iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Reading a book about a monk in the 13th century who is investigating the murder of a monk, likely done by another monk and this first monk has the detective skills of the TV monk.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Does anyone have any recommendations about places to eat, or just hang out during an evening in Cambridge?

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

...and the internet has hugged fat bear week to death.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Ok Rich today's mission is to get a new hoover. * 2 hours later * OK I now know everything there is to know about dishwashers and fridge freezers.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

It's been such an honour to spend over five years on GOV.UK Pay and this is a lovely gesture. Pays people, both past and present makes it so special. It's full of people who care, build an amazing product, support each other, help users and leave things better than we find them.

A snippet of a web browser URL showing humans. txt for GOV.UK Pay. The webpage content is plain text and reads 'Thanks for everything, Rich.'

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Sometimes I wonder if it's the last responsible moment or if I'm just a chancer.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Dear Jira. Please no. The new ticket design.... make it stop. Thank you Everyone.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Should not have checked my /played 350,400 hours 🙉🙈🙊🎂

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Glasses which come with a monthly subscription fee? Just no.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

9 months sober today. 3 months to my next big milestone.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Richard top motivation tip #79. If you want to get your teams to reflect on their progress and how much there's left to do of their work, then today you can remind them we are 180 days into the year and there's now just 179 more to go to Christmas. Half way folks. Half way. 👿

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Dear previous home owner. How? How did you even manage that???

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

Just two last sleeps in Hertford left. 3 if you count an afternoon nap.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

Oh dear. I have totally over estimated my brain's ability to marry up a photo of a sofa with the feeling of how comfortable it was at the time.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

I am now officially a Londoner. Do I get some sort of badge? or a mug?

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

It would make me so happy if Splunk made their search progress bar more obvious than trying to find a strand of hair on a wooden floor when you've dropped your contact lenses.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

I cannot recommend the national theatre production of All My Sons enough. Such a set of stand out performances

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

Now look here Google. If you're going to roll out new favicons to people in your suite of software then you need to write to us individually to confirm that we don't have anything important going on when you have hundreds of browser tabs open and use them to keep track of your life.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

I don't know why nobody wants to do a one hour sprint planning with me. I promise those three hours estimating will be the best eight hours of your life.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Graphs I'd like to see - number 73. A measure of team productivity over Slacks downtime / availability

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

In a session introducing new starters to a delivery team called 'Owl' We said that the team's names have no meaning other than the people in the team liked the sound the bird makes. I said WHO? ...and nobody laughed. 😭

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

Boy math. A true story. Boy want smart home. Smart home cost money. Boy cannot afford smart home. Boy discover smart thermostat save money. Suddenly boy not spending, boy investing. Boy making grown up decisions. Boy saving money. Smart boy!

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

Cursing at myself for recognising the need to have a label maker YEARS AGO for the very organisational emergency I am experiencing. Yet not having the foresight to put it somewhere I'd remember where it is, nor label that place properly with it. WHAT A FOOL!

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Drinking tea from my Christmas mug, the washing up can wait.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

The very specific tears of only being able to order stories for an epic in Jira in backlog view, instead of in the epic itself.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

Turned my new PC on for the first time in front of my sister. She comments on the RGB lights. 'Oooh it has party mode! Oh look! And your keyboard has party mode too.' Well... My grown up purchase very much feels less grown up now.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

A single swan is holding up a 10-carriage train and absolutely refusing to move. It won, a 20 minute delay. And yet this afternoon here I am saying I can't change this or that. I'm just one person.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

You know you can sometimes look at an image and hear a sound? I now think it's possible to look at a Jira ticket title and ID and hear something. Is there a word for this?

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

101 Reasons why I couldn't be a content designer number 76. I ask questions like 'what's the proper, but not proper noun for that? ' 'Do you mean what's it called? ' Yes i do.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

Spent the afternoon guest facilitating a liberating structures eco-cycle for another team. It helped me practice my skills in a space that I'm not too comfortable in, and I get to hear what my peers think of the practices they use. Lots I can take back and think about in my own work. Win win.

An A0 worksheet, hand drawn. It has four sections. Gestation, birthday, maturity and creative destruction. It also has two traps labelled on the far left and far right. The scarcity trap and the rigidity trap. Theres not yet anyone's contributions to it.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

If you see one thing at the cinema this week. Treat yourself and go see Secret Agent.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

Nouvelle Vague is a fun film.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

Here I am pitching a dummy hang up call button in video call software. Never again will someone say 'is there anything else you want to talk about' where you confidently say 'no' only to be immediately struck by a new thought when you hang up.

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Reposted by Rich Blake

Rumman Amin @rumman.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

We've seen why it's critical to run things safely. Often this can be traced back to decisions made over time. This framing is helpful for teams. Adds weight to raise outside of retros. Short post on tackling tech debt. Make it visible + modernise incrementally. rummanamin.co.uk/tackling-tec...

rummanamin.co.uk

Tackling Technical Debt Without Stopping Delivery - Rumman Amin

How to manage legacy systems, reduce risk and modernise sustainably without asking teams to stop everything

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

If your venn diagram niche is public benches service design accessibility then I have a short blog post for you What's with all of the missing park benches? – Rich Blake share.google/CkdeSUmPbX7T...

share.google

What's with all of the missing park benches? – Rich Blake

When you remove something people rely on, good communication becomes a necessary part of the service. Even for something as simple as a park bench.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

That feeling when NS&I send you an email on premium bonds draw day, only for you to log in and find it's just a duplicate 'secure' message copy of an email they sent you 4 days ago.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

Thinking about making an illustrated picture book called 'look mum, that looks like grandad' and it's just a series of different people, animals and objects wearing a flat cap.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

What can you learn about team dynamics from watching a film about football? Quite a lot actually. See my weeknote. richblake.github.io/blog/weeknot...

richblake.github.io

Weeknote 4 – What I took from Saipan – Rich Blake

What a football film revealed about team dynamics.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

I'm slowly trying to get into week-noting and writing more about creating great teams as well as living with arthritis. Feel free to follow along. Oh, and there's a backlog of ideas linked from the homepage. richblake.github.io/blog/weeknot...

richblake.github.io

Weeknote 3: A good week for deep work – Rich Blake

A week of deep focus, good films, and small reminders that the right conditions make all the difference.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

At least the worst user journey about going to the library in the sodding rain only to realise you forgot to bring the book you wanted to return is that you can just renew it and get another book.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 24/12/2025

Trying to decide how to log a cook book in story graph. 100% when you've done the flick through of the pictures and decided what you like the look of? 100% when you've read all of the prose at the start of the book? 100% when you've cooked every recipe? surely not!

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

My service to Hertford North (on the tannoy) says Cambridge North on all of the in train signs. I am feeling quite tired. so let's see if I end up in the right county or not.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

Need to spot a Brit in Helldivers 2? Simple! Watch for people getting into the right hand side of the fast recon vehicle expecting to put the pedal to metal and get the hell out of danger. Then a sad pause, followed by a 'loop of shame' where we run around to the left side. Drive on Diver!

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

Welcome to Jira Camp. We're going to stand in a circle, and update each other on how we got on. When you're done. just trust fall into the arms of the next person so they know it's their turn to talk.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 06/07/2025

In today's episode of Rich is an idiot. I've been playing a lot of Clair Obscur. It has a lot of French swearing in it, which I don't know the words for 😇 Anyway I've figured out that they're not exclaiming about a Canadian dish of chips, cheese and gravy when bad things happen.

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

The pricks in my pub come with a follow up tetanus shot.

A large rusty nail points pointy bit up on a very old rickety picnic table

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

Who's taking part in 'bring your parents to work day' tomorrow. And will it help them understand what you do? How many of them are going to have a sleepless night thinking you're going to physically put them inside a computer?

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Rich Blake @richblake.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

Was feeling the high of hearing my new PC is on the way. Then hit by the car crash low of seeing the words 'our delivery partner is DPD'.

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