This week felt a bit manic work-wise but in a good way. Back to feeling useful again.
What I’ve been doing
I’m been talking to customers again, which is great. It’s been over a year since I’ve really been on the front line and I’ve forgotten how much I love talking to customers about their real problems. 3 customers this week and lots of follow-up calls with engineers, product managers and sales folk to really paint a picture about what’s working and what isn’t. Also some time to write a bit of code to help some engineers better price things and I feel like this is my happy place again.
What I’ve been thinking about
How to find sources of innovation happening outside of the AI bubble. Tech has literally become a firehose of AI to the point where it feels almost impossible to hear about anything else happening. It’s been making me think about how I can further diversify my sources of information to hear about things happening on the edges that don’t involve AI.
What I’ve been reading
Lots of AI white papers including the original Transformer paper and this new interesting one on Filler Tokens
What I’ve been watching
- Slow Horses - Season 1-3 (AppleTV) - If Spooks was more real-life and more gritty, this had me hooked from the first episode with Gary Oldman’s character of a burnt-out old spy and his dysfunctional team. Well deserved Bafta nominations and well worth the binge.
What I’ve been doing in the real world
Well, with first glimmer of sunshine this week was spent in the garden, pottering around and cleaning up in preparation of a good solid 3-4 hours of hard work at the weekend. Those of you who want to know how I managed to listen to so many podcasts every week - well this is it. If it’s not time spent with the horses and filling hay nets then it’s in the garden. This is good, healthy mindless activity where I can digest information and let me mind wander.