Satellite delay to the brain, flowers, gentrification and designer dogs

Woke up marginally groggy this morning, with a vague feeling that I should be somewhere other than horizontal in bed, listening to Sunday Service (one of only 2 hours per week that I can't bear to listen to Radio 4. The other hour is "any answers" when it feels like all the really annoying people in the world phone up R4 to share their Daily-Mail inspired bigotry). The thought process went something like this...

1. Ah, Sunday....
2. Eek, God on the Radio.
3. OK, snooze for a bit till the interesting news-thingy comes on at 9. Then the Archers at 10.
4. Snooze.
5. News thingy at 9
6. Faintly unsettling feeling of "shouldn't I be somewhere else?"
7. F*uckety f*ck f*ck. yes I should be an hour across town at Columbia Road meeting Helen.

So, leap out of bed, perform morning abolutions, stumble down stairs just as adorable husband (yep, still adorable) climbs stairs bearing boiled egg and soldiers for the good lady wife. Fully engage brain, eat breakfast. Remember that arrangement was to ring Helen at 9 to arrange meet-up, rather than actually *be* in east london at 9. Recover from indigestion of hurried breakfast and enjoy coffee and sight of husband in bathrobe. Even after all these years, I can almost purr when I look at him !

Anyways, lovely morning at Columbia Road flower market with Helen. A good opportunity to buy flowers, enjoy the ambience of the market traders yelling out the various merits of their goods, have a coffee and a catch up on the gossip. I bought a *huge* pile of rather garish bright pink flowers called "celosia brains" for the princely sum of a fiver - and they're looking just great in front of the fire place.

Helen and I have been frequenting Columbia Road for a good 6 years or so I'd guess, and we observed today how much it's changed - it's become v chi-chi ! It's still great fun, and I do enjoy browsing (and buying) in the shops that line the market, but it's really the flowers and the market characters that are the stars. During that time though, the little quirky arty shops have become a bit more upmarket (still quirky though) and I'm guessing the socio-economic grouping is firmly ABC1.

My first ever trip to Columbia Road must have been when I first moved to London in 1998, and I remember marvelling that the pub was open at 10am, so we went in for a coffee (it just wouldn't be right to a beer before noon) - and to my amazement there were loads of, well, frankly p*ssed people. I hadn't heard of a market licence before! Still plenty of merry folks around today - a particularly splendid pair of clubbers returning home looking a little the worse for wear at 10:30am... I'm only jealous that my energy wouldn't make it past midnight these days!

Today though, seemed to be "designer dog day". Whilst we slurped our coffees outside the Jones dairy, we noticed a number of hounds (and their people) walk by... but none of them was a heinz-mutt, they were all rather *fabulous darhling* fancy-shmanzy dogs. I saw a Weirmerama, an Afghan, two Standard Poodles (in chocolate brown - v lovely), a Chow-Chow, a Westie and a Old English Sheep dog.

All in all, a good day out, and getting to feel more at home in East London. Which is good thing, as I'm going to be spending more time there from July. New job, new environs... but more about that later !

I'm back and bouncing. Call me Zebedee.

The last month or so has been a particularly tough one at work, hence the lack of blog-posts. Not just in finding the time to write, but more that we've had some difficult things to deal with, that weren't really appropriate for writing about here. Writing about anything else seemed like missing the point. I've turned the corner in the last week though, so it's back to my brain buzzin' with lots of new stuff and the fug is lifting. So...

Tag Clouds.

I felt like I was the last one to notice that tag clouds are everywhere - until I mentioned it to a friend who said "what's a tag cloud?" However, I'm loving them, and the general concept of quick, snappy, word association. I reckon they're great for selection processes. This week I ...

• saw a word assocation list on a CV for a job application. Inspired. Made me laugh. Knowing the author, I'd say it gave a pdg indication of his corporate DNA. I'd hire him any day of the week ;)

• decided we should discover our own Notting Hill staff word-cloud and use it in our employer brand marketing materials. Nothing like a bit of authenticity to add value. If we can get the message across about "what it's really like to work here", we stand a better chance of attracting the kind of folk who will fit-in and thrive; rather than those that won't feel comfortable in our organisation. Square pegs and square holes etc.

• asked a digital media firm pitching for our intranet redevelopment business for the five words that would describe what it would be like working with them. It didn't floor them, quick as a flash they came back words that were resonant for us. They're so hired. More amusingly, when we invited the various firms in to pitch, Web Monkey asked them all to name their favourite type of biscuit (and then provided them for munching through the pitch - we look after our guests!) Not sure exactly what the relatively scoring mechanism for pink wafers versus hobnobs is... but it's it got me thinking.

I love the sheer economy of words in a cloud though. Rather than long prose, the tight, punchy message of a tag cloud is immediate. I guess it's the norm for the Gen Y that grow up with tinterweb and txt as communication norms - but even an older-fart like me is gettin' it.

So, my twenty words for this week ...

boing, fun, excitement, anticipation, optimism, trepidation, sadness, good-bye, fin-de-siecle, woo-hoo, adrenalin, discovery, serendipity, seperated-at-birth, sweat, over-stretched, full-roasted, home-coming, knowledge, friends.

Yours ?

Life on (and off) the ski slopes

I've been away for a week - skiing in Folgarida, Italy. Unfortunately the internet connection was a bit ropey, so I wrote this up last week, but coudn't post it until now, when I'm back home, tucked up on the sofa with the laptop.

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I'm in Italy - my first ski-trip to Italy - and it's great. I'd read that Italy has great food (it does) but awful loos (it doesn't). We're having a ball : sunny weather, few lift queues, beautiful ski area with lots of tree-lined runs, and so far, no injuries.

It's our annual trip with the group of friends that first got me into skiing about 8 years ago (although they've all been skiing together for longer than that). This year we're down to a core group of about 8, but in previous years we've been upto 16 or so. Skiing is definately a holiday that lends itself well to hanging out with old friends. There's something rather joyous about the familiarity of knowing that Lesley will have sorted out all the tickets, Collette will have remembered any pharmaceutical products you'll have forgotten (one year, she even managed a spare asthma inhaler where I'd left mine at home), and we'll have a pack of cards out whilst enjoying a few beers in the evening.

So a few beers... this year's highlight boozy night. Monday night... a couple of beers in happy hour, some rousing Europop (Anton Aus Tirol). Pile out of bar to stroll (stagger) back to hotel. Walk past local recylcing point, to witness a woman lifting the tail on her dog (a whippet/greyhound type mutt) and then wipes it's bottom with loo roll. This would tickle me even if I was stone cold sober, but after a few beers, there was significant risk of stress incontinence as I couldn't stop laughing...

Folgaria has a predominantly Italian visitor-base, but not exclusively. It's been fun to observe the different national characters playing out on the slopes...

• Italians. Ah, so stylish. Not much "grunge-iness" in evidence. Chic ski-wear - including a remarkable amount of fur trimming. Skiing style also really neat - skis and knees close together - all very swooshy. But the smoking was a bit of a surprise - loads of smoking - in the lift queues, on the lifts, whilst skiing - all looking v cool of course !

• The Dutch. We love the cloggies. A particularly lively group of about 10 Dutch skiers are here in Folgarida ... on the slopes they sported big yellow foam "clogs" that fitted over the top of their ski/board boots, and "milk-maid" hats, complete with orange plaits dangling round their shoulders. As well as an endearing ability to send themselves up, they just loved the Euro-pop in the Apres Ski bar. DJ Otzi with "Anton Aus Tirol" ellicited a particularly fine display of jollity and sing-a-long. (OK, we joined in too).

• The English. Well, aside from us, there's a particularly fine mad-granny character in the resort - I hope I have her pazzaz when I'm 60. She's been tearing down the slopes, drinking like fish and dancing like one of pan's people in the apres ski bar. A wonderful display of English eccentricity on a par with Morris Dancing.

• The Swedes. A small group of Swedes staying in our hotel have brought with them a small "table display" consisting of 6 swedish flags. They plant it on the table at breakfast each morning. Perfectly behaved, speaking perfect English, and looking like perfect IKEA people (nice knitted sweaters), but what's with the flags ??

I'm always completely impressed by the mainland european ability to happily converse in a language other than their own - most often, English. I had a good chat with a teenage Dutch lad, who's English language skills included none of the grunting I'm used to from my 16 year old nephews ! Sadly I speak no Italian beyond a few pleasantries (and the entire Pizza Express Menu), but my brain seems to have a very simple "foreign language mode" - and just the one mode - when not in England, speak French. Oddly enough, it wasn't hugely helpful in Italy !

Happy Days.

J

Valentine's Day.

OK, the post is a day late... but I was somewhat incapacitated last night.

Actually, the Hilditch-Harman household doesn't go in much for the card/flowers routine. We're such cynical old bastards - we refer to it as "hallmark-cards mega profit day". I'm not sure when the cynicism set it - we did cards at some point in the last 17 years, but not sure when.

We did however, mosey out for a spot of live music. A friend from work plays in a band called the Jazz Traitors, and they had a gig at a rather lovely pub in Twickenham. Having checked out the pub's website (another cynical old bastard moment : since when did pubs have a website?) and discovered their speciality is belgian beer and food, we reckoned on enjoying a spot of dinner, alongside the dinner jazz. And very nice it was too... the moules, the frites, the fruit beers. These days I just can't drink on a school night - I'm such a cheap date, three pints and I'm all over the show. Three pints of belgian beer and I'm well and truly done for. Because it's so fruity and yummy (obviously healthy and good for you - it's fruit for god's sake), I never realise I've had enough until about a pint too late.

Anyway, the jazz was great. The vocals are silky-smooth and the whole thing hangs together rather well. We reckoned we were lucky to hear such a performance in a local pub instead of trekking off into town to an expensive venue !

Vincent, my friend in the band, is a multi-talented fellow. As well as the day job (a senior manager at Notting Hill) and playing saxophone in the band, he's also the producer for a play called Blue/Orange at Wimbledon Studio (4th - 22nd March). I'm in awe of his energy to pack so much into 24 hours. Yesterday we were talking about the various things that need to be done to get the curtain up. V said he'd been scouting around the environs of Wimbledon station with his camera, looking for a suitable locations to take publicity pics. He'd been stopped by the police who wanted to know what he was doing.

My initial reaction was to chuckle - I couldn't think of a less likely troublemaker : Vincent is the epitomy of decency, and armed with nothing more dangerous than a camera and a pile of flyers for a play. Then on balance though, I was less amused and more reflective. Chances are that he was stopped because he's a man of colour, photographing near a tube station. It sounds like the exchange between V and policeman was perfectly courteous, but that still leaves me with a sinking feeling. So in no particular order, points to ponder....

Suicide bombing on the tube up'd the ante. We all feel less secure than before. Not necessarily in a direct "I'm scared of travelling on the tube" way, but in a more widely pervasive, or more accurately invasive way - marginal declines in trust are all around us.

Risk-based judgements. What does that mean for all of us ? I understand why a black or asian man is more likely to be considered suspicious than me, a white woman. But understanding why something is that way, doesn't make it OK. Doesn't make it any less damaging in the long run to those young men who grow up in an environment where they're the subject of curiosity at best, and and worst suspicion.

...which brings me back to thinking about the book I finished last week Ed Hussein's "The Islamist". How did those young men who carried out the suicide bombings on tube come to feel that Britain in the 21st Century wasn't a place for them. The book is not a literary beauty by any means, but interesting, compelling reading. It's one of those books that will travel with me for many years. I understand there is much debate about some of the theological points in the book, and the extent of his involvement in Hibz ut-Tahrir, but I was most interested in how the "non-mainstream" spoke more strongly to him than anything else.

After such weighty matters... back to Valentine's evening. We get home from the boozer, and the Sidster gives his adoring Missus a christmas present (punctuality is a much over-rated virtue as far as he's concerned). I am now the pround owner of a nintendo DS portable game console thingy. Complete with the brain-training game. Much to my horror, my initial "brain age" was 67 ! I tried to reassure myself that obviously the belgian beer was slowing me down. Maybe but not not a lot. I had another go this evening, and I've reached the "brain age" of 51. Hmm, better, but not much, given that I'm 30-something. I'm loving the brain-training game though - it's compulsive - and it gives me a practical antidote to my deep-seated fear that I've killed off too many cells of the grey matter.

I did start to wonder though, about whether the scoring mechanism of this game was a reflection of youth culture - valuing (mental) speed and agility over wisdom and reflection. Then I realised I should remove my head from my backside and stop listening to so much radio 4.

J

Memories of the Office Move...

I've been invited to speak at an office relocation seminar. Apparently Notting Hill makes a for an interesting case study ! I've prep'd the slides, and on Monday went along to do a run-through with the other speakers. It was good timing really, as I'd been reflecting on our experiences with some other folks who were due to move last week.

A year ago, I never imagined I'd say it, but I really enjoyed leading our move project. At that time, it was pretty terrifying, and one big headache as I couldn't quite see how we'd pull it off. However, now it's all done and dusted, I'd say it was a great success. There's been lots of feedback that people love it. Not everyone, but if you ever need evidence of the old adage "can't please all of the people all of the time", then try out organising an office move for 500 people ! Oh, it also came in on time and budget. It was a huge team effort and everyone involved can feel proud of their achievement.

I could write reams about what we did, what worked, what didn't, what I'd do differently next time. However, the focus for my slot at the event is on the "people aspects" (just what you'd expect from an accountant eh ?), so I'll confine myself to that today.

We recognised early on that this was going to be emotional. If you think that sounds a bit fluffy, try this. Go into work tomorrow and sit in someone else's desk for the day and see how it feels. I'd put money on it being disorientating, frustrating, uncomfortable - and it's not because you've currently got the best desk and you're trading down - it's just different, you're not used to it, you hadn't planned for it. Given that we knew it would be an upheaval, there were various strategies we deployed to mitigate the impact....

• Communication. We communicated. We communicated for England. News items on the intranet, posters on the wall, newsletters on the desk, standing update item at Managers' meetings. Often we said the same thing in three different formats, but it was all about generating familiarity with the project.

• Involvement. Ok, not design by a 500 person committe, but we put most of the furniture choices out to staff to vote on. An initial group of 8 staff went out on selection visits, selecting ranges within our price bands, making sure that they met all our operational needs (this group included the Health & Safety Manager and FM Manager). We then got the suppliers to deliver samples to the office and asked everyone to vote for their favourites. Nope, we didn't rig the vote - just staff at NHH have great taste !

• Not just the usual suspects. The good ol' chain of command is useful. Brief the senior manager, they brief the middle manager and so on with the information cascade. There's a pretty significant risk though, that something will get lost in translation, and if you're looking for feedback and action, the management chain isn't always the most effective route. Typically a senior manager won't have the same understanding of the nitty gritty of "how things work" on a very practical level in their office. How many senior managers know how whether they have (or need) a laminator, spiral binder or shredder in their area (I didn't until I needed to know this for the move!).... however the PAs and Team Administrators probably do. They were a great source of knowledge, terrific planners and great influencers. We formed a team of "Move Co-ordinators" populated mostly wiht our PAs and Administrators. They were vital to the move - it wouldn't have been so successful without them.

• Have some fun. The move weekend was exhausting, but it we also had some fun....Clearning up the left-over kit left in our old office : we had the music on full volume as we "swept" through the building in waves - 15 or so Move Co-ordinators, gathering up electrical ephemera (100 or so desk fans), bagging up excess stationery for recycling (do get in touch if you want a few thousand lever arch files) and generally making sure that nothing got left behind. We flaked out in the reception later that afternoon when the pizza delivery boy arrived - not on a moped though - he needed a family hatchback to get them all in !

So, the punchline in a cliche. Many hands make light work.

I'll write some more on another day, about the design elements of the fit-out and also the actual move weekend itself.

J

The Spice of Life ?

Variety.

It's been a busy ol' week in Corporate Services world....talking to a creative agency about what we want to achieve with podcast programming; a series of long-list interviews; exec team meeting considering property investment decisions; internal communication mechanism briefing; meeting an architect who's interested in working for us; chairing a disciplinary panel hearing; meeting with the trainer who's delivering our "train the trainers" programme for active learning sets; participating in a workshop on how we use email and whether we can use it more effectively; and last but not least, analysing the various test/questionnaire results for the appointment for a new exec director... and that's just the scheduled meetings. So, never a dull moment in the back-office !

Aside from the stuff I've been "doing", there's the stuff I've been "thinking". Three things came together with a bit of serendipity this week ....

I've been reading a compelling book "The Future of Management" by Gary Hamel (thanks to Richie T - you're so right - it's completely up my street). If you have even a passing interest in making work a more rewarding experience, and creating value - read it. I'm not going to attempt to review it at length (go here for that) as I haven't finished yet. The punchline so far is that if organisations don't innovate, they stagnate - and traditional management strictures don't enable innovation, they stifle it. If we fail to pay attention to the fact that corporations are made up of humans and not automatons, we're doomed to mediocrity. Some of the examples are truly radical, like the organisation where managers are not appointed by more senior managers, but elected by their team member peers. But one common demoninator across the various exemplars seems to be effective internal communication....

Pilar, one of my colleagues in Communication team has been studying for a PG Dip in Internal Comms. This week she ran a fab briefing session for the team on what she's been learning - both the theory and more importantly, how we're going to apply it to developing our internal comms matrix at NHH. It's gotten me thinking about how we can generate some of the lively, two-way communications that feature in Hamel's book. Tecnhology has to be part of answer, but probably more fundamently, we must further foster the environment where colleagues want to contribute to the information exchange. I think we've made a good start, so now it's time for the web2.0 intranet...

Monkey, another one of the Comms gang circulated the spec for our new intranet this week. It's soooo exciting - I've been pinging around like Zebedee. It's early days yet, but the ideas are looking good. As well as bringing upto date the technical engine of our intranet (Nott.net), we're looking for web2.0 style functionality : user generated content. Nott.net is pretty well used and loved (ever since Monkey injected comedic value on the news items - but more about that on a future post). However, compare it to the functionality and user-engagement of a platform like FB, and it's looking rather long in the tooth. This has the potential to be a great enabling technology to take us forward. I'm really looking forward to working on it with the team.

J

I'm lost for words (but not for long)

And for those of you that know me, will realise that doesn't happen very often.

I've plonked myself in front of the goggle-box (hilditch dictionary for TV), laptop on the lap, ready to blog about the fun I had last week, re-discovering my inner computer-geek. However, an item on Channel4 news has just floored me. At the practice laps for the Catalunya F1, Lewis Hamilton has been on the receiving of racial abuse (bbc report). He is quoted as being "saddened" by events. Bloody hell, I'm saddened, but it also makes me angry. I can't help but admire Lewis Hamilton. It seems that the qualities of focus, self control and discipline that have made him a great F1 driver have also equipped him to handle such events with great dignity. What a remarkable young man.

So, my inner computer-geek. Back in 1980-something, I loved messing around with computers. My parents bought me a sinclair ZX81 (complete with 16K memory extension pack) as a Christmas present one year - and I was hooked. At school I went on to do prograame in BASIC on a Commodore Pet (who remembers a memory-mapped screen.... and that 32768 was the address for the top lhs??) and then a BBC B. The BBC B used to have a two-note sound on booting up. In (about) 1990 there was a KLF track that had a sample on it, that sounded remarkably similar - I've always wondered if the BBC B was the source or inspirations for it! I guess that little sound was a fore-runner of the intel "da-da-da-da". Somewhere in our understairs cupboard, I think I still have a the floppy disc with some of my early programmes! However, since university, I've been a regular computer user, rather than a technical-whizz. The nearest I've come to coding anything over the last fifteen years is knocking together a few VB macros in excel. Well, no more. I've had a re-awakening.

Last week, I spent a few days on course looking at the technical side of web development. I've gotten my head round html, xhtml, css and a splattering of jsp and asp. Not that I'm contemplating a major career change to geekdom, but I think I'll now be a better "commissioner" of such projects. It was the first time I've been "back in the classroom" in many years, and I really enjoyed learning something new (although it did amuse me that the basic operations of programming haven't actually changed that much). I definitely experienced what I understand the psychologists call "flow" - I became so absorbed in what I was doing, time flew by.

J