June 2025
The Vibe
It’s been a pretty wild month, particularly on the weather front. There’s been a toxic algal bloom off the coast, some wild storms that wreaked havoc on the beaches and jetty’s along the coast and the gloomy darkness that signifies winter in the southern hemisphere.
Emotionally it’s been a bit the same. There was the high of going to Sydney and seeing family, nephew and nieces and celebrating a milestone birthday. But one of the reasons why we were there was one of my nieces has a cancer diagnosis – treatable, which started on that weekend with glowing fluorescent orange tablets that look like those squishy earplugs but which we mere mortals are not allowed to touch. So sad, but full of hope. The restructure for the merger dropped. Positive - I still have a job. Negative - the actual structure seems unworkable and problematic. I have a palpable sense of not being in control of my future – and not the first time in my life. But also the pursuit of a new venture (or two) seems possible, doable and somewhat achievable which does gives me hope and something to aim for.
I had my first full road rage incident, which I can see now as just an outlet for all of this ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Not overly happy with myself, but there was some righteous indignation being blocked by a truck on the way to the train station on a wet morning while the driver sat there on his phone refusing to move into an obvious space. Anywho - maybe not the most constructive use of energy, but there was something cathartic about yelling at someone to “get fucked” at 8am.
I spent a good chunk of the month working with my team pulling together a paper which has been great. It’s been a long time since I’ve had time to do this. There was the day I gave myself to write something up while in Fiji, but that didn’t get accepted (thanks Reviewer 2!). This time though it was more measured and paced. We utilised a retrospective as the catalyst for working out our lessons learnt from the process. I channeled that into a bit of a SWOT and TOWS analysis that really helped solidify our position. And then we set out writing. Authoring anything collaborative is far more labour consuming than anything solo. It challenging to mix in different perspectives, styles and voices. At the same time I love it when it comes together. Staring at the chaos beforehand though was challenging. I put it off a few times - and I now wonder if this is something that can be rushed. Things need to gestate and form, and that seems like something that is temporal, no amount of effort or focus seems to actually speed the process up.
Where we ended up in the paper was really good as well. We decided to write the paper as a case study, and to be honest that worked really well as the work itself never had a “theoretical construct” around it in the first place. And as a retrospective piece, it actually allowed us space to find a theoretical lens to see our work through. I’m not an academic and so this approach might be antithetical, but hey I am much more about making sense and reaching an understanding through process and action rather than research. In this respect I came across Dorst’s paper on Design Thinking. What I wanted to do was bring out the concept of design practice in learning design, rather than framing it through an educational lens, and Dorst’s ideas really resonated. The idea of shifting the work we do to be less about product and more towards value was helpful, but the idea of design work actually about reframing the problem space was perfect. The way they talk about getting situated and having a feel for the problem, rather than sticking with how it was currently framed opened up my eyes to something that I had practiced, but never vocalised or thought consciously about before. What emerged through developing the paper was a better understanding of process, and when we reframed the ‘problem’ of course development as a complex instead of complicated one – everything came together. I got to pull in a bunch of my knowledge, experience and perspectives into the paper and I’m so happy with where we landed. Hopefully the reviewers do too.
The other big time sync was participating in 5 weeks of the ThincSeed Pre Accelerator program. A group of us have been trying to commercialise some software we developed at the university for some time. We’ve hit most of the roadblocks now, but I think we might have navigated a way through that. Nothing is official, nothing is actually setup yet, what’s there now is a way forward. I spent the first few months developing a business plan and financial model for the business. This program was about what you need to do in order to get investment ready, and helped to really clarify what our next steps need to be. This is going to be a longitudinal project - unless some billionaire wants to give me money no strings - but it will be worth it just for the sense of independence it offers.
Events
We took a trip to Sydney for the weekend and had some quality time with my in-laws. We got to hang out with the kids, all now in high school which is such a different dynamic than when they were all so small. Also had some quality time with my brother in-law who took me on a beer crawl through Marrackville. There’s almost a dozen breweries in a very small space and we had a crack at about half of them before heading back on the plane to Adelaide.
I also consumed a lot of beer at the final Beer and BBQ Fest in Adelaide. My old boss and colleague Ali was flying in to attend and so we spent the afternoon catching up and drinking. There was a lot of great beer on offer - I am particularly partial to dark beer during winter and I found some great examples on offer.
One of my favourite things this month was sitting down for a recorded conversation with the indomitable Jim Groom[1]. I did a bit of research and watched the other conversations Jim had in this "On Writing" series, and I felt a little out of place. I didn't necessarily feel like an impostor; I have written a lot over the years, but not in the same league as the other guests. I borrowed the analogy of the cook vs. chef – one can make a tasty meal, but the other applies a craft to food that isn't in a cook's repertoire. I'm a cook when it comes to writing – I can deliver words but I don't have a background in literature, I've never written a book and there isn't that desire in me either. What I found through the discussion was that writing was a way to reach out and connect with people, engage in conversations and share ideas, opinions and feelings. I recommend a dive into the whole series.
We had the Festival of Learning and Teaching where I was just a participant this year and gave me a chance to take it in. I enjoyed the chance to get out of the humdrum work and engage with some bigger ideas about learning and teaching and the impact of AI. It’s kicked off some thoughts - and hoping to write them up soon.
I also just wanted to mention that I also had a crack at Arcadia June, courtesy of the Hemispheric Views crew. This hand crafted podcast and their community have really embraced this iOS app that contains a heap of retro inspired games. Each June they ask members to all play and share high scores and compete. I kind of missed the whole arcade high score cultural phenomenon, so this was a chance to have a go. I didn’t submit any winning scores, but was happy to just hopefully get my name on the list. Can recommend the app as it’s a ton of fun and I’m still playing as we head into July.
Photos
Watched
Caught up on the latest seasons of Formula 1 Drive to Survive and The Last of Us. Smashed through MobLand which I enjoyed. Probably the best thing I’ve watched in a long time was Reservation Dogs. I smashed through all 3 seasons in a couple of weeks and loved it. Probably some of the best television I’ve seen in a long time.
Listened
The ABC series Dusted was a really great set of episode exploring mining in Australia. The spin on it was not that it’s focus was on Gold, Coal and Asbestos - three of the key defining mining enterprises in Australia - but that it was centred on the dust created by the act of mining and the diseases and impact they had on communities.
Loved this description of Jim from Tom Woodward’s post where you can get a sense of both the man and the myth! "He’s an independently wealthy Italian tech magnate and he can spend his time doing strange things from a castle in Trento where he lives surrounded by old VCR tapes and 1980s arcade consoles." ↩︎