I’m proactive and pragmatic in applying innovative technology to business problems. I’m experienced in working at senior management and board level to inform and co-create strategy, and just as comfortable working hands-on with marketing specialists, designers and developers in a CTO role.
During my career I have developed substantial technology management experience with both direct and outsourced teams, in complex commercial and not-for-profit businesses, including a long stint in the UK’s national broadcasting organisation.
Currently I work as the director responsible for technology, data and related things in a small company focused on supporting schools and the people who work in them in the interests of better outcomes for all students.
I also have 8 years experience of board-level engagement with a social enterprise delivering housing to persons in need. Right now I’m looking to take my non-executive work in a different direction, looking for a governor role in the education system.
I started my professional life working as a broadcast engineer in UK regional television, and that’s where I first found my ability to think about joined-up systems, and work with multi-skilled teams under time pressure to devise and deliver solutions to enable business goals, all while keeping a small TV station on the air.
The linking thread is a lifelong curiosity about how things work, and how people use technology to get “the job” done. Along the way I’ve developed a fascination about how we develop and share knowledge, either as individuals or collectively.
As far as I’m concerned, this blogging thing is entirely Euan Semple’s fault for introducing me to it back in 2001. As you can see from this site it has been an on-off-on-off-on sort of thing since then. This blog is likely to meander and stutter, there’s 20+ years of history right here to prove that, but it’s “not dead yet”…
It shouldn’t need saying but my opinions represent only me, and are not in any way endorsed by or associated with any organisation I work with. This site, and the linked notes, are primarily a learning conversation with my future self conducted in public. It’s very unlikely that anything you read here would be my last word on a subject, nor does it necessarily represent all that I know on the topic. Feel free to comment, but I reserve the right to delete anything that is offensive, off track or spam.
Unless otherwise stated everything is published on a CC-BY-NC-SA basis, feel free to copy and adapt for your own non-commercial uses provided you acknowledge me as the source. For commercial use please contact me. If you believe I have used your material inappropriately please also contact me so the situation can be resolved.
Responsibilities include:
As a non-executive Member of the association I served on the Board:
Which microprocessor gang were you in?
Expanded my Digger small-tech tool to now extract basic annotations from Hypothes.is into local Markdown notes.
A few thoughts about why my online writing tailed off from mid-year, and what I might change.
Same old, same old I never post my updates on there, that’s what this site and my Mastodon feed are for. If I really thought there was any value in it I would post links ‘over there’ to selected posts ‘over here’. When it first started, the idea of tracking your own professional network, and seeing “who knew whom” was something of a winner, but the inevitable swamping in “social” features, adverts, algorithmically-driven content and posts written by marketing people has made it pretty much useless, a source of irritating noise.
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date
Technical aides memoir
Using a little bit of Python to transcribe a meeting recording with OpenAI
Complex processes, a chat with @elsua and some rewarding viewing, listening and reading
Keeping the weeknote as bucket of stuff approach
A rare face-to-face meeting with colleagues this week to talk product strategy. Although I’m a big fan of not shuffling back and forth to an office each day (we’ve been fully-distributed since the pandemic), it was noticeable that conversation flowed better, and it was clearly easier for the meeting chair to push people to make decisions. Other highlights: a chunk of fiddling with the nuances of Power Automate controlling SharePoint access for external guest users
Revisiting a familiar format to reboot writing — technical debt, systems thinking and tool of the week
Collections of posts around a theme