And with that we have come to the end of the away day. All that is left is for one big group photo and a final goodbye. Thanks for tuning in! See you next time.
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Caspar is back to round up the day. He gives a big thank you to everyone who was working at the venue, everyone who worked on arranging the event and everyone who has presented. He finishes with some really nice words on The Guardian values and the future of the department.
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The winners of the quiz have won a bright yellow guardian tote bag! If I’d known there were prizes I would’ve spent a lot less time on this blog.
Rasha Ardati is back to give everyone the answers of the earlier quiz. The room is on tenterhooks awaiting the results. The tension is palpable.
Great news is that Nichola Johnson has not dropped the ball. She is going to give us news on the results of the future of work survey. But in the form of... A QUIZ! People are frantically scrabbling for the pens and paper around them as I type.
So that’s it, all of the product showcase presentations are done for the day. I would tell you what’s next, but I’ve misplaced the link to the running order.
Tom Wey is our final presenter. He’s asked if he needs the microphone. Yes Tom, we want everyone to hear why “Keeping TX Healthy” is something we should all care about.
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For our penultimate presentation of the day we have Alex Sanders. He is going to be talking to us about Accessibility and Source (our in house design system). Alex wants us all to be more accessible and consistent and I think that is a great cause.
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Next up are Natasha Thrale and Jon Soul from our Developer Experience team. Natasha and Jon are talking about ‘Getting our house in order’. I presume as developers that doesn’t just require a Henry Hoover.
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We’re back! And there are 3 product showcase talks remaining. What do we have left in store I wonder?
What’s that? Time for a break you say? Back in 15.
It’s feedback time! Everybody has reconvened in the presentation room. We are going to hear some of the outcomes and feedback from the breakout groups.
Might be a nice time for us to reiterate that you too can be a part of this culture.
Development of digital products is central to the Guardian. You could be building the products that showcase our progressive and independent journalism, crafting the tools that journalists use to write their stories, developing the services that allow those stories to be distributed across the globe, or safeguarding our financial future.
If you’re interested in joining our Product and Engineering department, please visit the Guardian News & Media careers page.
Discussions are underway on wide range of topics. From transgender representation in the organisation, to the future of journalism and better cross-collaboration between editorial and engineering. There’s a really fantastic atmosphere of open communication that is lovely to see. It is a really good reflection of the culture of the department.
People have been set loose. Everyone is dispersing across the space to discuss the high level questions and issues facing The Guardian. Will we solve it all today? I am going to go with an optimistic yes.
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Things are hotting up! Dot voting has commenced on a whiteboard! No away day is complete without it.
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Now it is time for a part of the day called “P&E Open Space”. Sabina Bejasa-Dimmock and Phil McMahon are the masterminds behind this session. Apparently it’s going to require “moving and thinking”, which could be a lot to ask of this group after so many snack breaks. I’ve definitely had one too many pastel de natas.
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And here we have another break. 10 mins on the clock.
We are also joined by Lynda Ouazar who has worked on the recent Made In Britain series. You can see her work here.
Lynda is a human rights activist and filmmaker from Algeria. She set up a food bank at the beginning of the pandemic that gave support and assistance to the most vulnerable, undocumented migrants.
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Technical difficulties interrupt a video. Biggest cheer of the day as Colin King gets the audio to play out of the correct speaker. Amazing job.
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Coming in hot straight after lunch we have a discussion with John Domokos. He’s going to be talking to the department about his video journalism. John has previously worked on the Anywhere But Westminster series for The Guardian and the new Made In Britain series. You can see the most recent instalment of his work here:
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Work For Us?
If you’ve stumbled across this from outside of The Guardian and you like the look of what you see. How about getting involved?
Development of digital products is central to the Guardian. You could be building the products that showcase our progressive and independent journalism, crafting the tools that journalists use to write their stories, developing the services that allow those stories to be distributed across the globe, or safeguarding our financial future.
If you’re interested in joining our Product and Engineering department, please visit the Guardian News & Media careers page.
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Look out! New lunch pics just dropped.
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Lunch
...aaaand we break for lunch. This live blogging is hungry work.
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As earlier promised. Here are some of the photos from the amazing Investigations team presentation.
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Developer Experience are up next, represented by the unflappable Akash Askoolum. Asked whether he needs the slides to be 15 seconds, he responds “yeah, I guess”. Cool as a cucumber.
A hybrid presentation coming in now from Frankie Hammond (in person), Alex Breuer (in person) and Wai Sing (remotely). Very slick! We are truly in the future here.
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Maël Zoungrana is here to give us a run through of the Marketing Tools Team. The first solo presenter of the second half. He is looking supremely calm and poised, I think we’re in for a treat.
Now for a trio! Paula Halliday, Tom Pretty and Rupert Bates are up from the Conversion team. They are going to talk about, you guessed it, conversion! I for one, am already converted.
The next presenters are Chloe Kirton and David Pepper. They will be giving us the lowdown on “Oak”. Oak is a person, not a tree, which is exciting.
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Marjan Kalanaki and Maxton Walker are up next talking about “A Brief History of Tricky Classification Problems. (And What We Plan To Do To Make That Better. Or Possibly Worse)”. A snappy title. I like it.
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Up next, we have some more product showcase talks. First up on this second round is a whole gang of presenters from the investigations team. Phil McMahon, Sam Cutler, Samantha Gottlieb and Joseph Smith have arrived sporting some fetching headwear. Pictures to follow...
And now... we break!
I left the room for one second and it appears a spelling bee has ensued. 16 teams, 16 points up for grabs. But who’s prerogative will it be to win? And who will acquiesce? Only time will tell.
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If anyone is wondering what the glamorous life of a liveblogger at an away day looks like, it’s mainly this. Hunched over a laptop screen looking confused at why I can’t think of anything funny to write. Thanks Colin for the wonderful angle!
The quiz is in full swing. There has been a round on the life and times of Oscar Wilde and now a picture round of “name that book”. If it’s not Harry Potter or The Very Hungry Caterpillar I’ve got no chance.
A quick scout around the room has alerted me to the presence of a strange arrangement of cups on a table. What could it mean? Rasha works in mysterious ways.
The first task for the teams is to find as many things as possible that they all have in common. I would assume the first is that they all really enjoyed the muffins during the break... delicious.
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It’s now time for one of Rasha Ardati’s (in)famous quizzes. It starts in familiar style, chaos. Teams have been split up by number and are crashing about the room trying to find eachother.
Shraddha Pande is shouting “Oooooonnnne!” at me repeatedly. I am unnerved.
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And now... we break!
And finally, the last presenter before the break is Robert Kenny with the talk “T&C - You have 30 days to comply”. An intriguing, if slightly threatening, headline. Let’s see what it entails.
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Full disclosure, the next presenter is me! Calvin Dickson with “The Future of Ed Tools”. I will of course remain impartial in my judgement of this presentation, but I’m expecting big things.
The next presenter for today is Jess Lane with “Something about Identity”. She’s shortened the slide length to 10 seconds rather than 15. Now that is a real flex, very impressive!
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Update: We can confirm that Dotcom’s achievements were indeed amazing. That title was fully justified. Congratulations Max, Joshua and the whole Dotcom team!
Max Duval and Joshua Lieberman are the next duo up to present with their talk entitled “Dotcom’s amazing achievements”. We’ll be the judge of that!
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Next up is Abo Akintunde and Georgia Ellis with a joint presentation on Newsletters and UX. They begin the talk with the history of Newsletters that (apparently) date back to ancient Rome. People thought newsletters had had their day, but it sounds like the second coming is approaching.
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First up for our product showcase talks is Bill Beattie with “How Commercial Dev found £1.2m down the back of the sofa”. That’s a lot of cash! The audience is on the edge of their seats waiting to hear how they did it.
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The day has started with some famous faces wishing The Guardian happy birthday. If you haven’t already seen it, the video is here:
Caspar Llewellyn Smith has just announced to great applause that there will be laptop stickers!
Our Chief Product Officer, Caspar Llewellyn Smith takes the stage to kick off the day! We have an action-packed agenda, with teams from across the department discussing their latest achievements.
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Hello and welcome!
Hello, and welcome to the 2022 Guardian Product and Engineering away day. We’ll be blogging throughout the day, discussing the new features and enhancements we have added to the Guardian’s digital products. Stay tuned!
