Post #5471

Fact of the week: 330 is the number of dimples in a British golf ball according to Wikipedia.

So having been on holiday all of last week, I’m only just catching up with what’s been going on in the studio and am still not quite sure I’ve sussed it all out. Since I’m the one that actually makes up the blog rota, though, I have only myself to blame for assigning myself to write weeknotes the week after I’ve been on holiday. Trust me, I won’t do that again.

When I asked Matt Webb what last week was like, his summary was, “There was drama.” Unsurprisingly, when much of your work is dependent on the whims and wishes and ever-changing timelines of clients, things can go a bit pear-shaped. As regular readers of this blog will know, however, BERG is not a company that has all its eggs in one basket, so one client throwing us for a loop doesn’t completely knock us off balance. Nevertheless, there has been drama and so we’re having to deal with that.

In terms of what various folks are up to this week…

Matt Jones, Jack and Alex (who celebrated his one-year anniversary at BERG today!) are doing work on Uinta in preparation for a presentation on Thursday. Matt & Jack are also spending lots of time doing general company planning and re-planning and thinking about sales. Alongside all that, Jack has his fingers in Barry design. He’s also looking at lots of documents.

Barry is also occupying Alex, Denise, Alice, James, Nick, Matt Webb and Andy. Besides following up with various partners & suppliers and chasing China for quotes, Andy is specifically doing some reflecting on the last year of Barry development. (Side note: Because of my role and the fact that I don’t work on Fridays – thus missing weekly studio demos – I only get to see very small slivers of the progress that’s been made on Barry. I do catch a whiff of the excitement and anticipation around it every now and then, though. And I can say with some confidence: it’s going to be pretty spectacular, people.)

Simon, Alice, James and Nick had a meeting at the pub yesterday to make some decisions around Barry and are now working to implement those. There are still a number of near-term decisions that still need to be made, though. Since Nick, James and Alice are now sitting in the main room of the studio where I am (having previously been based in Statham next door), I’m overhearing lots more about the code and technology underlying Barry. Most of the time I have no idea what it means, but it’s rather fun to eavesdrop on anyway and to see them working to solve problems together.

Joe is mostly working on Uinta this week, fleshing out the system underneath the recently approved “look and feel”. He and Simon will be spending some time out of the studio this week meeting with partners who are doing some work on that project alongside us.

Simon is, as usual, skillfully balancing multiple project and clients and partners – this week it’s mostly Chaco, Uinta, Barry and Suwappu with the occasional random bit of SVK and other stuff thrown in. It involves lots and lots of post-it notes. Which is causing me a bit of anxiety because he’s out this afternoon and the wind is blowing the post-it notes around and I have no idea what sort of system he’s organised them into and if you come back and all your carefully assemble post-it notes are out of order, Simon, I apologise. Blame our need for fresh air.

And as well as dealing with the drama stirred up last week, Matt Webb is planning, thinking about finances & sales and having lots of coffee with various people. I hope for his sake some of that is decaf.

Timo’s holiday has stretched into this week and we’re looking forward to welcoming him back tomorrow.

As for me, I’m working furiously to catch up with all the bookkeeping, replying to lots of general studio correspondence, booking travel, updating spreadsheets, doing customer service for SVK (it’s not to late to buy one!) and chasing non-responsive suppliers and overdue invoices. And eating cake. There seems to be lots of cake this week.

I hope that wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, there’s cake there too. Have a good week!