I’ve used Basecamp since at least 2013. Basecamp is an online tool for managing projects. I’ve personally used it for both enterprise organisation wide usage and freelance/consultancy. New for 2025 is the return of a free tier for managing one project at a time. This is good because it helps you try it without any cost.
Charles Handy obituary: corporate philosopher and author
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/obituaries/article/charles-handy-obituary-corporate-philosopher-and-author-mczk5gm06
Maverick management guru whose strategy was to spend 100 days a year earning, 100 days writing and 100 days on fun, with the rest spent on volunteering
Good enough for now, safe enough to try
A principle to live by.
Introducing The Citizens’ Jury
Museums have been run successfully for over 100 years. However even museums need to move with the times. Being more useful to more people is a phase I say a lot here at BMT. One of my core principles is placing “user needs” at the heart of what we do.
In addition to the typical methods of asking existing visitors what they need from us we are experimenting with a Citizen Jury throughout the second half of 2024.
We have written about how The Citizens’ Jury works on our website.
In short the Citizens’ Jury are 25-30 representive people chosen from a lottery of 5000 people across the City. They will will deliberate our initial question:
“What does Birmingham need and want from its museums, now and in the future; and what should Birmingham Museums Trust do to make these things happen?”
Special thanks to NLHF for funding this activity.
Test your assumptions
You may well be correct in your thinking. History may repeat itself. Better to test your assumptions though than discover things have changed and you didn’t get the memo. The weather app may say it’s dry but popping outside to confirm is easy.
Used to be a….
I used to be a:
Student.
Unemployed.
Artist.
Freelancer.
The IT guy.
The manager.
The fixer.
All previous working lives that built today’s current T-shaped skills. Whenever I’m asked how did I choose my path I say I try something and do more of it or less of it depending if I like it. I don’t know what’s next but it’s definitely more of what I like. Oh and being good at something helps me like it. So I practice. If it’s a skill it can be learned.
Using Basecamp to communicate across the organisation
I get asked from time to time how we work across nine with people scattered across the world at any given time (hey I’m writing this over the Atlantic).
Here at BMT we use a tool called Basecamp to support our communication. It is a tried and trusted tool used by thousands of people. We use it because effective communication is critical yet very hard to do at scale. We use it for both internal communication and working with partners on our products and services.
You can read about it’s tools etc on their website so I won’t repeat it here. In short the reason we don’t just use email like everyone else is because email across 150+ people is asking for trouble. Instead we choose a different path.
Basecamp is purely for communicating.
We need to share announcements, proposals, decisions and such like to group’s or globally across our organisation via our HQ group which every person is part of. Using Basecamp makes it the go to place for this.
Over time Basecamp becomes a form of corporate memory. When did we decide X? Answer check Basecamp. Why did we decide Y? Answer check Basecamp. People may leave but their comments remain. Clever huh.
Doing effective meetings is difficult and time consuming. Often times people just want to know the outcome. Share your proposal to a group(s) and get their feedback. To make it sweeter, get their feedback or approval when they are ready. Why wait for a meeting in two weeks when you can make it a simple proposal and get approval. One of our strategic aims is to support working anywhere at any time and this underpins our ability to do so.
Get it on your desktop or mobile if you choose.
We can make as many groups as we need and share with external partners.
Does Basecamp work well? Yes very much so.
However getting us all to use it effectively is a game of patience!
If I had to pick the biggest gripe people have with the tool it is confusion around managing notifications. When you normally post a message by default the setting notifies everyone in the group. It is easy to change but isn’t a behaviour most use/understand is possible.
My personal experience too is that writing with clarity is the key and that’s a skill most of us need to continually hone.
Getting to the same number
When I think I’m being very clear and someone doesn’t get me I’m reminded of the example of getting to the number four. My brain and worldview is 2+2=4. Simple. Yet another person may say 8-4=4 or 2×2=4. Then I realise there is lots of ways of arriving at the same number and that I made the assumption there was only one way. I think of this often when someone else has a different worldview but may be agreeing with the same outcome. Does it always matter how we arrive at four?
The shape of the letter ‘T’ in teams
The museum sector I orbit is facing a short-term period of uncertainly. More than ever we’re all looking at what are our teams need to be in order to adapt to a rewritten rule book. Getting things done at scale is why people come together. We form teams because “Annie” has particular specialist skills that “Jerry” doesn’t and vice versa. In my experience this has a tendency for us to focus too very heavily on 1-2 easily identifiable areas and recruit according to a deep skill.
As an example on paper my specialist skill would be computing related. Yet what I bring to the team is a broader set of systems thinking skills in addition to other skills at various degrees of sharpeness. Therefore if I left the team it would be tempting to say “we need to replace Zak with another person with computing background” which is a reductive way of solving the team gap.
A much better way to consider what a team needs as a whole is to think in terms of T-shaped skills. In this concept we acknowledge that specialist skills are important and these form the long part (or stem) of the T shape but that all the other skills are the cross bar and equally critical. With limited people and budgets it is unlikely we can recruit our way out alone. I was reminded of all the cross bar skills in Seth Godin’s piece on real skills. What if we focused on protecting our stem by strenthening the cross bar instead? could this lead to progression based on your cross bar rather your stem alone? could we focus on the stress points and scale up or down accordingly? can we value consent-based decision making? problem solving?
What real skills can I focus on in 2023 towards enduring the uncertainty?
Got a desk?
I propose that “we” make available our internal hotdesk spaces for others within the sector. We advertise where/when/how and make every effort to reduce the friction to make mi casa es su casa. The results could be to foster new connections, reduce isolation, help each other out and start to make the future of work a reality.
I want to… book a temporary space to work at for a few hours or a whole day at a time at a relateable organisation such as a museum.
So that… I don’t have to work alone at home all the time or because I happen to be out of town.
As a… regular traveler across the UK
When… i happen to be in another town or city with the need to work
Because… I can’t afford to hire a private co-working space or hover in a noisy high street cafe (at least not most of the time).
A boiler plate set of terms and conditions to cover fire evac, desktop workstation assessment and shared values to abide by would keep everyone happy. Oh and let’s have an agreed wifi host name and password.
The “we” above can be any organsiation so that we scale up a network that could be anywhere in the world.
I am part of an action research project with Culture24 looking to how we use the opportunities of hybrid for good purposes. Birmingham will be the first flag of hopefully many.
See you in Birmingham?