Another month, another week in Heidelberg for work. This time, it was great to get out on the bike every evening for an hour or so as it was light and relatively warm. The training continues at a pace as I build towards my target event of La Marmotte in July. As much as the rides in the warm German evening air were pleasant, it was marred by the fact I’m on the last week of a four week build so my legs feel heavy all the time. The next thing on the immediate horizon is a hard couple of days riding in the Peak District in the UK in May, before a training camp in Gran Canaria for a week in June.

This week saw the release on GitHub of our draft phone contract for our eldest daughter who gets her first phone for her birthday today. She’s eleven and will be travelling everyday to her new secondary school in a nearby town in September. A phone is a big responsibility for her. Emma and I have thought long and hard about how we might give our daughter the right attitude and tools to deal with this new responsibility and independence and our own phone contract is part of that. Already, since the release this week, it’s been translated into German and we’ve had a flurry of really valuable edits. So that’s nice.

A few things caught my eye last week:

The United States Web Design System (version 2) was released. It’s good. But two stand-out parts for me: the documentation, and the new typeface Public Sans.

Collyn writes about the Full Stack Social Enterprise. TLDR; A Full Stack Social Enterprise is:

Now the fun part. A new crop of companies have started to realise that if they combine these two business models, using data from a (mostly) controlled supply and distribution chain, a business can be optimised for the explicit purpose of doing social good — making sure the people who need the optimisation are getting it. Not the fat cats at the top. Not the middlemen, but the makers, the independent creators, the small businesses, the farmers, the weavers… the environment.

My Favorite 10 Practical “Management” Books from John Maeda. These types of books normally make me vomit in my mouth a little bit. But this list is good. I’ve bought a couple and they’re currently sitting at number 14 and 15 of my reading list. More reading to do.