thing13

Today I caused a flurry of productive activity at work by sticking a big bit of paper on the wall.

At the top, I wrote ‘Frequently Unanswered Questions’. On big yellow post-it notes, I started writing all the annoying gorilla-in-the-corner-of-the-room questions I could think of. The questions that consistently get asked on the way out of meetings, or over cups of tea and exasperated looks. The things that have become assumed unanswerable questions.

People started adding more questions. We collected a lot of them. And people started trying to answer them.

I moved the ones that looked like they might have been answered to another big bit of paper, to one side. The questions with unsatisfactory or contradictory answers were left in limbo, in the middle.

We now have lots of things to think about, and a way to see with our own eyes the progress we’re making to clear this mess up.

And a new acronym to use, cos there aren’t enough of those.

Today I had to stand in for Nick Holmes, the CSD Team Leader, at a Tech Forum meeting. It was potentially quite scary, because these things are famously… scary.

I had to defend the Semantic Markup standard against a number of people who had problems with it. I argued the case, stood my ground, and the standard was voted - not unanimously, but on-the-record - through. It needs plenty of work and all that, but… tiny acorns.