About

Hello, I’m Stuart Mackenzie, welcome to my little piece of the internet. My digital garden. Here I grow and tend to a slightly random collection of thoughts, words, pictures and projects. Just like a real garden some things flourish here for a time, many ideas are seasonal and occasionally the weeds take over! You are welcome to browse around and see what you find. If you find something here useful or enjoyable then I’d love to hear about that so get in touch.

Quick facts

• I live in Dorchester, Dorset, UK.
• I’m single but I have one adult daughter who currently shares my home with me.
• I work at TPXimpact as a Senior Partner. Mostly I work across Public Service transformation projects. Modern, accessible, human-centered Public Services are something I’m passionate about.
• I’ve worked in a variety of Design, Technology & Management roles over the last 20 years but largely I prefer people to computers and code.
• When I’m not working I love to unwind by doing creative things with photography, music and art. I’m currently learning to play the drums.
• I like to keep active by doing regular but small amounts of walking, running and swimming.
• I volunteer as part of the core organising team at the Great Field parkrun
• I’m studying for a Master’s Degree in Creative Teaching and Learning Design.
• Many of my friends call me disco-stu! 🕺🏻🪩

Why do I have a website?

• I’ve never been much of a writer but I would like to get better. Practice is apparently important 🙄.
• Writing often helps me bring structure to my thoughts - diaries, journals, notebooks have never really worked for me.
• Sharing is caring and I’m an advocate of working in the open - Posting random stuff online has often helped me make connections and have interesting conversations with strangers. Some are now friends 😊.
• It provides me a little personal time capsule for when I want to take a trip down memory lane and reflect on how I’ve grown and what has changed over time (and what hasn’t 😬).
• I’m a bit or a nerd, writing code and playing with data is something I enjoy. I often learn things from breaking things here 🤓.
• It’s nice to have a place on the internet where I have more control of my data and my story in a way that isn’t in the pursuit of a global corporations advertising revenue 😂.
• errr why not?

How is it built?

The site in its current form has been built using the Astro static site generator. Static sites are great for performance, security and can be a little better for the environment… they are also very cheap to run. I use Firebase for hosting the static files. All of the code and content is maintained in Github.

Find me and say hello!

Here are some of the other places you can find me online if you want to stalk me or see what I’m up to 👉