October #
Chatted with some students at Binghamton University in New York about the PETALS framework and how it has helped teams with improving psychological safety through real-world case studies (annoyingly, the recording didn’t work very well, only capturing my audio). What a fantastic milestone to know the framework is now influencing academics in business schools.
Test print of Lizzie’s first book using Amazon KDP and Canva for designs. Lots of lessons learned, but quite happy with the first-ever attempt with printing books.
I started using an AddToCal tag on my TickTick items that automatically sync with my “Personal” Google Calendar. It’s been really useful to see how I spend my time and handy for looking back for posts like this.
Had an idea: Can we feed all the House Finesse mix tracks and DJs into an LLM for easier discoverability? Not much work on this, but noted down and shared here for visibility.
Saw The Bodyguard at Oxford’s New Theatre - surprise birthday present for wifey. Impressive performances but as a Whitney fanboy, my expectations weren’t quite met by the main singer.
Hosted our first Lean Coffee Leaders MK on 15 October - a casual space for local tech leaders to meet up over a lunchtime coffee, discuss their own work focus and challenges, and share the knowledge with fellow peers. I’m starting it off as an organic word of mouth invite first but we will open it up later in 2026 when we've established the right cadence.
Spent some time with apprenticeship students through Working Options, sharing some personal insights on working in tech for the past 30 years(!)
Organised the Multipack 20th anniversary curry in Birmingham but couldn’t make it due to a clashing family birthday. We need to organise another one for Q1 that I have to attend.
Spent a bit of time on unstyled.com - my studio brand - showcasing some of the projects I’ve worked on over the past few years.
Discovered O'Reilly (the book publishers) highlighted PETALS as a useful framework for measuring team health on a Lead Dev panel discussion - further evidence this is organically spreading around the industry as a thing.
Tried some “hotpod yoga” on a free trial in the iconic Weedon Bec site. Safe to say it’s not for me yet, way too intense and difficult for a beginner who needs some more practice in a smaller space where I can be corrected.
Rest of the family had a week in Disneyland Paris whilst I looked after the dogs. Gave me a chance to spend some much-needed time with my best mate over a few games of pool.
Introduced the 4th member to our PETALS dev team, Sertan - a good friend who also witnessed the birth and evolution of the framework, regularly advocating in his roles, and is also super passionate about building cool stuff.
November #
The Boy returned home from uni for a week to study (and feed properly). Still nice to have him back with us.
Continued refining the PETALS app paid plans, how best to provide value for money while scaling features for end users but also sustainably supporting it's growth fairly.
Released the first few episodes of Managing Engineers podcast Season 2, which I’ve revived with Neil Younger, a fellow Engineering Manager at the Cooperative. We’re committing to 10 episodes and wanted to record at least three episodes before releasing for peer review feedback from our close trusted circles.
Spoke at the Tech Mids conference in Birmingham, my first appearance at a full-day event after doing evening meet-ups for a few years. Huge milestone personally and really satisfying feedback from those who attended (plus a handful of new app registrations).
Moved SuperRams.com over to Substack (derbycounty.substack.com) where we could try to rebuild our old DCFC community away from the toxicity of X.com. Interestingly, our BlueSky sister account continues to engage with loyal Rams.
Random coffee pairing with Sandeep and Paul S from the Agile in the Ether community. Always fun to spend time chatting with more tech leaders from across the industry. Many of these folks are from government services which is completely alien to me.
Tried to raise awareness and cash for Movember with my first ever full face fresh shave of my life. It really was a shock to the family, Mrs J tempted to leave me, daughter actually crying at the sight of me, but it worked as we raised over £1,000 as a team at Rightmove. Needless to say it’s a one-off but I am glad it was worth the effort.
Fell off a roof ladder and seriously sprained the soft tissue in my right ankle. At first, I thought it was a broken bone but A&E assessments decided it was muscle. Either way, I was laid up in bed for a few weeks, then stuck working from home until mid December.
Interesting chat with a huge international enterprise interested in licensing their own instance of the PETALS app for all the companies they consult. It's a model we've never considered before but it's certainly feasible and evidence our framework really needs to consider data ownership seriously.
December #
I committed to a daily video release with a PETALS Advent on the main (video) socials. This was quite an intense project but a chance to provide micro posts (2-3 minutes long) on all sorts of team health topics, some with a festive twist, but some quite generic. It was initially planned to be made in batches but that wasn’t always feasible. I still found quite a slick process outlining, recording, editing, releasing and promoting with the kit I have, mostly thanks to Descript and Buffer. Archives are available on Instagram, Tiktok and Youtube.
We also hit the healthy milestone of House Finesse’s 300th episode which I naturally hosted with a selection of some resident requests.
Another Working Options session with students at Sharnbrook Academy interested in the tech community. Always rewarding to engage with a younger audience intrigued by software careers and quite reassuring feedback from them all on how it went. Always happy to do this, so reach out if interested.
Spoke to Paul I and Adrian H from Agile in the Ether community. Big thanks to Emily Weber for keeping this community going.
Really enjoyed seeing a performance of The Nutcracker at our local Macready Theatre - part of the original Rugby School. First time I've seen ballet live and now seriously impressed by the talented people.
Spent a lot of time during my Christmas break migrating my WordPress blog of about 15 years to this new 11ty build. The main bulk of content was quite straightforward but there were also some custom post types that weren't as straightforward until I loaded the full MySQL dump into ChatGPT and asked the right questions. Try it!
For the inbetwixmas week, we managed to get a break to the Cornwall coast for the whole family plus doggies. Lovely time enjoying all the local towns including Par, Looe, Charlestown and many of the pubs & cafes.
