Round up - March to May

An occasional round up all the posts and weeknotes and things I've been up to that some of you said you might like!

A bumper couple of months - TechFreedom went live, a residential happened, The Pastry Index ™ , several new tools, a viral piece on grantmaking infrastructure and what actually counts as a "skill". Here's the lot, newest first.

Main posts

There be goblins — 16 May 2026 A commodore 64 reference and "you can't run accountable public services on immutable systems" quote in one piece? Hell yeah. A riff on OpenAI's habit of reaching for goblins, gremlins and trolls in its metaphors that leads into a broader discussion of the ability to forget in LLMs and how this might impact our approach in public and social sectors.

The Constant Gardeners — 9 May 2026 The flashy new initiatives feel nice, but it's the quiet work that really matters. My musing on the constant gardeners in work and in life, as I ponder my tree peony.

My Stack — going local — 8 May 2026 The yearly tour of the tools I actually use day-to-day, with this year's theme a deliberate shift towards local-first. Resetting habits, progress not perfection.

Is This Just a Skill? — 27 Mar 2026 At one point everything was an app, or at least someone said it should be an app. Now I wonder, is everything a SKILL? And what's the difference between a skill and an actual product. I consider this with something I built and then decided...I think this is a skill.

The Grant Application Is Dead. What Comes Next? — 25 Mar 2026 The viral piece. How federated protocols, local agents, and organisational self-sovereignty could replace the broken funding model. Come down the rabbit hole with me...

The Case for Loose Ends — 18 Mar 2026 A push back against the urge to tie workshops and projects up with a neat bow. Are we diminishing long-term impact by over-finishing things in the room?

What has the IMD ever done for us? — 11 Mar 2026 This one caused some discussion, which was the whole point. No-one is arguing that the Index of Multiple Deprivation is bad, but does it actually make a difference? A genuine question that's been bugging me for a while, and so, with a bit of apprehension, I wrote about why.

Weeknotes

Weeknote 51 — 16 May 2026 — A good week of conversations and ideas, plus some decent food.

Weeknote 50 — 8 May 2026 — The fiftieth. Collective resilience, time in Norwich, the second TechFreedom session, vibes as infrastructure, venues as participants, and Strava kicking me while I was down.

Weeknote 49 — 3 May 2026 — Short one. Illness.

Weeknote 48 — 26 Apr 2026 — Trail running into the start of the week, the first TechFreedom session delivered, a new client meeting, tools shared.

Weeknote 47 — 19 Apr 2026 — Northern Ireland trip, a workshop on question-based approaches to data, TechFreedom cohort prep, and the build of Bearing a tool for choosing AI models.

Le weeknote 46 — 12 Apr 2026 — A week off in Fontainebleau. Mostly bouldering and the Pastry Index ™ data visualisation which is off the charts. Yes I went 3d on pastries

Weeknote 45 — 2 Apr 2026 — Reflection, the launch of Stackmap, more TechFreedom progress, an oh-shit moment or two, and the case for testing.

Weeknote 44 — 28 Mar 2026 — TechFreedom, "20% beefs", the grant application is dead, is everything a skill, knockbacks, and some actual paid work.

Weeknote 43 — 22 Mar 2026 — Just enough structure. Saying no to neat little bows. Residential week, letting go of ideas, and a run.

New tools launched

Stackmap - a tool for umm mapping you stack. You can map the tech stack you use, what functions the tools support, data flows, risks. You get a few simple outputs (JSON, mermaid diagram, CSV) - all free and in browser

Flowlance - onboarded some new users. A tool for managing your freelance business - cashflow, invoicing, expenses, proposals, contracts and amendments.

Drift Forms - a new forms platform. I know I know, who needs another? Well this one is hopefully a little different, build around making forms both fully featured (all form field types as standard), AI first, and really built around workflows