The Musings of a first time LocalGovCamper
A colleague was the first person I’d heard rave about how awesome LocalGovCamp was and as a creative type I thought “that’s a piece of me!” so, at the earliest opportunity, I signed up and packed my bag for Birmingham.
Preparation
During the 4-hour train journey up to Birmingham, I was looking forward to the ‘legendary curry social’ that people had been discussing on social media, but I was filled with the usual internal anxiety “What if nobody spoke to me?” “What if I didn’t understand all the acronyms?” “What if I let my imposter syndrome take over me and I didn’t say anything to anyone?”
Happily, all my fears were allayed when I walked into The Anchor pub with my other Dorset Council Colleagues and was met a very warm welcome and some faces, I already knew.
The social
I’ve never seen a curry house so packed in my life, it was like sitting around the dining table on Christmas day, everyone chatting, laughing, catching up and sharing food. This was the point I started to relax and began to talk about my role and what I did to others around the table. It was such an insightful evening, chatting to new people from DLUCH, TPX impact and Placecube about design, BID’s and collaboration. The chicken biryani was very nice too!
The Main event — session 1
I had pre-booked my workshop sessions so after the first keynote from bookinglab where I learnt about Optimus prime and Ultra Magnus coming together to create an Omega Prime, I found the room and attended a session called “Tackling Local Government common challenges — mapping, learning, and fixing together”. Annie Heath from MadeTech hosted this session; it was collaborative with one of the main themes being data within local councils, how we have a lot of it and how often we cleanse it before moving it to new environments and how this can be done more effectively. I was inspired listening to James Gregory from Birmingham CC talking about this.
The Main event — session 2
Next up was How to be agile in Local Government: coaching tips and tricks this session was hosted by Anikh Sunhan from MadeTech. There were a few tech issues but like a true pro, Anikh was ‘agile’ enough to deliver a great session around being agile, the agile manifesto and its values and what challenges we face in local government when applying agile. The session involved group work where we shared experiences and learnings, and I took away loads to think about around continuous improvement and coaching during projects to ensure they deliver in the best way.
After coffee and some networking, where I spoke to some lovely people from Greenwich, I made my way to the next session.
The Main event — session 3
This session was dangerously close to lunchtime, so I was a bit anxious about being able to actively listen however, Data-driven Local Government: helping each other on the journey to data maturity by govmetric was insightful, we shared problems and experiences. We also talked about the importance of qualitative Vs quantitative data and our journeys to get to get to the right types of data.
Lunch
Let’s be honest here, we are all interested on how ‘good’ the lunch will be at these things and I think I am justified in saying that it was delicious, particularly the steak pie of which I had two!
Lunch followed some networking and a ‘swag haul’ again, I found it so worthwhile being able to network with people who do the same job as me and sharing the good, bad and ugly but also, the feeling of being part of something ‘bigger’ always leaves me buoyed up and ready for more.
The Main event — session 4
This session was Digital Collaboration in Local Government. The session was packed to the rafters with some delegates listening from the corridor, it was a popular session with experiences shared by Will Callaghan from Local Gov DRUPAL and James Gregory from Birmingham CC there were loads of questions and interest from around the room particularly on how Will collaborates in such a successful way.
Unconference Pitching
We were invited to come up to the front of the audience to pitch our topics for debate.
There were 6 available conference rooms and 5 candidates got up to pitch. I felt myself reel back in my chair, making myself as small as I could but then, I heard a small but significant voice encouraging others to pitch and (thanks to Annie Heath) I felt myself rise up and make my way towards the mic! Internally, I was screaming to myself “what are you doing — sit back down.” I got to the front and took to the mic; I could feel my face flush as I said “I’d like to talk about design systems and design governance and the link between them” or words to that effect. One thing I was very surprised to hear was applause, I took that as my cue to take my seat and silently panic about what I was going to say.
I got to the conference room, people followed me in and took seats. I’ll be honest, I can’t really remember a lot of what I said but the conversation flowed well, and I took lots away from the experience. I made new contacts and shared learnings; all my initial fears were allayed when I heard about others experiencing the same challenges.
Overall, I was chuffed that I found the courage to get up and pitch with no judgement and was buoyed from the experience. It’s something everyone should try once.
Final thoughts
It’s always empowering to feel part of something bigger than just the day job, and this is how LocalGovCamp made me feel. I hope to build on these contacts to create collaborative relationships in the future.
