, too.
Thanks for stopping by for now and ..
See you next week!
First published on LinkedIn on 5 April 2024
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/welcome-long-view-jen-ang-0r74e/
