Maren Deepwell

Category: books

  • Reading, Running & Art: Hobbies I’ll be Blogging about in 2026

    Reading, Running & Art: Hobbies I’ll be Blogging about in 2026

    Here in Wales the start of the year has been very cold and this morning we even had a light dusting of snow. So close to the coast it rarely snows a lot, but the ice on the roofs I can see through my window as I sit at my desk is a good reminder that winter is here.

    In a few days, I’ll be back to work as usual, but for the time being my other interests take up the majority of my days, alongside the daily dog walks: namely reading, running and art.

    Reading

    For the first time ever I am trying to keep a record of what I read (using StoryGraph), and I am curious to see how that goes. I’ve always loved to read and I read a lot, widely across genres both fiction and non-fiction. I tried previously to blog about books I’ve read, mostly from a coaching perspective, but that didn’t stay with me for long and so it’ll be interesting to see if and how this interest shows up on the blog this year.

    Given how much I love reading and how much time I spent reading I’d like to find a way to represent that particularly interest in this space.

    Running

    Running is continuing to make progress, and training for the Half Marathon in Vancouver in May is growing more intense. I am not particularly into going to races, so every time I do it feels like a big adjustment to be running with people. Thus, I have finally signed up for Parkrun and am looking forward to going to my local race on one of two Saturdays each month and get more comfortable running in company.

    We did Parkrun on Christmas Day, which was a wonderful morning out, if bitterly cold with an icy wind, which offered me more inspiration to give this a go. Barcode tags ordered. Here we go!

    Art

    I’ve also spent a lot of time painting over the holidays, and the house is starting to fill up with seascapes and coastal landscapes in various shades of blue. After experimenting with a lot of different creative pursuits last year, this feels like a good fit for something to focus on and to deepen my practice.

    I’m also looking forward to seeing more art and exhibitions this year, and spending more time on exploring creativity.

    This blog has always reflected my various interests, mostly professional ones, and this year I want to try and sprinkle some of my interests from outside of work through my posts, to reflect more of what inspires me and what brings me joy.

    You might find it also shows up in my newsletter, so look out for the first edition next week 🙂

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  • Books, books, books.

    Books, books, books.

    It was bookshop day on 11 October, which got me thinking about books. This year I am working on changing small habits, making small changes, in an effort to make more ethical choices and also to support local businesses more, as well as finding more joy in small things. I wrote a post a few months ago with an update and since then, things have moved on nicely, specially when it comes to my favourite habit: reading.

    Earlier in the year I found it pretty easy to find alternatives to Amazon to buy paper books, but audiobooks provided a little harder, at least initially. I closed my Audible account and tried out the local library app, BorrowBox, and also Libro.fm. A couple of months on, here is what I found:

    BorrowBox

    I’ve come to love this app, which links to my local library membership. There is a small library near where I live and a couple of others fairly nearby, and I order books online and pick them up regularly. However, up to this year I never tried to borrow ebooks or audiobooks. Since I started using the app, that’s changed!

    So far I have borrowed 18 ebooks and 25 audiobooks over about 6 months and I have really enjoyed being able to read more freely that I would do if I was buying them. Instead, I have tried new genres and authors and I have also read more non-fiction books.

    The library is still in the process of digitising more of its collection, so that more and more titles are becoming available each month and I am finding plenty to read and explore even if the collection is patchy in places.

    I shall definitely continue using this service and very much appreciate this free and open approach to reading. Big win!

    Libro.fm

    Starting to use this new audiobook app was pretty easy, and I managed to find and link to a local bookshop in Cardiff. Given that this is a US-based app I was pleased that there was a local option, and through that I discovered a new local bookshop, too, which now benefits each time I buy an audiobook.

    I started with a membership which enables me to buy one title each month, the same I had with Audible, and so far I am on 7 titles for this year. Building up an audiobook collection afresh in a new app feels a little lonely, but I like using it and find it easy to do everything I want to do.

    As I found, exporting audiobooks from audible is possible, if not completely straight forward, but more of that in another post.

    So what have I been reading in the past few weeks?

    In addition to ebooks and audiobooks I also read a lot of paper books, both borrowed and bought, and I don’t track what I read. However, these last few weeks I have enjoyed my reading particularly, so I have tried to make a list of everything I’ve read (in no particular order): Conversations with friends, Sally Rooney; V.E. Schwabs Gallant and the trilogy: a darker shade of magic, a gathering of shadows and a conjuring of light; 4:50 from paddington, Agatha Christie, Guilty by definition, Susie Dent, Sherlock Holmes; The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman; You are here, David Nichols, The Villa Ariadne and Margalit Fox’s The Riddle of the Labyrinth; and the Moonlight Express by Moisha Rajesh.

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  • Read, Run, Write. Repeat.

    Read, Run, Write. Repeat.

    After a week away I have returned to my desk to write (freshly inspired thanks to the museums of Amsterdam). Progress on the book this month has been better, and I have found a new rhythm: read, run, write. Repeat.

    It helps me to read more to feed my creativity and find inspiration, and I am lucky that my recent haul of books from the library has been plentiful in both. The running gives me space and time to think about things, and although I rarely manage to actually record anything whilst I jog along river paths (I need the breath for running), by the time I return home I am usually ready to get writing.

    In my writing journal I keep a record of the days I write, and how long I have worked for. At the moment, I have started with 90 minutes, then step away. My concentration doesn’t last much long yet, as I am finding my way into the book. Flow is patchy, but there is a vague shape of things now. I am getting words down on the page.

    This month was the first in my new writing regime, and it feels good.

  • Book Mission Statement

    Book Mission Statement

    On a recent podcast episode I shared an update on my next book, which I have been working on for the past year or so, mainly conducting interviews and research. Now that writing has begun in earnest however, I am thinking more about why I am writing the book. Especially since it’s never been easier to simply provide a lot of data and have your book generated for you by AI.

    Cue this “mission statement” for the project:

    • Why another book? This book is about what happens at the intersection between human beings, technology and work, which is the space I am interested in. Whether fully remote, hybrid, or blended on campus and in offices, the way we work continues to evolve, and we negotiate the full spectrum of technology as we do so, from analogue to AI. This book brings together leadership perspectives in order to explore how we, as human beings, can shape the future of work.
    • Why now? Work is politicised and contested, from companies forcing employees to return to the office full-time claiming that collaboration “can’t be done online” to the threat of automation and AI taking over jobs. Add to that a cross-generational workforce with very different needs and expectations, and things get even more interesting. This book is designed for leaders and managers seeking to navigating these uncertain times.
    • Why a book? Because I love books, I love reading them and writing them and it feels like best format for getting to think about the things I am interested in, i.e. the right format (length, familiarity) to explore these ideas in appropriate depth. Also, you can print a book and I found it extremely helpful to have a printed format of my first book instead of only digital resources.
    • What about AI? I am intentionally not using AI in the creation process, but if you find it helpful to get you thinking and reflecting, then by all means go ahead and create an AI summary or an AI podcast. My choices reflect what process works for me and my reasons for writing the book in the first place. It also reflect the values I hold about the importance of human creativity and human labour. This book is my endeavour by choice, not because there weren’t easier or quicker ways out there.
    • Why open? This second book, like the first, will be openly licenced under Creative Commons. Most of the work the book is based on is already in the open domain, and I want my work to be as widely available as possible. You’ll be able to purchase a printed edition. I believe in open knowledge creation, and I hope this book will be a useful resource for emerging and established leaders across sectors.

    Listen to the podcast episode

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  • Analogue into autumn (or fall)

    Analogue into autumn (or fall)

    I was recently in Germany visiting family. As it happens, I was there in the first week of school and I really enjoyed seeing kids with their brand new school cases and backpacks walking and cycling to school with their parents each morning. It was a very picturesque kind of late summer feel. The leaves were just starting to turn and it took me back to the excitement of starting school and later university terms.

    I still remember the really exciting moments of getting my first grown-up school backpack where in Germany we have a tradition of having a kind of a sort of cone-shaped bag to celebrate the first day of school. It’s called a Schultüte, a little bag for school treats, stationary and other treats. Later when I was at university I continued the tradition of celebrating the start of term, buying the university scarf on my first day as I first went to the University of London and signed up for all the libraries. I studied at different institutions across the University in London for a long time and each time I joined a new university I was so excited to get my library card on the first day of term, get to know all the new lecture halls and so on. I love the feeling of starting something fresh, a new learning journey. Now I’m very glad indeed to no longer be in formal education but I still work on in educational and education adjacent spaces and I still lean into that feeling of starting a new term. It’s a great excuse to some new stationary, new pens, new notepads – and a new pencil case 🙂

    As you can probably tell, I absolutely adore this time of year and being more outside and offline always prompts me to spend more time away from the screens. So I returned from this trip (on which I set out with an analogue camera, notebook, pen &, journal) with a book which I seemed to have picked up along the way and I noticed that I had spent a lot of time offline in that week. I often do that when I’ve got time off work and it prompted me to reflect on just how much I use analogue habits and hobbies that I like cultivating to keep being as productive and as creative in my output as I can be when I am online – and that provided the inspiration for the episode.

    Now that I am back in my very busy online world and I’m on social media, doing events and meetings online and working across a number of different organisations remotely whilst I’ve also got my own inbox to contend with. Over the course of days and weeks this adds up to so much digital noise and overwhelm that most of us have to work a bit harder to find a good balance. In this episode I share a couple of things that I find both effective and enjoyable strategies for balancing the demands of my digital ways of working with calm and (for me) fun. I share ideas that work on an individual, personal basis and also some ideas to try with a team or group of people if you are looking to blend a little bit of analogue activity, a little bit of being offline into these busy weeks as the new academic year starts… .

    Listen to the episode

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  • Summer: a very special (guest) season

    Summer: a very special (guest) season

    This season on Leading Virtual Teams I am interviewing a whole host of special guests!

    These interviews are part of the research for my new book, which will continue my work on hybrid working from Leading Virtual Teams (2022). It will also expand on that and have a much greater focus on long term hybrid working, how it impacts our senses and wellbeing. There’s so much to explore, and drafting the chapter outlines has got me very excited about the research and interviews ahead. One of the key relationships I am interested in exploring is between human beings and technology, and the radical shifts in the balance of power in the workplace (as in the classroom) with the advent of AI and surveillance technologies.

    Special guest Joyce Seitzinger joined me recently to talk about hybrid working, work/life balance and custom emoji. Joyce is based at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne (previously RMIT Online) and has a wealth of experience when it comes to leading virtual teams. We had a lot of fun as we swapped stories of leading distributed and remote teams, the joy of spending more time outside and cycling to the office (which in Australia sounded a lot more appealing to me than here in Wales, where this summer seems to be endlessly wet and grey..).

    Listen to the interview with Joyce and look out for the next instalment of this season on Friday with special guests as the one and only Bryan Mathers comes on air to talk what he would take on a desert island (clue: it’s not digital) and staying creatively productive whilst working from home with your cat for company.

    This new book isn’t a solo project, but a wider collaboration with case studies and interviews with leaders and experts. Do get in touch with me if you’d like to join us for an episode and contribute to the book.

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