One day I am going to write a book about making bread and sandwiches. I think that day might be soon, or at least I hope so. As I recall JRR Tolkien wrote The Hobbit in the 1930s and then finished Lord of the Rings in the 1950s. Is this blog post my The Hobbit? No. 

But it is about bread and sandwiches.

And it’s not about work. Right now I find my energy and ability to write about work is really low. I fell out of the habit of writing as a result.

Can we draw some lessons from baking bread in an unfamiliar kitchen that can be applied to work? Sure we can. Let’s get them out of the way:

• Test your methods in unfamiliar environments. It makes them better

• Think about what your minimum viable toolkit is

• Verify that things are as they seem*

• Iterate your practice based on experiences

*AKA the oven is lying to you

So, to bread.

…

There is no recipe in this blog post. When I write my forthcoming book about bread and sandwiches, title TBC, I am resolved to lead with the recipe rather than the preamble / life story. The state of online recipes is pretty much a meme in that regard and I want people to be able to get going. Then there can be the post-amble (?) and the life story which people can read at their leisure while the bread is in the oven for 35 minutes at 240 degrees.

…

In recent years when we go on holiday it’s to a self-catering place somewhere by the seaside in the UK**. I like to make bread. It’s rewarding to make a decent loaf in an unfamiliar kitchen. Bread from the supermarket is bad. Bread from the fancy pants baker is overpriced and also there might not be a fancy pants baker nearby.

I pack a minimum viable bread kit. At the time of writing it consists of:

• A loaf tin

• An oven thermometer

• Some razor blades

• Some baking parchment

• Digital scales

• A jar of sourdough starter wrapped in a plastic bag

Note that the loaf tin serves a dual purpose because it acts as a receptacle for the other items.

I have never seen a loaf tin in a self catering place. It is better to have a loaf tin than (say) make a round loaf because bread from a loaf tin is more convenient for sandwiches and you are going to be going on walks and having picnic lunch, ok?

You need an oven thermometer because all ovens lie. Your own oven is lying to you every day. “Sure I am at 240 degrees right now beep beep” it says. Is it at 240 degrees right now? No it is not beep beep my ass. We were on holiday in Rye on the English south coast. The oven said it was hot but it wasn’t hot enough to melt the cheese on a pizza. You had to max out the temperature to even cook anything. I didn’t make bread that time because the oven was not fit for purpose. But I resolved to always take an oven thermometer with me so that I could know the truth on my own terms. Ovens can run hotter than they claim as well, or have patchy distribution of heat. Once I managed to make bread in an Aga but that was a whole other feat against all odds and not for now.

Razor blades are for making a slash in the top of the loaf like they do in the movies about bread and also in the fancy pants bakers. This is the least necessary item of equipment and I think I might phase it out. I have never been thanked for the slash on the top of the loaf by consumers of the bread. The slash can prevent air gaps in the crust so it’s not without utility but I tend to be able to avoid those by keeping a close eye on how much the bread has risen.

Baking parchment might just be the most useful kitchen product there is. I would gladly do an endorsement deal for Big Parchment. I always line my loaf tin with baking parchment because one time I made some sourdough bread and the non-stick coating came off the tin and onto the crust. I have not looked back ever since that important learning experience. I used to travel with a roll of baking parchment but then I realised I can take a metre or so of baking parchment and fold it up small.

From the data available to me fewer than 20% of places can be expected to have digital scales. No host is expecting their guests to be baking a loaf of bread. You might be able to measure quantities with a measuring jug, and it’s likely there’s going to be one in the place. But will it have the measures for liquids *and* flour down the side? It’s your risk. Hey maybe you can measure quantities by eye good on you. Maybe you are an American and can do that thing with cups but my friend that is not me. I want some digital scales. The are light and you can use them for other stuff because you are catering for yourself and maybe there’s a nice recipe you want to try for dinner.

I use a jam jar for my sourdough starters. You can read more about my sourdough starter practice in my forthcoming book about bread and sandwiches, title TBC. The jam jar is in a plastic bag because one time it leaked all over my luggage.

…

When I am on holiday I like to keep it simple and bake a white sourdough loaf. I have a variety of loaves of bread that I make and you can read more about them in my forthcoming book about bread and sandwiches, title TBC. 

I also make bread rolls, with yeast. I don’t travel with yeast or God forbid a bag of strong white bread flour because those are readily available in the supermarket. If there is a fancy pants baker in town you might be able to get really nice flour and some fresh yeast too.

What I appreciate is how different the white loaves turn out compared with one I’d make at home. They’re still decent, but with just a few small changes to conditions and method the results aren’t anywhere near the same. I do think you build up a familiar balance of environment and technique over time and don’t pay attention to- or interrogate it. It’s something that’s worth testing in an unfamiliar place now and again.

**I would not do any of this if I was travelling outside of the UK. I could get away with the razor blades if I prepared ahead of time and really needed a shave but I don’t know how I would justify taking my precious jar of microbes into another country.

It’s coming up to 5 years since I joined Citizens Advice.This week I realised that pretty much everybody who was in the leadership team I joined has left. Sure, that team doesn’t exist in the same way any more, there have been several iterations and moves and minor reorganisations but still, it made me think.

Often I feel like I’m standing still while everything else is moving around me. And that’s not to say there’s anything wrong with standing still. Not at all. It doesn’t mean there isn’t progress in that stillness, or that stillness can’t be a strength.

I don’t like to rush.

At the same time even if there’s a great deal of heat and light being made around you it can be nice to be a part of it if it’s the good kind of energy. Purpose not panic.  I’m not averse to that. Hey I can be versatile.

That 5 years isn’t really 5 years in a conventional sense anyway because of the pandemic. Maybe it’s more like 2 and a half years. Or 10 years.

I am trying to get into the new London office at least once a week now. It is actually nice. It’s also productive, as long as I can ensure I’ve got a day with few video calls. Even if the office is say 20% full there’s only just enough private space for people to sit on calls. Back when I started at Citizens Advice in the old London office it was impossible to get a meeting room. It was impossible to get a desk too if you came in after 09:30 on most days, which I had to do due to childcare.

I remember in my first week when I didn’t understand the room booking rules because nobody had explained them to me I had not been able to get a desk and I had settled in one of phone booth cubicle things. I went to get a drink and when I came back the person who had booked the phone booth cubicle thing had taken all of my stuff and put it one the floor in a pile about 5 metres away from the door. Neither of us said anything. That was a strange day.

But that was then, in an office that wasn’t fit for purpose then and then became redundant overnight when the first lockdown happened, and then as things started opening up it continued to be largely redundant because it was too big and people weren’t coming into the office and lots of new people had joined the organisation and they didn’t live anywhere near London. That last bit, shifting the centre of gravity away from London not really intentionally but as a result of a period of time when ‘place’ meant less, that was a good outcome I think. Particularly as an organisation that serves clients across England and Wales*

I get uncomfortable referring to things coming out of the pandemic as being ‘good’ but hopefully you get my drift.

And so I also thought there would be this great hollowing out of the centre of London itself and that that could at the very least be interesting to see. But when I’m out and about nowadays it doesn’t seem that different to me. Seems very full. Lots of people look very smart still. Nobody in pyjamas in Clerkenwell. I find myself thinking about what to wear just a little bit. No dude pants. Also I need a haircut, I haven’t had one since January. Unlike during the pandemic when I gradually turned into a courtier from the Stuart era I don’t have the excuse of the barbers being closed.

We had a really nice holiday in Pembrokeshire. We were trying out having our summer holiday in the summer half term so my eldest child who is now a teenager gets more time with friends in the summer holiday itself. It worked well. Each year is an iteration on the previous one, we’re learning. An overnight stay in a city on the way is definitely the way to go. Glasgow last year was great. Cardiff this year was great too.

Going back to where I started I am aware that before too long we won’t be going on holidays with the kids. I guess there’s something about making the absolute most of it, in the moment. Perhaps that’s what’s on my mind in general. Am I making the most of it? I mean, I could be standing still and making the most of it - several moments in South Wales benefited from standing still and taking it in after all.

30 minutes is up. Thanks for reading. 

* Note that the national organisation Citizens Advice that I work for has offices in Birmingham, Leeds, and Cardiff as well as London. And that's in addition to the Network of ~240 Local Citizens Advice across England and Wales.

Thinking about the demise of that small corner of Twitter as a viable public service internet community. Not sure exactly when it happened but it’s been a while.

And it makes me think “what did I do all of that for?”

I am on Bluesky. I am checking it every day. It’s kind of nice? Maybe getting more viable as a thing? But I doubt it will be the same as the other thing was. And I’m not the same as I was for those years when I was putting in that effort on the internet.

Still a big cloud of standing fog in my head about the pandemic and what happened there, plus how it’s changed me. I feel like my engagement with that public service internet community I mentioned suffered particularly badly during 2020 and 2021. I was in the middle of many shared narratives of what was happening with people on the internet many of whom I met occasionally in real life (which was great) and now I have no idea what’s going on.

This morning I walked past a former colleague from Citizens Advice on the way back from the school run. They were on a call and I recognised them from their rather distinctive voice. They left Citizens Advice a few years ago. I wonder if they recognised me?

I am doing a pretty good job. I know on my own terms I have had a positive impact. The team I am in is really good. A genuinely diverse group who are going from strength to strength. It has taken a while to get to this place - I’d say the last 18 months have been the best. And yes, the work that we do is interesting and valuable. I certainly didn’t expect myself to develop actual expertise in data specifics but here we are. Domain knowledge baby.

It’s a big organisation, and a complicated one. Much of my work is kind of… blogging adjacent? Curating spaces to talk about data. Keeping logs of materials and resources with lots of links that people can refer back to. Sticking at it.

Yeah anyway.

More energy would be good. Thanks for reading.

I wrote about data conversations before. These kinds of forums evolve in my experience. Sometimes you decide they need a change or don't need to happen anymore. Sometimes you think they need to happen but others just aren't feeling it for whatever reason. Generally I like to stick at things for a while before deciding it's time to stop. Start the week with data has been going since May 2022. It was last year when it really came into its own. So yes, sticking at it.

Start the week with data is informed by the principles I set out in that data conversations blog post, especially "conversation not presentation" and "keep it frequent".

Every Monday morning we have a 30 minute video call with a speaker on something to do with data at Citizens Advice. Usually it's 15 minutes speaking to some slides and then the rest of the call for that all important conversation. I chair or maybe it's conduct the session. I sign off every session with "thank you for starting your week with data" which is neat and hasn't got old yet.

The invite list started as the Senior Leadership team but has grown organically to be wider than that. Every session is recorded and linked from a rolling log which is a Google doc. Slides are linked there too if they were used. All the presentations are good, but especially good ones are marked on the log with a fire emoji. Finally there's an email at the end of every week to the invite list telling them what's coming up on Monday and linking to the materials from that week's session.

The emails are especially repetitious. Also my inbox is mostly people declining Start the week with data. But every week numbers are pretty good - 25 to 40 people from all over this fairly big and diverse organisation.

The thing that made Start the week with data in 2023 so good was the variety in the programme. This forum isn't just the data experts talking about the expert data work they've done (although we have that too). We had 35 sessions with 24 different speakers from teams like

• Operations
  
• Finance
  
• Business Development
  
• Technology
  
• Policy and Advocacy
• Product and Delivery
• Evaluation
• Expert Advice and Content
• and more

The point is that everybody is working with data and can tell an interesting story about it that will be relevant to others.

One of my favourite sessions last year was our Finance team talking about the most successful systems migration I've ever seen. I'd never known a systems migration go well. And there was a strong piece of practical data improvement at the heart of the work, taking the opportunity to change data structures so that they could provide more meaningful insight.

We also get brand new insights at the session, like investigating access gaps for our clients across England and Wales. And we see things that absolutely everybody in the organisation should know, like fundamentals about our client base or how we measure our financial and social impact.

Another benefit of sticking with a forum like this for a while is you get the opportunity to revisit topics and see how they've developed. Or you hear about the next steps in a piece of data work that have been facilitated by something delivered earlier.

Managing to do 35 sessions isn't bad, especially accounting for holidays. It is a fair amount of effort to curate a programme like this, but the fact of doing that helps to build connections and visibility across the organisation for me. There's also something rewarding about encouraging people that they have an interesting story to tell. Every week I say please volunteer a topic if you want to and on the occasions people do come forward it makes me happy. But most of the effort is on me to keep that forward plan going. I think it's worth it though.

Recently a colleague said how much they appreciate the session because it's always relevant to them and their work and it gives them insight into what's happening at Citizens Advice in an effective way. I will take that as a win.

This is the work. It's fairly simple but it does require sustained effort to keep it going. If you're in a role where you're leading data improvement in a fairly large organisation I recommend giving something similar a try.

Thanks for reading.