LDC 2014 Fellows David Habershon and Craig Soutar

[image class="left" src="/assets/Uploads/da80a624b2/Blog-1-oxford-1410375c.jpg" alt="Blog 1 oxford 1410375c" height="125" width="200" id="1199"]We arrived in Oxford on Monday and took some time to wander around the university area in the middle of town. It is steeped in 750 years of academic endeavour. It was sobering to think of people like Thomas Huxley, J.R.R Tolkien, Johnathan Swift, Stephen Hawking, Edmund Halley and Joseph Banks walking these streets and working in these buildings.

This week we spent some time in the Great Hall of Hogwarts Castle which was a great experience … well, actually it was the Great Hall of Christ Church College in Oxford that we were in. This is the hall that was copied in the film studios to represent the iconic Hogwarts location and augmented with digital technology for many of the scenes. Although, walking into the Christ Church hall it instantly felt like Hogwarts.

[image class="left" alt="Blog 3 photo" src="/assets/Uploads/a1d9d5a9f7/Blog-3-photo.jpg" width="200" height="150" id="1206"]Wearing my All Black jacket in chilly Swansea I expected to see the passion of the Welsh come out as I made my way to one of our ‘sister’ agencies across the UK ? the Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA). Perhaps because of their lean times on the rugby field of late, there was barely a whimper!  What I did experience by the end of my day-long visit was an example of an agency now leading the field, following a central government digital first strategy released nearly two years ago. I wanted to understand the technical and adaptive leadership qualities that have made this organisation stand out, so I can inform, intervene and invest for a similar return in the Transport Agency (NZTA).

Leaving the Oxford course, Craig and I have taken slightly separate tracks as we pursue learning from our individual sub-domains of government business ? although the commonality outweighs the differences.

David signed off Blog #4 mentioning the ‘changing role of the CIO’.  How this is changing and what we need to better understand and prepare for, is a key thread of our joint Fellowship.  

In the National History Museum over the weekend, I came across this sign in a special exhibition called "Britain over the last million years". Part of this exhibition speculated on why the Neanderthal (despite being significantly stronger and having a bigger brain) disappeared after modern humans arrived on the scene.

Yesterday we were in Denmark and today we have just finished up in Belgium. These are the birth places of Hans Christian Andersen (extensive writer including fairy tale of The Little Mermaid) and Georges Remi (the Belgian cartoonist of Tintin) and understandably, something the respective countries are very proud of.

Having left London, Craig and I have spent time with various organisations in Copenhagen and Brussels. I had my final site visit in Belgium yesterday (Friday, 23rd). One key theme to come through from these visits was leadership of change.