Week 3

[caption width=“180” align=“alignleft”] Royal Horseguards Hotel by pshab on flickr[/caption]One of my favourite things about my job is the range of great buildings I get to explore. This week saw me speaking at The Royal Horseguards hotel which features the longest marble staircase in London. It’s an impressive sight, lined with paintings of former prime ministers and monarchs. I carried my bike up it as there was nowhere outside to lock up.

The talk itself went well. It was an event 10gen had organised to look at “big data” and new approaches to technology choices in the public sector. I linked Matt Asay’s broad definition of “big data” and James Tomkins’ presentation on the Met Office’s Space Weather project was great.

The rest of the week was dominated by hiring and procurement. The former was definitely the more enjoyable.

We’re looking for more developers and architects to join us and I was setting up and conducting interviews for both roles. Things are definitely looking up on that front but we still have quite a few vacancies so get in touch if you’re interested.

Yesterday Gavin, James, Max and I did some sketching as we prepare to start work on the alpha of the Prison Visits exemplar. It looks like coding may start next week, which is exciting.

For a complete change of pace, today I was at Hackney Empire with the family to see the stage production of Ben & Holly. Our 4.5 year old had fun, but it definitely wasn’t a patch on the Charlie & Lola production we saw a few weeks back.