Getting an OBE (and how you can too)

On Saturday I officially received my OBE — not yet from the Queen but it was announced in HM 90th birthday honour’s list, I go get the actual thing at some point in the next six months, (unless my dreams are to be believed and I miss the ceremony due to unforeseen diversions).

Being me and documenting most of my working life in social media I felt compelled to write, but had no idea what to say.

Being a woman, I think it is a gender specific trait, I felt slightly ashamed, uncomfortable and guilty because so many others deserve acknowledgment for all the great things they do, and also those who helped this whole kids and coding movement.

But my forever-devil-conscience Cindy Gallop once more whipped me into stepping up for other women and girls, so that everyone feels that everything is slightly more possible, and my guilt was stuck in a vortex of unforgivable ‘damned if I do, damned if I don’t…’

But then tonight I discovered who put me forward for this honour, and suddenly I feel it is OK to write something.

The lady who put me forward has been my mentor and friend for quite a few years. She has seen me through the tears, the despair, the highs and elation, the uncertainty and the bewilderment. She has also put me on public stages, given me tequila (or ribena, depending on the moment) and she has even involved me in work she is doing that is far more high fallutin’ than my endeavours.

By knowing who put me forward I can feel comfortable knowing that it is from someone who actually knows what it takes to really follow your heart and refuse to accept the status quo, or size of the mountain of success. And I know she meant it, she really meant it.

Another message that resonated was one that said the following…

Kudos to Alice Bentinck Mike Butcher Matt Clifford Saul Klein Emma Mulqueeny Wendy Tan White Sarah Wood for the kindness, talent, and hard work that led you to be in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list today!

And the word that has hit home the most with me this year has been kindness. (Talent (should read blag and attitude) and hard work — I am not ashamed or embarrassed by the hard work side of things, so that’s OK.)…

But kindness from my benefactor got me this OBE and kindness from the community brought Young Rewired State to reality. So kindness really is the quality that I hope drives most people to go above and beyond their day-to-day obligations to family and work.

I am not going to blah on about how hard it all was, or sad refrains of evenings lost to work (like this one!), we all know stuff takes work.

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How can you get one? Or how can you nominate someone?

So the day before it was announced I got an email, that I obviously made everyone in the office read because it was suddenly getting real (you don’t know that it is actually going to happen until this point, you just get a guarded note that says you have been proposed and accepted to be put forward by the PM to the Queen, but say nothing and expect nothing).

A part of the email I will leave at the end of this post as my mic drop, they first congratulate you, the first official notification you get that you are in, then they warn you of press queries and finally — this is the important bit, they say this:

We have been very pleased to see an increase in the number of awards to women in recent years. If you felt able to help us to communicate this message, it would be very kind if you might signpost to www.gov.uk/honours to encourage more nominations. Everyone knows someone worthy of recognition. But they won’t receive an award unless someone nominates them!

#kindness Pass it on…

New Year… New News!

It is usually about this time every year when I give bigger news than normal, and this is no exception! You may recall a few years ago I announced that I was stepping down as CEO of Rewired and Young Rewired State and moving to the board, and for the last two years we have been shaping the incredible organisation that is Rewired State, and working out how to scale Young. So… first things first:

Rewired State – the smart data agency

I cannot really put into words how proud I am of the achievements of this community of developers. Over the last seven years we have fought for and won many a battle for open data in public services (not alone of course, but with a small crew of like minded enterprises). Our move over into the commercial sector after we left our Guardian incubator was a forbearer of the greater acceptance and understanding of big data, and we began to realise true ROI for our clients.

Our brand remains resolutely strong with provenance, successful/beautiful disruption and a growing community of data designers, scientists, developers and thought-leaders.

The culmination, I guess you could say, of these last two years of really thinking about the positioning of Rewired State as we move forward is a full pivot with a clear focus on our core competencies in smart data, fully supported by our senior team leaders, the community and the Board.

We have brought in a strong commercial director: Joe Clark, who will steer future growth. I continue to work closely with Joe as Founder and Board Director, alongside my colleagues and the community. Check out our VD01 website over here and let us know if you would like to engage with this new, beautiful version of my first baby! I am ridiculously proud of it.

Young Rewired State

As those of you who know me know, this has always been my passion: this group of self taught programmers, giving them a community, real world challenges and introducing them to open data. So many of these alumni remain a part of my life and I feel like some kind of geeky Godmother most days!

It is testament to its success that it has grown to become this International community of thousands of young developers, mentors and alumni – it almost has a life of its own without anything we do centrally! However, we have a duty of care, and it is that duty that has led us to focus once again on how best to scale and fund what we do.

Now that Rewired State has completed its pivot and is already storming through with some fantastic clients and partners, it is time to lift up the hood of Young Rewired, and see how we can really enable and support scale.

We have been incredibly lucky an have been able to second the services of Oliver Wyman for a six week strategic review, looking at other ways talent is scaled internationally in other sectors, and how we might apply this to YRS. I am confident that together we will find a scalable solution to allow the developer in every child find a community, a network and future to be excited about.

This does mean that for the rest of this year, activity at the heart of YRS will be limited to supporting ongoing activities and focused on scale and funding the future. The senior management team are in discussions with some key partners for potential delivery of the Festival of Code 2016 – but those discussions are still in flow and I am unlikely to have any news on the Festival in 2016 until the end of February.

Me?

Well – I cannot tell you how ridiculously exciting the last couple of months have been – if not a little busy! I was contacted out of the blue to see if I would consider meeting with Natalia Vodianova and her team running Elbi Digital – an organisation focused on enabling everyday philanthropy. The brilliant (and kind) Joanna Shields had suggested I do so, and Eugenia Makhlin took up the challenge (she is the outgoing CEO – off to have baby number two and help steer this from the board). #womenintechnology

Natalia is a very determined lady and has already achieved an incredible amount with her Naked Heart Foundation in Russia and Elbi is her latest genius idea – to break open philanthropy and put it in the hands of all of us, in smart, beautiful and delightful ways.

Obviously this plays directly to my own personal core values and ‘things that push my buttons’. And over a long afternoon spent with Natalia and ginger tea in Paris last year, I fell in love with Elbi.

To my absolute delight, surprise and spine-tingling pleasure, I was invited to come on board as the new CEO, to bring all of the shutzpah (well, JFDI) and lessons I have learned about breaking things better from the last seven years with Rewired and Young, adding Elbi to my stable of passions!

And so it begins. I have just stepped in as CEO of Elbi Digital, our first product is live in MVP already (since late last year), go check it out on the app store (hunt for Elbi) and we will be rolling out version 1 this Spring and then the really special magic begins to happen.

Natalia has great vision, and it is truly humbling, inspiring and an incredible opportunity to be working with her, and I look forward to introducing her into the technology world we inhabit over the coming years.

Here is to the next stage of everything! I am so happy and really am thankful for all of the opportunities I get, and grateful to the massive support of those communities I am lucky enough to be a part of.

Happy New Year everyone

xoxo

*isms: racism, sexism, feminism… &c

{note: I wrote this the night before the Ferguson result. I shall leave it as it is. As for Ferguson these images say it all http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/11/ferguson_protest_photos_grand_jury_decides_not_to_indict_darren_wilson_in.html}

I tend to retreat from all gender based discussions, only ever tempted out occasionally in discussions on how to encourage more girls into technology. But my words are usually not heartfelt enough – because I am unsure how I feel about it all.

Ultimately the issue is this. Here is what I believe:

That we should all respect everyone we meet, regardless of race, gender, size, age, hair colour etc (I cannot believe that this is news)

It makes no sense to base any decision any person can reasonably make, based on whether you are a man or woman; it is not a sensible delineator. Whether that be who is good enough to apply for a job, or who should be paid what, or who should drive/cook/clean/cry/laugh/play/work/sleep/fly/invent/code/speak/manage/define/write/lead…

So news headlines that read like this in 2014 are vapid, not incendary Turkey president Erdogan: Women are not equal to men

On the topic of men vs women, and men or women being better than the other – well, what are we talking about? Breast feeding? Women will be better. Weeing standing up? Men will be better. There is not general *thing* that makes one or other gender better than the other. It is ridiculous and we *all* know it!

However

The decades of this ridiculous delineation, and all other *isms (including racism which really does get my wick up more than anything), means that our poor children/the next generations+ are victims of unthinking and historic educational/parental rhetoric.

We were all subjected to this, and it is annoying to me that little has changed with boy/girl toys, books, games, career advice – just pure laziness really on behalf of the people who should be doing this as a part of their job or life.

It means that people like me, who have a very little influence in this space, can only really add a lobbying voice in our spare time and in our actions as parents and entrepreneurs.

But we have to in the absence of proper activism in all those flogging stuff to kids, whether it be schools, apps, games or whatever – they reinforce the gaps, because it is an easy dollar/pound if you get the parent market. And let’s face it, the affluent parents are more likely to be looking for conformism and the *in* club, not the challengers.

It is so annoying!!! (Although Mattel got a bit of a bite in the bum with the recent Barbie book – so it is starting to bleed over, thank goodness).

I have to say that just as damaging is the rhetoric of charity songsters, pleading for everyone to pity and pay for “Africa”. This article puts it much better than I could.

The world is flat. No, the world is round.

We just must stop making these assumptions based on such a massive slicing judgment: gender, race, politics, religion.

I know it is geeky, and not everyone’s bag, but really everyone knows that we are all made up of a complex mixture of stuff, and our “data” that makes up who we are is rarely finally defined by gender/race/politics etc (religion aside, I accept that it will define all things in life for the devout).

We are too complex for sexism and racism and any flipping *ism you can throw at me.

Humanity realised a while ago, through learning and science and wondering, that the earth was not flat. We know it is round now. We also know a hell of a lot more than this and the earth being round, not flat, does not define the way we consider our multi-complex relationship with it.

Let’s just please do everything we can to minimise these divides, and at every opportunity look for the other data points that really are relevant.