Blenheim Palace

We visited a place called Blenheim Palace this past weekend. We knew it was related to Sir Winston Churchill and we had heard it was beautiful, but that's about all we knew. 

After an hour drive, we pulled up to the long straight driveway of the palace. It was around £20 to park and enjoy the palace, park and garden (for free you can convert it to an annual pass, which allows you to come back anytime in the next 12 months for free). The first thing we noticed was the big beautiful black and gold iron gates that served as a front door to the palace. We walked through those gates which were nothing more than an entrance to an outdoor courtyard, which makes for a nice surprise when you're expecting to walk indoors. 

Looking ahead we saw the next set of iron gates about 100 yards again so we wandered toward them excited to get inside. Funny, after walking through those gates, you're into yet another massive outdoor courtyard, so I joked and said "that was fun, nice house". But when you look to the left, that's when you see the stunning palace itself.

We walked in and turned to the left after glancing at the largest foyer I've ever seen. We stumbled upon a tour that was starting in 2 minutes. The tour was a video guided tour which meant you watched a video in each room and doors automatically opened at the end of each video. Sorry to say we'd skip that tour next time. Although we did learn some great facts along the way, including the key fact that he was born here.

We returned to the front of the palace and turned to the right this time. Perfect, it took us straight to the State Rooms. As beautiful as you'd imagine. We saw the room he was born in, which comes with a unique feeling when you're standing there.

We then wandered to the gardens and the grounds. There are multiple gardens and a pretty decent waterfall. We had great conversation, enjoyed the views and grabbed some tea in the cafe. 

I'd say it's a great spot to visit, and they somewhat surprisingly don't cover much of Churchill (pros or cons of his decisions and actions). We've heard great things about a place called Chartwell, which must be where he lived more than where he was born.

Windshield wipers go the other way

It took me 10 months, but today I realised that windshield wipers swipe left to right in the UK. Great example of how easy it is for things to hide right in front of you, I suppose. I'm still learning "little" things like that almost every day, but I've started to realise that most learning is now happening on a different scale. I'm not sure if I can put it in words yet, or even understand it, but it's more like learning to predict how a conversation will go, or how a group of people will respond to a situation, or "best ways" to get around different areas.

A recent example was a few days ago when I had to be "all the way" on the east side of London. It's a 1-2 hour drive to get there. After the first meeting, I needed to be in central London, and I live on the west side. I didn't want to drive to the east, then all the way back. I looked for a halfway point and found a town called Croydon. I recognised the name because the most recent winner of X factor was from there. 

It all worked out well. I made it to the event that night, where about 30 of us played a game. The game involved small groups of people, flipping over 4 cards, and discussing the situation you were dealt. In the first round, we were dealt "the Olympics in a millennium from now". So fun! We decided that every single human would compete against their own ideal self- pretty awesome idea.

On the ride home I remembered to note a few things. One - when in London, look for black and yellow signs that say "way out" when you're trying to get to the street. They're not the largest signs and corridors can we narrow and winding, so the signs really do help. And "10 to 6" in terms of time doesn't mean 5:50pm, it means 6:10pm, so be careful with your words when telling time... So much to learn!

Vodafone and cell phones

I'm still learning how to best use the cellular networks in Europe. Vodafone is one of the largest providers (if not the largest), so we started with them to get a feel for connectivity. We kept our American cell phones and chose "pay as you go" SIM cards.

We have 3 phones and its a story of good, bad and ugly. My phone works relatively well. I usually have a connection and the speed isn't bad. My wife's phone rarely works and she finds herself in the Vodafone shop a lot (3 times just yesterday!) My daughters phone is an older iPhone and it just won't support a new SIM card.

It's probably time to buy all new phones, in the UK. We learned that apple has differen app stores in each country and only certain countries have certain apps. From what we can tell, it's not like just connecting to a new App Store with a few clicks, you have to have a credit card registered in that country. We have UK credit cards now, so maybe new phones would deliver a more reliable service.

I'm even still learning how "pay as you go" works. There's a deal called a Freedom Freebee, which sure seems to be the best deal on paper. You pay £10 for unlimited texts, 500 mb data and 150 minutes of calls. It's a bit of a light plan, but it should keep us going. Well, I find the data doesn't quite matchup with how much data my phone says I've used. You can call a free number and it will tell you how much data you have remaining, but that's a bit painful in my humble opinion (there's an app too, but only in the UK App Store). Then, you can automatically renew each month, but it's not just giving them a credit card, you have to "top up" and make sure your balance has enough for the "automatic" charge.

Ok I feel like I'm whining so I'll stop now :) We absolutely appreciate that we have cell phones, and they work in general. We'll figure out all the little bits to keep it going and its worth mentioning that Vodafone support is really quite excellent (in store, phone, and online chat)!

Accident and Emergency (A and E)

I had my first real a and e experience. A and E stands for accident and emergency, or what we'd call a hospital. I do sometimes hear people call it a hospital here too, but all the signs says a and e. 

Here's the story - I was sitting comfortably in class with my legs crossed. I stood up to get lunch and I immediately knew my left leg was asleep. I stood still for a second to get the blood flowing, then took a small step. Everything seemed fine so I plowed ahead. My left foot apparently had zero blood in it because it didn't move at all and I tripped over my own foot. I didn't fall, but there was a loud enough pop that my buddies turned around and knew something was wrong.

I sat back down and my ankle was noticeably swollen within minutes. Thoroughly embarrassed, people now starting offered so much kind help. Multiple people snapped into action to bring me pillows and chairs to prop my foot up, others went to get ice and the nurse. So so helpful and thoughtful. I appreciate it beyond words, even with all the embarrassment I felt.

After 2 hours of ice, the nurse decided it wasn't helping and I needed to go to a and e for an X-ray. It really did look bad but strangely it didn't hurt much. The popping sound had me concerned though, and of course the instant swelling.

I had been to a different a and e several months back, but they basically turned me away saying it wasn't an emergency. This time, they were more than willing to take me in. They estimated a 2 hour wait and sure enough it was almost 2 hours to the minute.

The doctor looked for about one minute and sent me straight to X-rays. They took for photos and processed them immediately. The results came in....just a sprain, not broken! 

After the 2 hour wait, I was done in 30 maybe 60 minutes. The great guy from work that dropped me off, came back to pick me up - and it was way after 5pm by that time.

This happened only a few days ago so it's still too early to really know anything. The swelling is beginning to subside so the bruising is coming on strong now. It strangely still doesn't hurt much although I'd say it's shifting from "stiff" to "sensitive". Let's hope it heals up soon and we're back to normal within weeks.

No more leg crossing for me :)

Happy Valentines Day!

We're down to our last few boxes of unpacking. Actually, it's not even boxes, it's sorting and arranging piles that were tossed out of boxes. 

We walked to a playground this morning. Met a few nice folks and had fun jumping around. 

For dinner we went to a spot we had previously enjoyed in London. This time we stayed closer to home and tried one of their other restaurants. They had a price fixe menu, which usually makes things easy. In this case, one of the items said "for 2", so I ordered it. There was some confusion from the waitress about who would be eating it, but we made it work. When the bill came, they had charged double, meaning it was literally two new meals. We challenged them on the price, which I never do, but they said that's how it works. Great restaurant but that was a pretty mean trick. Funny how we've been here long enough to know that it wasn't just foreign country confusion, it was just a strange menu and price.

Happy Valentines Day, hope it was great for you too!

Major Projects Association - Putting "People" at the Forefront of Projects

I was fortunate to attend a senior leader event hosted by the Major Projects Assiciation of the UK today. The topic was "Acquiring People Capability - Cost Effectively" and there were approximately 100 leaders in attendance. I thought the conversation was excellent, it circled around collaboration, science, technology, engineering, Maths skills, recruiting and retention, education systems, innovation, funding, and governmental partnership. 

To me, the key quote (which was said several times) was "these are not new problems, we've been discussing them for at least 8 years, are they really problems, is there any appetite to fix them?"

My humble opinion is that the core problem is not a lack of bravery, its a lack of genuinely new ways of solving problems, and yes, there's minimal appetite / willingness to change.

When business as know it started hundreds of years ago, the top constraints were land, labour and capital. We can automate and virtualise all of those now. Now the top constraints are time and attention. In knowledge management we've been talking about that for probably at least 8 years too. I think that might be a different context to consider, some might call it a more complex adaptive system. 

In KM though, we do offer many new ways of communicating, collaborating and flat out "working" differently. Call them talent markets, knowledge markets, communities of practice, expertise location "systems" (not just "tools"), knowledge continuity, personal knowledge management, sense making, decision making, on and on. They're different, they're effective, but they're rarely tried or accepted, especially on a large scale. 

I hope it doesn't come across as frustration, as I'm often told that it does. In fact, it feels more like eternal hope that organisations will begin to embrace new organisational, communication and collaboration models. I'm not sure it will be called knowledge management or even innovation, collaboration or org design/development, but I do think it will come around in some way. In fact, in small pieces, it already is. 

Another hot conversation was the repeated top priority of recruiting and retention. "We need to buy, build and borrow talent to get the job done". Again, I respectfully disagree, maybe there's a different context to consider. I think there may be a way to embrace the new reality that employees and jobs (I would say roles or tasks) are knowledge workers/tasks, and they'll stick around for approximately 2-3 years. There are models for embracing the pace of that change, whilst also maintaining organisational memory and capability. Talent markets are one example, communities of practice and knowledge continuity are even more options. It's about optimisimg the flow of knowledge, connecting people, and [continuously] matching passions with customer needs. Emergent leadership and followership become critical concepts.

I tweeted at klowey22 during the event in case you might be interested in those thoughts. 

During lunch I had a one on one chat with a senior leader from PwC, who happened to originally be from Uganda. Wow what a conversation, we chatted about capitalism, social structures, democracy, and international civilisation. Long story short, there's such great value in conversation and diversity. Exciting times to be checking assumptions, re-thinking and re-doing many aspects of "work".

Trainers are shoes

I was helping my daughter study for some upcoming big tests. We're downloading old tests online and studying from them (which is how everyone practices I'm told). One of the English test questions was a story about trainers. Trainers are what they call sneakers, as opposed to how we might think of a trainer as a person who helps you lift weights. Well this difference was quite important because the answers to the open ended questions would be very different depending upon your definition. I asked my daughter what she thought trainers were, and she knew it meant shoes, nice! 

Homecoming also means something quite different. I think of high school football and the homecoming court and alumni coming back to visit. Here, homecoming means a military vessel returning home for soldiers, friends and families to reunite. Admittedly that might just be what I hear working in the defense industry, but still pretty interesting... 

Cupboards

In the states we tend to have closets, in the UK we tend to have cupboards. I've learned that a cupboard is basically any walled off small space, which means those tiny "closets" above and below the stairs are cupboards. In fact, the one above the stairs is known as the landing cupboard, and the one at the bottom of the stairs has some other name. There's also an airing cupboard, which is the space that holds the hot water heater. There's a history to why it's called the airing cupboard, something about that space being used to heat the house, or dry clothes. It's still very common to have an airing cupboard and dry/warm your clothes there. 

Snow, doctors, credit cards and rubbish

We had about 2 inches of snow yesterday! It was the very nice packing kind of snow, as opposed to icy or pure fluff, so snowballs were easy to make. I had heard that "one inch of snow shuts everything down" but in fact everything was open. School had a note that said "remember your wellies" (boots). There didn't even seem to be an expectation that things would be shutdown, I think those few inches would have shut down schools back at home. 

Our youngest daughter has had a slight cold for about 2 weeks now. It's just now getting to the point where we think maybe she should see a doctor. Most likely the doctor will say "it's a cold, virus, treat the symptoms", but good to be safe, right? 

We called up our provider to see what they recommend. We were able to easily use their website to find doctors, but actually all we found were hospitals. I was quite confused about our coverage, and public versus private doctors. It turns out that we don't have external instance anymore, we're covered by UK National Health Services (NHS). It's social medicine, so basically we pay our taxes and all health costs are covered, as we understand it. We'll let you know how it goes!

Even though most healthcare costs are covered, you still have to pay for other stuff, so I've been using a UK credit card. It took some work to get one, but they're great to have because they work with a chip and pin. And I even have a "contactless" one, which means I don't have to enter a PIN number or anything, I just tap the till (cash register) and walk away, nice! 

Paying the monthly credit card bill, or at the least the first month, has proven to be a bit tricky. My bank and my credit card are two different banks, so I can't pay direct through a single online service. But that's ok, they do have online banking here and it's quite secure. They send you a little device that reads your debit card. You pop your card in, enter a few numbers and then you can pay new people online. The numbers are "account code" and "sort code". Similar to routing and account numbers in the US, I suppose. Hopefully our credit card is successfully paid now and all following months are now direct debit, easy.

You'd think it's simple to put out your trash, right? Well it takes a bit of understanding. First, as opposed to coming twice a week, they come once every two weeks (fortnight as they call it). There's a blue bin for recycling and a black bin for rubbish. You start with a small black bin (140 litre) and a matching blue bin. You can call the city council and ask for more, but you'll have to pay money and be approved to have more. They'll give you lots of recycling for not too much money or hassle, but rubbish is a bit like dealing with classified materials - lots of rationale and road blocks :)  oh we also have not 1 or 2, but FOUR massive black bins in our backyard, sorry, garden. They're for grass clippings, food, and I haven't even dared to open the other two. I notice most neighbours only have 1 or 2 of these stationary bins. I think we'll figure it all out eventually, but hmm, lots to think about (what kind of trash do we have, what kind of trash should we have, how do we handle it better, how does it all work out in the big picture, what's it worth financially, etc). 

I suppose those are decent questions for just about anything we do. 

Sunday stroll

I watched the Super Bowl last night. The game started at 1130pm local time and whilst I'm sure they tried to negotiate the start time, that's pretty late if they're trying to grow an international market. I found several pubs that were showing the game, but none in walking distance so I chose to try and find it online. Most sites said NBC would show it, which was true, if you were in the US. 

We don't own a TV right now, so I needed it online or via mobile phone. Most sites said it wasn't possible via phone, although the NFL site was your safest bet to watch it any way you wanted. I can't remember the cost, it was something like £50, which is a bit steep. I had sky sports before we moved, and sky charged more to cancel than to just keep the 1 year contract. I went online and after some digging, I was able to login to sky online and watch that way - nice!

Before the game we walked into town. It felt strangely quiet. It was noon on a Sunday and most everything was closed. Even a big store that had a 30 foot sign reading "now open on Sundays" was closed. It almost seemed like a holiday but I asked around and it appears it was just a relaxing Sunday. We stumbled upon one Italian cafe that was open, it was fantastic. Best tiramisu I've had outside of Italy! On the walk back, I found myself staring at the local dentist shop on the corner. There's something classic and historic about walking to the local dentist. That's just not something we do in the states (or at least very very few do).