Week 3 at POST

Week 3

Mon

Week 3 already! We have a new group of fellows starting this week, and it’s a bit weird that I already feel like one of the more experienced people here…

I started off today by finalising my scoping document so that is now ready to be sent out to potential interviewees. I then went through my contact list and prioritised who to get in touch with first. I sent out my first wave of e-mails: to academics and people implementing big data in their companies. I had a couple of nightmares including missed attachments and a premature send which included the wrong company name! Luckily, I was quick with my follow up apologies, and both of the people involved replied, so they obviously didn’t mind too much!

By the end of the day, I already had 4 replies, and interviews confirmed for this and next week. Although some were quite entertaining – including “I am free, but only after 5pm”. Which, surely, means “I’m not free at all, but I can meet you after work”!

Tues

I spent the morning finalising interview times and preparing questions for a telephone interview this afternoon. I then had the opportunity to go on one of the tours up the Elizabeth tower to see Big Ben! This was a great tour – really informative and interesting. We got to see how it worked, speak to the guy that winds the clock and hear what they did over the weekend when the clocks went back. I was on the 11:15 tour, so we also got to see the hammer strike Big Ben 12 times – maximum bongs! You are given earplugs, but you can feel the vibration of the bell. It’s also interesting to hear how carefully calibrated the clock is, with communication 3 times a week with the atomic clock in Greenwich.

After lunch in the sunshine(/smog) I then was ready for my first interview! It was perfect to start with as he was immensely helpful and gave me lots of information. This meant that I had time to think of my next question, while he spoke. I then spent the rest of my afternoon writing up my scribbled notes: of which there were a lot!

In the evening I finally made it to a fencing session, which was a nice relaxed club but with high quality fencing: perfect!

Wed

After reading an article in the evening standard last night on the train about big data being used by LUSH, I got in contact with their press team to try and organise an interview with their data scientist.

I spent most of today preparing questions for what is now a long list of interviews next week! We also started a spreadsheet between all of us on the big data theme to ensure we don’t start contacting the same people for interviews. Luckily no duplicates so far…

I had another telephone interview in the afternoon which was really interesting, and then managed to catch the end of a meeting with some STFC representatives to introduce myself and get them to introduce me to more people working in high performance computing.

Alongside our work, the fellows decided we needed a social event: so we’re going to a jazz night at the crypt next week!

Thurs

A day spent scheduling interviews, planning questions and writing up notes. In the evening I managed to find a track to run around and despite the smog this really cleared my head!

Fri

I discovered another conference that might be useful to us, and so enquired as to whether there was space available for us to come along. Fingers crossed! Sir Mark Walport is the keynote, so it would be great to see the current government perspective on the use of big data.

I also heard back from LUSH – justifying my evening newspaper on the tube – and should be speaking to them next Thursday.

At lunchtime I went over to the Royal society and listened to a lecture about Dorothy Hodgkin. Turns out she was awesome! An Oxford chemistry graduate who then went on to become the only British woman so far to win a Nobel Prize for science, she was one of those women in science who was an amazing scientist, but just happened to be a woman. She never made an issue of her gender, but just got on with it, which I think is the right approach.

This week is ‘heritage week’ in parliament, and I popped in to the Lords’ library on my way back to look at some satirical cartoons from the 1800s by James Gillray. They were very intricate and still maintained their vibrant colours which is quite remarkable!