Production update
Posts, Notes, learning how to use Substack .. the story behind the published content
One of my teams at the BBC used to share their weekly update with users of our website. I appreciated the spririt of these weeknotes. Making them public had some legal value (prior art etc) but was more about doing the right thing as a publicly funded organisation. The process also imposed a useful pressure on the team including me, to make sure things were happening on a regular basis.
I am not going to share weeknotes. I will provide a progress update every two or three weeks, depending on how it feels. This first one marks three weeks of Posts and Notes.
This first update is long. This is a because I am trying to explain everything carefully. Again, bear with me as I learn how to do this.
Stories
This blog records how I am using the closure of Hammersmith Bridge to answer the question,
How to live my best life in world’s greatest city during a climate emergency?
Although frustrated in this early phase, it is possible to see the scaffolding taking shape. The stories fall into one of four buckets:
Climate
Policy
People
Place
The climate emergency was the trigger for this blog. There’s so much news about the climate, I am wary to simply repeating it. For the moment, I have posted the most basic explanation about the climate. I published a story about pollution in the High Alps. This was prompted seeing SW SKI, a popular shop on Barnes High Street. the story was a good example of the how the cause of effects of climate emergency do not respect national boundaries, never mind post codes. In the weeks ahead, I plan to focus more on the effects of the climate emergency on the UK and London especially. The emergency is not happening over there are some point in the future. It is happening over here and now.
Our response to this emergency is not something someone else will sort out later, preferably somewhere else. We are making changes but need to keep making them here and now. This is the focus of the second section of stories which focusses on decision making around strategy and policy. I have published an outline of the national and local governmnet response to date. I also offered a sugggestion how the UK Government (UKG) might be assessing future investment options ahead of a potential June deadline. I reported the UKG did reconvene the Hammersmith Bridge Task Force. Briefly. And in secret.
I started to sketch out how I think the politicians should assess the future of The Bridge. I made the case for changing from driver-first to people-first. I also explained how I see the hierarchy of vehicles (link) going forward: car right, right car.
The thinnest section so far relates to people. Indeed only two people have featured to date. Carl Sagan was part of my youth. Such a way with words. Keeping him company … me. I have explained why I chose this topic and this format.
The final section is location. Again, a slow start with just the one post about the problems with traffic in central London four hundred years ago
Notes
February’s surprise. I had planned to start using Notes in April, in the next phase of the blog’s development. But I found a steady stream of stories I wanted to share and they were easy to publish.
I posted several stories about lessons from other places - Manchester, Bristol, Netherlands and Copenhagen.
There were also two pieces about London: one reminding us of what we owe the Romans and the other a fabulous update on the arrival and growth of coal in the capital.
I see Notes as sharing the broader context. I might need to refine that thinking futher on down the line. Click on the Notes tab above to see the full list.
Production
The first few weeks have been dominated by sorting out the basics of writing and publishing regularly. I use Craft to organise my notes. I am slowly understanding the Substack content management system. I have no idea why it took a week to work out how to caption images. My latest Substack challenge: changing the domain. Surely it can’t be that difficult? I might need to phone a friend.
As I write this, I have a workling list of the the next dozen posts. I change the list on a near daily basis.
My assumption is to continue publishing Posts and Notes during Fenruary and March. At that point, I might lift the various privacy restrictions. Kudos to my one subscriber, John. How did you managed to slip my net?
At some point in the next quarter - April, May and June - I want to add other channels to the mix. In March I plan to investigate if and how to use Instagram, BlueSky and/or YouTube.
Learning
This is important for me.
One of the reasons I'm doing this is to learn new skills. I'm interested in the changing world. Explaining this blog, I explained my main media skills relate to audio production and media management. So writing a blog is testing for me.
Other things I have done this week include refamiliarise myself with Adobe image editing and use ChatGPT for the first time to help with research and some writing.
Next two weeks
The Mayor’s 2018 Transport Strategy will feature. It is 268 pages long. I am used to reading long corporate documents but it takes time to reflect and then report.
I went to the Tate Britain last week to see a terrific display of photos from the 1980s. My thoughts on that exhibition will feature in a series of posts which will start next week. I will explain how I think of this and other periods of my life. I am hoping you will better understand my motivation after reading them.
I want to nail the area around Barnes I am trying to understand. It is more than Barnes but not as big as Richmond Borough. It needs boundaries and a name.
I will continue publishing Notes as I do now. If I see something worth sharing, I will do so.
I have two nagging worries.
I appear strongly pro-walkers and wheelers and anti-drivers at the moment. It is true but I to nuance this. I will start to put this right before the end of March.
Also I am concerned these early posts are all, well, earnest. That is not my life in Barnes. This might be because of the complete lack of other voices in these early weeks or might be sound of me drowning whilst trying to cope with a new topic. If it takes 10,000 hours to master, I think the next 9,900 will be more joyful.
Next update in a fortnight on Friday 28 February.
Posts published in last three weeks
Climate change
Policy
People
Place