Good People
I paid my first visit to our new(ish) London satellite office this week, and met a whole bunch of folks that have started at dxw during the pandemic. That on its own would be reason to be happy, but I also dragged them to Whitecross Market for lunch which made it a super day.
The class of ‘21 (© Marianne’s name for the new members of the design team) continue to bond in a way that gives a person warm and fuzzy feelings. I tasked a couple of people with reigniting the design community back in the spring and they’ve well and truly taken the ball and run with it, with zero need for direction. LOVE IT. 💚
The design community groundswell has reinforced my notion that hiring for craft alone isn’t enough. Teams are made up of personalities, not just skills. Make sure they’re diverse and full of people that care about something, and you’re onto a good thing.
The reinvigorated community have started to write internal weeknotes. I’m asking when we’ll be making them public.
Good Work
I’ve found myself involved in sales a lot more this week than I have for quite some time. I was pleased to see a couple of our new starters and associates took the opportunity to get involved in some new business work too. This stuff shouldn’t only be the realm of old-timers.
All the design leads had an intro to company finance talk from Jayne, our financial director. We followed that with a meeting to discuss utilisation and other financial metrics with our CTO, Dom. It’s essential in agency life that our people get a glimpse behind the curtain of the business side of things; it can often feel like an abstract.
I had a lovely catch-up with Marianne this week during which she gave me some super useful feedback on the WIP progression framework. If you read this Marianne, thank you ☺️
Good Stories
This week I’ve established a new habit of going for a brisk walk, and getting an electric scooter home. The Spin scooters in Colchester are so much fun! One morning I even walked to the supermarket and did a shop then scooted home.
RIP FG. The FutureGov brand was so much more than a colour and a few slogans; it was about being an underdog with heart in a sector dominated by soulless “solution providers”. I gave three-and-a-half of my best years to that idea. I truly hope the new configuration continues in the same spirit.
We went on holiday. Feels like we waited forever.
