Weeknotes s01e24–2
Part 2: Ottawa
So my week-long work trip to North America happened. This is a trip first imagined in episode 16, which then became an unexpected reality in episode 17.
I went to Washington D.C. in the USA and then I went to Ottawa in Canada. I’m splitting this episode of my #weeknotes into two to make it more digestible.
This part is about Ottawa.
I had a great time. In particular I want to thank Soufiane Ben Moussa and Tasha Riddell for making the stuff happen; and Rob Greig (Department Director) and Rina for encouraging me to go to North America in the first place and sorting everything out.
The whole experience has expanded my horizons and helped my self-confidence. The week stretched me, and has given me some new medium- and long-term focus for work.
My time in Ottawa made me think about how exciting and motivating this whole public sector digital stuff is. It made me think about how positive working in an open way can be. It gave me some fresh perspectives on how to organise things, and the eventual benefits of ‘doing things properly’ [1].
Maybe most significantly, it reminded me that I reckon I have something small but constructive to offer to pretty much any team working in this world. No impostor syndrome, no dilettantism — give me a problem, and I can start to carve it into manageable chunks.
I had the opportunity to work through my opinion that people need to move away from considering published documents as the primary source of data from legislatures a bit further.
And in Canada in particular, I was surpised at just how much I know about running an IT department [2].
Unlike Washington D.C., in Ottawa I felt like I could stay for a couple of weeks or more and actually do some work with people that would be useful. Whether it was with the House of Commons; or the so-brand-new-I-don’t-think-it’s-even-launched Canadian Digital Service and related bodies; or both [3]. All the work and organisational structures was an easier mental match for my own experience, and the weather was grey with drizzly rain.
Heaven.
Much like Washington D.C. though, Ottawa could really do with some Sainsbury’s locals [4]. I couldn’t work out where people buy food, particularly fruit, or booze in the middle of the night. From talking to folks and getting an understanding of the licensing laws, as I understand it people don’t pop out to buy booze in the middle of the night in Ottawa.
Unbelievable.
There are special shops for booze that are like cash and carry booze churches but they kind of make you feel guilty for buying booze (I know this from experience). Oh, and you need to plan ahead. On Saturday evening I walked about a mile to the cash and carry booze church and missed its closing by 5 minutes.
I felt a bit less lonely in Ottawa than in Washington D.C.. I also felt a bit less tired, and a lot less dehydrated.
One person asked me for directions, which seems to happen to me wherever I go. The young Canadian guy in question gave me such an intense look of disgust when I said I didn’t know, but then I think he might have been on some of those illicit drugs. It was Canada Day, after all.
Week in brief
Wednesday
Picking up where I left off in episode 24–1, I travelled to Washington D.C. Dulles airport on the metro. I tried to check in for my flight to Ottawa, and couldn’t because apparently I needed some kind of new electronic visa (an eTA). This hadn’t come up in the travel arrangements made back at home.
Cue absolute panic.
The man at the special assistance desk was helpful, and told me to apply online. I did this, and the experience using the digital service was good, including the wifi at Washington D.C. Dulles airport. I was told I’d probably get email confirmation within 4 minutes. I did indeed get email confirmation within 4 minutes (expectations effectively managed — nice one Canada!). Then I gave my reference number to the special assistance desk man and I was checked- and booked-in. I hot-footed it to the plane, worried that I was cutting it fine (I was), but fortunately the plane was a bit late leaving.
When I got to Ottawa I was sent to the ‘questionable persons’ line at customs and immigration. I don’t know if this is because I have a beard in real life and not on my passport, or because I’d literally just applied for an electronic visa a couple of hours before, or because I am interesting in another way [5].
The border guard was decidedly unimpressed that I was the Head of Data and Search at the UK Parliament and I’d just spoken at a conference in Washington D.C. thank you very much but he let me in anyway.
The man at tourist information was really helpful and encouraged me to take the bus to the city centre instead of an Uber (wrong) or taxi (expensive).
I quickly concluded that the buses in Ottawa are really good.
I checked in to my hotel, and then wandered around the nearby streets. It was late. I found some food, ate it, and then went back to my hotel to sleep.
Thursday
I had such a great day with colleagues from Canadian House of Commons [6].
I met Soufiane, and then went on a tour of the House of Commons with Benoit and Lisette. The tour was a definite highlight of the entire trip. It was fascinating to be with both of them — Lisette had an evident passion for the place, and comprehensive knowledge of most every aspect of the building, from heritage down to air conditioning and audio/video services. Benoit was able to go into even more practical details, and I visited a server room for the first time in maybe 7 years. Also the library was one of the most instantly arresting rooms I’ve been in in my life.
I had a really good lunch with Soufiane, Benoit and Gilles. Probably the squarest meal I had all week.
Later I spoke with Gilles about software development. It was a great session. There are some fundamental differences in the way projects are commissioned and managed in the Canadian House of Commons compared with my own place. I would say the Canadian House of Commons was more exacting about what constitutes ‘good’ project (or programme) management, for a start [7].
There was much to recommend the Canadian model, although we have shared limitations in terms of gathering metrics and providing meaningful reports on progress; and we have shared challenges in terms of the sheer amount of concurrent projects and their associated dependencies.
There’s also the fact that in Canada the Senate and House of Commons administrations are very separate in terms of the provision of services, whereas in the UK we are more about shared services and consolidation (particularly in IT and ‘digital’ terms). Still, the fact that in Canada the House of Commons CIO is responsible for all the buildings projects and strategic planning is really significant and (in my opinion) will lead to some really positive outcomes in time.
I was really tired at the end of an intense work day. I guess I wandered around and watched TV or something. Maybe I had a nap too.
Friday started with meeting more Canadian House of Commons colleagues. I spoke with Yassine and co. about software development and websites. I hope Yassine and I can collaborate more because I’m pretty sure we could have spent several days talking through stuff. In particular: Search; open data; and the opportunities for greater consistency in Parliamentary data models around the world.
Next I spoke with Louis about the provision of IT services to Members of the Canadian House of Commons and managed to keep up (I think). Then I spoke with Jean about the approach to gathering customer (Member) insight — this gave me an even better idea of the cultural attitudes of the Canadian House of Commons. I think it’s different to the UK — maybe there’s an expectation of an even higher quality of service, plus the geography and need to work for constituents several thousands of miles away from Ottawa present an especially exacting challenge.
I went to lunch with Soufiane and Benoit. During lunch Rob Greig called Soufiane (weird). Then I went back to the hotel to take off my orange tie.
I walked a minute from my hotel to meet Tasha, who had brought together a large group of people in- and around the new Canadian Digital Service and associated (parent?) bodies like TBS to meet and chat. After the event I was really touched, because the whole city was shutting down for Canada Day celebrations — many people would have taken the day off.
I sat down with Thom, Sean, Mike, Yeremia, Megan, Ryan, and Olivia (who’d been in Canada for 3 weeks since moving from the Government Digital Service (GDS) in the UK).
We spent a fair bit of time talking about my 2-year project making cake for work [8]. Of course I was like
blah blah extended cake metaphor for service design blah cake-thought leadership blah blah no I totally wasn’t wearing an orange tie 10 minutes earlier blah blah cake blah
Personally I had a great time, this was probably my favourite meeting of the whole trip.
You see, the Canadian Digital Service is such an exciting prospect and I am seriously jealous of the situation where you are in there at the start of a something, with an opportunity to learn from the work (and mistakes) of people like GDS and 18F.
We definitely had a conversation about working in an open way, and how the Canadian House of Commons could engage more with the civic tech community, for example openparliament.ca. These two institutions are at most 10 minutes walk from one another (note it used to take me 30 minutes to get to GDS, and God only knows how long I’ll have to travel to their new hipster offices in east London).
I had a longer conversation with Sean and Mike in their tiny [9] room, and it all kind of felt like home.
Later I went out, thanks to Olivia. This was really kind. I don’t know how a few pints in a pub with Olivia, John and Ryan with the bizarre (to me) table service turned into drinking many cocktails on a hip hop video-ready hotel rooftop bar then ending up back at my hotel at 2.30AM after eating some poutine and taking my only taxi of the whole trip, but hey, it did.
Saturday was Canada Day. It was so very strange to be an Englishman alone in the capital city of a nation celebrating its 150th birthday. If I understood correctly, there were an additional half a million people in the city, which is half the population again.
I went to the nature museum which was fantastic, even if I couldn’t get above the second floor due to the glass staircase and my crippling vertigo [10]. My favourite bit was about the evolution of whales, which is totally my jam.
I had a really delicious Shawarma. I did some really good wandering about and soaking it all up. It was pretty lonely, mind you.
It really felt like time to come home.
Sunday was the first time I needed to get cash in Canada, as I needed it to pay for the bus to the airport. I heard that people don’t use cash much in Ottawa, which is a shame if only because Canadian money is so attractive.
The journey from Ottawa to London Heathrow started with the United Airlines representative telling me
Once you cross the line you can’t go back
which was kind of perfect.
#ClicheWatch
I forgot to print out a meetings data capture sheet to take to North America because I was working full time in the run up to my trip.
Instead, let’s reflect on some of the cliched potential North American events I predicted in episodes 16, 17, 19, 22, and 23:
- I didn’t meet Drake
- I didn’t meet Carly Rae Jepsen [11]
- Justin Trudeau was close by on Saturday, but I didn’t meet him because I couldn’t travel to Parliament hill without my hard-sided coolbox, beach umbrella, and sports gear [12]. Given that I accidentally lobbied a US Senator a few days earlier, let’s say the chances of me bumping into Justin Trudeau were high (coolbox, umbrella, and sports gear aside), and that this cliche was 20% complete.
- I missed Feist by a day, look:
- But if you ask any of my close friends they would rate my chances of finding Feist after her show and complimenting her on her new album (except for the bit with Jarvis Cocker which is really bad) as very, very high, because I have years of experience of hanging around waiting to successfully hassle inspirational musicians. So let’s say this cliche was 30% complete
- I didn’t meet Wayne Gretzky
- I did eat some poutine
- I bought some maple syrup
- A few of the people I met said “eh?’ at the end of their sentences a fair bit
- I didn’t meet the drummer from the Constantines to talk about West Ham United (again) but I did at least wear the t-shirt
[1] A link to the relatively unloved episode 2 of my #weeknotes right there
[2] I don’t know where it comes from, but it seems I straight up know a fair bit about running an IT department
[3] I can dream
[4] Other UK convenience stores are available
[5] What is the truth?
[6] When I arrived at the office building for the House of Commons I said I was there to visit people from the Canadian Parliament and the security guard said there wasn’t anybody from the Canadian Parliament in the building only the House of Commons plus some radio station so I was going to argue the toss with him about legislatures and democracy but I decided against it because he was a security guard and I had to give him my passport to get in the lift
[7] I have opinions FOR DAYS on this deeply unfashionable topic, FWIW
[8] I’m worried that this blog post about cake is my masterpiece. How can I top it (no pun intended)?
[9] Not tiny at all. Incredibly spacious and luxurious by UK Parliament Digital Service standards
[10] I would have taken the lift, but the lifts were rammed because the museum was rammed because it was Canada Day
[11] Particularly sad about this. Next time, Carly Rae Jepsen
[12] This is a Canada Day 150 Ottawa in-joke
