It’s Art’s birthday. I had forgotten all about it until Facebook reminded me. Art is not a real person, he is a figment of my imagination and his story goes back to July 2009. I was working at North Tyneside Council at the time and we had just moved into the nice new Quadrant building … Continue reading Happy birthday Art
Jugaad the gutter
That piece of gutter had been annoying me for years. Ever since we had the conservatory built at the back of the house I was not able to get to clean it and after a while it had got dirty with algae and moss. I had sat and stared at it for years from the … Continue reading Jugaad the gutter
My first blog from #Dynamo17
It seems a long time since Sarah, Ed and I first talked about holding the Dynamo17 conference at Durham University. A lot has happened since then and I have ended up not as involved as I was at the start. This is the fourth conference that Dynamo has held as part of its drive to … Continue reading My first blog from #Dynamo17
Near future jobs. #DSS17
I am still thinking about digital skills after the DSS17 conference at Sunderland Software City. It is such a complex problem to deal with. There are so many players involved, right from parents and family, through the education system to employers. Even peer pressure has a part to play. One interesting aspect about working in … Continue reading Near future jobs. #DSS17
Less blood
Every so often I give blood. It makes me feel like I am playing my part. I have blogged about it several times as each time I go there is always some change. They are undertaking a gradual redesign of the their process flow. It is all Virginia Mason and the Toyota Production Model. There … Continue reading Less blood
Pesky intuitions
Is it closer from Manors station to the Newcastle University buildings or is it closer from the Central Station? This may seem to be a strange question but has some relevance if you want to take a train from the Morpeth into the city. The answer seems obvious. The train stops at Manors before it … Continue reading Pesky intuitions
Low tech
One of my daughters bought me a Boogie Board for Christmas. It is a low tech device that looks quite high tech. About the size of a small tablet it allows you to write on it with the accompanying stylus. You can pretend it is like an iPad Mini. When you have finished, with the … Continue reading Low tech
The machine that defines our age
We preside over a great machine. It is huge. A leviathan. It is the machine that is defining our age. Our machine doesn't have whirring cogs or spinning wheels, nor does it belch smoke or hiss with steam. Indeed most of its moving parts are people. Thousands of people, millions of people, use it every … Continue reading The machine that defines our age
Elephants revisited
The only obvious elephant in the room was the one in the Dali picture, the one with the naked woman, tigers and a pomegranate (and an elephant). It is a picture that is filled with religious guilt, or am I just being pretentious? Our elephant is trust and it would seem we are well on … Continue reading Elephants revisited
Technical offshoring
Is offshoring dead? Has our belief in the ability to drive down costs by exporting work to cheaper economies started to wain? I am certainly aware of companies who have gone through the process of offshoring only to bring the work back again. (I’m not talking about Geordie Shore here. That is something completely different … Continue reading Technical offshoring
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 