As an update to the long-running saga of Langhus: the project was not approved by the Village Board. Theoretically JG has another week and change to appeal, but scuttlebutt is that the offer on the third land parcel that was to be included has fallen through, which makes it dead in the water.

So in absence of that to occupy me, I’ve turned my attention to my new role as Editor of Wisconsin Gardens. My first issue, the winter supplement with spring convention information in it, will be out early next month. The last couple of issues were made in Word, but prior issues were made in Publisher, which is being retired. InDesign is of course the benchmark for desktop publishing, but it’s expensive. So I looked at options and will be using Scribus. Learning a new software in the last couple of weeks has been fun, and so far I like it well enough.

I’ve also been taking an obscene number of LinkedIn Learning courses. I haven’t found a job yet, and some of that may be due to the ambiguity of my skills and how they are inherently interdisciplinary. My answer, in part because it’s something I can do, is to collect microcredentials.

That’s lead to a lot of thinking about data in general and how we collect and use information – well, the LinkedIn Learning, and a position where I’d be in charge of forms for an organization. Forms are genuinely something I’m excited about, because they shape not only what data we get but also how easily it’s collected and how people think about it.

One example where I wish I’d known then what I know now about design and providing examples was getting daily updates from – I’m going to crib Ask A Manager and say tea shops. I was contracted to the teapot manufacturers, in the Continuous Improvement office that had cycled to an official policy of rapid improvement for this effort at pop-up tea shops. And the teapot manufacturers wanted to know what innovations different sites were coming up with so they could then share that information. So we asked about innovations. And then, a couple of years later, a colleague was working on a study that was eventually a paper about the whole tea thing. I mentioned my role, and we got to talking, and apparently the asking about innovations was seen as one of the most onerous parts of the form.

I was shocked. Because in the initial roll-out of the tea shops, one of the genuinely best and most impactful innovations anyone came up with (one that sticks with me almost 5 years later) is using chalk markers on cars going through the drive-thru. Sometimes there were multiple lines, and then multiple kinds of tea, and people would mostly know this and have it written down what they were there for, but having to have someone get them to roll down their window and then talk to them took a bunch of time and we didn’t want people having to breathe close to each other for reasons. Papers on the windshield could theoretically work, and were tried, but loose paper could blow away or get wet, and tape left residue and still didn’t fix the problem of legibility in the rain. But chalk markers! Fast, easy markings that stayed legible at a distance in rain and could be wiped off easily? Genuinely groundbreaking and a huge acceleration for all other pop-up tea shops. I’m pretty sure we put it in the official guidelines.

But that never ended up reflected as an example in the form. Partly because we didn’t want to constrain people if they found other ways to improve things. As things evolved and became more regimented, though, those forms were interpreted as pressure to innovate, to reinvent processes that were going pretty well. So the interpretation evolved, partly because we didn’t.

So I am genuinely passionate about forms and want that job. But they’re going to be reviewing applications for at least another three weeks, and may find someone with slightly different expertise fits their organizational needs more. So I’m still applying, still looking for something that will let me use some of my expertise at disaster science or data analysis or research design (and the joyful and careful way I calibrate survey questions to get data in an actionable form) or project management.

As backbeat to the job hunt I am still racking up LinkedIn Learning certificates (it’s over 70. I only started doing them this month. Someone please hire me) as well as crafting. Currently I’m working on a crochet game, and tools just arrived today for me to take up needle-felting.