I woke up in London 2012

London, 8 August
9.47AM
It’s taken me 15 minutes to setup my laptop at work, in my flexible workspace. But now the intranet homepage has loaded. I’ve got my morning coffee and croissant. I say the intranet homepage, but it’s actually my homepage with my newsfeed. There are little thumbnails of my colleagues running down the screen.

I can see that Chris is out of the office this morning doing some filming. He probably posted his status via his iPhone. I post a comment on his status: “Don’t forget, NEVER walk backwards with the camera!” The coffee tastes good this morning.

10.20AM
There is a meeting at my desk scheduled with some HR people in 10 minutes. They just phoned from their offices in Birmingham. Going to be a little late. Can we make it 10.45 to give them a little time to refine their comments on the document that we are collaborating on. No problem, gives me time for a cigarette and another coffee!

10.45AM
Back at my desk, the online meeting is starting.  Just 3 of us. I’m doing a demonstration of how to add metadata to job vacancy documents. I can see that Matthew is interested in “3D screens at work”. Might have a chat with him later…

11.12AM
After the meeting, I need to contact Stace. She’s on my friends list. I follow her on my newsfeed. I speak with her every few weeks but I don’t know her number and haven’t actually met her. I found her through my cousin’s profile, who, like Stace, works up in Essex. She’s recently dyed her hair. She’s now dayglo orange and very proud of it. She had 457 comments on her new photo and was allegedly “trending” in Chelmsford for a day or two! Her number is next to her photo. It’s still nice to talk to people.

During the conversation, Dianne direct messages me. “Out with us for lunch today?” I finish off with Stace and reply to Dianne: “Book me a place pls.” She’s over in the team farm workspace today. I’ve chosen a quieter booth on my own as I’m taking part in a chat this afternoon and need a bit of peace.

12.30PM
Being part of the digital team has added bonuses. We get an iPhone to play with. We’re “piloting” the use of them in the workplace in preparation for rolling them out to the frontline. Not everyone will get one, but with nearly 100K staff, we’ll get a good deal on the phones.

I’ve been to this restaurant twice before but I still can’t navigate my way around the backstreets of Victoria.  So, iPhone a-go-go, I tune into Jen’s beacon and start walking with my earpiece turned up. The girls left 15 minutes ago to get the table and I’m late as usual. I send an automated message to Jen with my tracking beacon and ETA. We’re on a strict timetable today. They’ll know what to get me for lunch, I always share the vegetarian platter.

2.09PM
I’ve been following one of the core intranet production managers over in one of our subsidiary organisations.  Their core content and structure has been in a state for donkey’s years, but they’ve recently seconded someone who I’ve been working with over the years to manage the department. Anyway, José is having problems. He’s got a few discussion threads going about how to go about the redesign and at 3 o’clock we’re having a closed whiteboard session. There’s a group of information usability people on the “stream”.  We’ve all got together and are going to do some kind of intranet makeover in real-time.

3.51PM
The session went well. There was a good consensus of opinion from the wisdom of the group. We also managed to mock up some initial ideas in the sandbox and they can start testing pretty soon. I also got 3 “Lovelies” added to my profile – that’s 7 I’ve notched up this week!

Everyone is a little excited today. There’s going to be an announcement a little later this afternoon as our Permanent Secretary is appearing live on the C-link to talk about the recent staff survey. We’ve all been voting and taking polls and taking part in discussions over the past few weeks. What with the Olympics on and the great weather, everyone has been in high spirits.

I’ve got a little time before I login. I type into the search box “eye test voucher”. Top of the list is the guidance page. It’s always had a load of 5 star votes. It’s well written and you can download the form. Ah, the realness of paper. I also need to prepare for my appraisal. They call it something else here. I managed to find the guidance page on the intranet. And I add a few tags to the page: “appraisals, review”.

4.23PM
I’ve never known the place so quiet. Everyone is tuning in. The channel is playing the current trends from the stream. #efficiency and #savings are high in the charts. And #responserate just moved up.

Tomorrow I’m going to be analysing what’s been going on in the public debate. A bit of a row has broken out recently. Some goings on in Newham. A conversation has started on the public website and there’s a ripple that might turn into a wave.

Nevertheless, life has been so much easier since we had the stream. And our tribes. And our mobile technology. Little groups have popped up all over the place. You know who to contact if you need help with something.  And there’s no end of interaction with people from all over the organisation. You can still have a little fun an work. A little social life. We’ve all got our business to do. But today it’s about people. The brave and happy people.