No, no, no you must not torture rivals to obtain classified business information or disobey key laws.
Rather, I've been catching up on '24' on Netflix (I'm currently halfway through season 5) my way of getting through menial admin tasks.
It occurs to me that Jack Bauer has it hard. No sooner has he captured a key suspect than he is called away to defuse a poison gas cannister. The countdown gets to zero then he discovers that there is a mole in CTU, whilst he's tracing the mole (small furry animal?) he is betrayed by his best friend and has to fight his way into a terrorist compound to rescue the President who will shortly order Jack to be handed over to the Chinese government for treason.
Phew and that's all in less than 24 hours.
In this way the eponymous Jack is very similar to the average small business person. Not in terms of the violence but certainly in that we have to do everything - sales, admin, PR, client segmentation, networking and so forth - so maybe we don't need Jack's ruthlessness but a bit of his focus and commitment clearly helps succeed.
So next time you only have four minutes to complete a client proposal, whilst the phone is ringing off the hook and you have to go out on an important appointment remember - you are the hero, the only hero of your own episode of '24'.
Thursday, 24 April 2014
Wednesday, 23 April 2014
Long but productive day yesterday
Had a long but generally positive day yesterday.
Managed to resolve a new business case with a client that has been going since December 2013 and has taken until yesterday to resolve all the issues around moving them to a new insurer, sorting out the product and price proposition and assisting the client with achieving their goals in the medium term. Not a massively lucrative case for me but very satisfying when I'm able to resolve all the issues and successfully set up the right cover for the client and their family.
In addition I heard formally yesterday evening that I have been promoted at my karate club to 'Assistant Club Intrutor'. Although I have been teaching regularly since Christmas the promotion has now formalised my position and at the Yeadon club I will be taking the class more regularly (as the senior instructor is expanding the Halton side of the club and will not be able to come over to Leeds as often. Really enjoying the training at the moment and the new instructor role harks back to my previous club where I was the second most senior dan grade.
Also managed to get the marketing work kicked back up to speed yesterday and prep for todays marketing too. Had to work until after 10.00pm but preppie for another busy day - hence trying to get this post up first thing this morning.
Managed to resolve a new business case with a client that has been going since December 2013 and has taken until yesterday to resolve all the issues around moving them to a new insurer, sorting out the product and price proposition and assisting the client with achieving their goals in the medium term. Not a massively lucrative case for me but very satisfying when I'm able to resolve all the issues and successfully set up the right cover for the client and their family.
In addition I heard formally yesterday evening that I have been promoted at my karate club to 'Assistant Club Intrutor'. Although I have been teaching regularly since Christmas the promotion has now formalised my position and at the Yeadon club I will be taking the class more regularly (as the senior instructor is expanding the Halton side of the club and will not be able to come over to Leeds as often. Really enjoying the training at the moment and the new instructor role harks back to my previous club where I was the second most senior dan grade.
Also managed to get the marketing work kicked back up to speed yesterday and prep for todays marketing too. Had to work until after 10.00pm but preppie for another busy day - hence trying to get this post up first thing this morning.
Back to blogging
Over the Easter period I have sat down several times to put a new blog post up and haven't frankly has the inspiration to do so. Unusually I haven't done too much work over the Easter fortnight (is it me or are holidays getting longer and longer?) with the kids being off and Easter being so late I have got tied up with a number of family issues, visits, outings and so forth and tended to just do the minimum of client support and e-mails answering first thing in the morning and last thing at night.
Now the Easter hols are over I think we're getting back to a more usual work pattern. Certainly work is pretty busy at the moment with lots of client and introducer things happening. I have a new episode of PMICast (number 4 from season 4) to upload with lots of good stuff included - please check it out on iTunes or at www.pmicast.podbean.com and check it out on your phone pod catcher of choice too - make sure you subscribe.
You can also check out my other podcast, also in the PMICast stream, called 'Where's Wilson'. This is my occasional SF and Fantasy podcast (a lot more lighthearted than PMICast) that I host with my kids.
Lastly I am toying with moving from IOS to Android when my phone becomes due for a change in the next couple of weeks. Shouldn't affect my number (PAC system notwithstanding) but I'll probably blog about the process and my thoughts in coming blog posts too.
Welcome to the blog post Easter - keep busy !
Now the Easter hols are over I think we're getting back to a more usual work pattern. Certainly work is pretty busy at the moment with lots of client and introducer things happening. I have a new episode of PMICast (number 4 from season 4) to upload with lots of good stuff included - please check it out on iTunes or at www.pmicast.podbean.com and check it out on your phone pod catcher of choice too - make sure you subscribe.
You can also check out my other podcast, also in the PMICast stream, called 'Where's Wilson'. This is my occasional SF and Fantasy podcast (a lot more lighthearted than PMICast) that I host with my kids.
Lastly I am toying with moving from IOS to Android when my phone becomes due for a change in the next couple of weeks. Shouldn't affect my number (PAC system notwithstanding) but I'll probably blog about the process and my thoughts in coming blog posts too.
Welcome to the blog post Easter - keep busy !
Tuesday, 15 April 2014
Bienvenu and Wilkommen to Localventure
Been a hectic few days in Chez Localventure.
I took a few days off over the start of the Easter break and came back to work 'full power' today with a backlog of queries, client reports and e-mails to resolve and am slowly getting back on track.
As I projected, no chance of a PMICast this week but I'm prepping next weeks so we should be back to the normal weekly schedule. I am however also working on a new podcast idea due to launch shortly in the PMICast stream so watch this space.
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Over the last few weeks I've seen several movies including : Captain America : The Winter Soldier (aka muscly guys in masks kicking the c#*p out of each other for the benefit of fan-boys) and Divergent (Hunger Games Lite) - although to be fair Divergent is actually a better movie than THG as it has a plot, characters who progress as people and an end. Looking forward to Amazing Spiderman 2 although I suspect my view will be - see comments for Captain America.
I took a few days off over the start of the Easter break and came back to work 'full power' today with a backlog of queries, client reports and e-mails to resolve and am slowly getting back on track.
As I projected, no chance of a PMICast this week but I'm prepping next weeks so we should be back to the normal weekly schedule. I am however also working on a new podcast idea due to launch shortly in the PMICast stream so watch this space.
_________
Over the last few weeks I've seen several movies including : Captain America : The Winter Soldier (aka muscly guys in masks kicking the c#*p out of each other for the benefit of fan-boys) and Divergent (Hunger Games Lite) - although to be fair Divergent is actually a better movie than THG as it has a plot, characters who progress as people and an end. Looking forward to Amazing Spiderman 2 although I suspect my view will be - see comments for Captain America.
Saturday, 12 April 2014
The Royals Masters of War by Vertigo Comics issues 1 to 3 - review
This is a six issue mini-series from DC's Vertigo imprint art by Simon Coleby written by Rob Williams with variant covers by Brian Bolland.
The basic premise of the story is that in the build up to world war two the main royal families of the world are different. Not just in terms of social standing but in that they have superpowers. The purer the royal bloodline the more powerful the royal family member.
There is however a treaty in place that prevents the royals from intervening in armed military conflicts for fear or unbalancing them. So the war is progressing pretty much as we know in out history. In other words in the early days of the war it isn't going so well for the allies.
Seeing the disastrous consequences of the London Blitz, younger royal prince : Henry (who has a slightly dubious relationship with his psychic younger sister Rose and awful sibling rivalry with his debauched and more powerful older brother Arthur) can no longer restrain himself or his powers and launches into an attack on the German Luftwaffe effectively 'winning' the Battle of Britain in the process.
The six issues will follow wartime events and so far by issue three we are at the Battle of Midway as Harry and Arthur have been seconded to the Pacific theatre of the war by Winston Churchill and are tracking the Japanese flagship around Midway. There's a problem here though - remember that I said the purer the royal bloodline, the more powerful the royal - well the Japanese royal family have the purest line of all and this means that Emperor Jimmu of Japan is about to create a very bloody conflict.
The books, so far are doing an excellent job of creating believable characters and a situation that whilst not realistic doesn't denigrate the historical era or those who gave their lives fighting. In fact the theme of the books seems to be to highlight the sometimes peripheral role that some of the royals, like Arthur are having. Further, their involvement is almost exclusively negative - look at (spoilers) the hideous murder that Arthur commits when his choice of bed partner is questioned by one of the non-powered American 'super team' : the Allies.
One character quips there will have to be consequences for Arthurs actions .. "but not yet" as they suit up to go off on their next mission. One gets the feeling that there will be quite nasty consequences for some of the super royals as the book draws to the end of its run.
So an excellent rounded book with characterisation, drama, suspense and a goodly dose of massive powered action (sic the smashing of a Destroyer into the allied Aircraft Carrier by Jimmu at the end of issue 3). Brilliantly drawn with an easy comic book style that never descends into sub Michael Bay transformers images. Reminds me in some ways of the classic Zenith strip from 2000AD drawn by Steve Yeowell.
Defintely worth a download, especially when it comes to trade at the end of its run in Autumn.
The basic premise of the story is that in the build up to world war two the main royal families of the world are different. Not just in terms of social standing but in that they have superpowers. The purer the royal bloodline the more powerful the royal family member.
There is however a treaty in place that prevents the royals from intervening in armed military conflicts for fear or unbalancing them. So the war is progressing pretty much as we know in out history. In other words in the early days of the war it isn't going so well for the allies.
Seeing the disastrous consequences of the London Blitz, younger royal prince : Henry (who has a slightly dubious relationship with his psychic younger sister Rose and awful sibling rivalry with his debauched and more powerful older brother Arthur) can no longer restrain himself or his powers and launches into an attack on the German Luftwaffe effectively 'winning' the Battle of Britain in the process.
The six issues will follow wartime events and so far by issue three we are at the Battle of Midway as Harry and Arthur have been seconded to the Pacific theatre of the war by Winston Churchill and are tracking the Japanese flagship around Midway. There's a problem here though - remember that I said the purer the royal bloodline, the more powerful the royal - well the Japanese royal family have the purest line of all and this means that Emperor Jimmu of Japan is about to create a very bloody conflict.
The books, so far are doing an excellent job of creating believable characters and a situation that whilst not realistic doesn't denigrate the historical era or those who gave their lives fighting. In fact the theme of the books seems to be to highlight the sometimes peripheral role that some of the royals, like Arthur are having. Further, their involvement is almost exclusively negative - look at (spoilers) the hideous murder that Arthur commits when his choice of bed partner is questioned by one of the non-powered American 'super team' : the Allies.
One character quips there will have to be consequences for Arthurs actions .. "but not yet" as they suit up to go off on their next mission. One gets the feeling that there will be quite nasty consequences for some of the super royals as the book draws to the end of its run.
So an excellent rounded book with characterisation, drama, suspense and a goodly dose of massive powered action (sic the smashing of a Destroyer into the allied Aircraft Carrier by Jimmu at the end of issue 3). Brilliantly drawn with an easy comic book style that never descends into sub Michael Bay transformers images. Reminds me in some ways of the classic Zenith strip from 2000AD drawn by Steve Yeowell.
Defintely worth a download, especially when it comes to trade at the end of its run in Autumn.
Tuesday, 8 April 2014
New episode of PMICast today plus a minor correction
I have uploaded episode 3 of the new season of PMICast this morning.
Now I seldom if ever listen back to my 'casts but this evening I listened to the new ep by chance and discovered that the intro that I put at the start of each episode refers to season 2 not the new season 3 - will try and get this changed but of course it doesn't affect the content, simply sounds a bit dense - sorry for not checking sooner and I will correct when I get the chance to record a new intro.
Now I seldom if ever listen back to my 'casts but this evening I listened to the new ep by chance and discovered that the intro that I put at the start of each episode refers to season 2 not the new season 3 - will try and get this changed but of course it doesn't affect the content, simply sounds a bit dense - sorry for not checking sooner and I will correct when I get the chance to record a new intro.
Rip off Britain .... or not
When I left BCWA Healthcare (now part of Simply Health) in 2002 and moved to Standard Life Healthcare (now part of PruHealth) I had in amongst the detritus one gathers when you work at home a box of Staples staples (see below)
Obviously I would never advocate 'stealing' office stationery but the box was almost full in 2002 and sat on my in tray and it never occurred to me to give it back to the employer I was leaving. So for the last 12 years I have been refilling my stapler from this supply of 5,000 or so staples.
So as you might gather I don't do a massive amount of stapling - on average around 1.14 stapling events per day.
Over the years I have become sentimentally attached to this red box - I've had it longer than my youngest child for example (sorry Ryan). Yesterday, terror of terrors I filled up my trusty stapler with the last of the red box supply and had to go out this morning and purchase a new box of staplers.
Two things about this process surprised me. Firstly 1,000 new staples only cost 25 pence (Morrisons value) - so now I do not feel as guilty about stealing from Simply Health - even allowing for inflation and interest I probably owe them less than £ 2. More importantly I cannot bring myself to bin the red box. So, sad but true the new Morrisons staples are sitting in the old red box on my in tray.
 |
| Staples Staples circa 2002 |
So as you might gather I don't do a massive amount of stapling - on average around 1.14 stapling events per day.
Over the years I have become sentimentally attached to this red box - I've had it longer than my youngest child for example (sorry Ryan). Yesterday, terror of terrors I filled up my trusty stapler with the last of the red box supply and had to go out this morning and purchase a new box of staplers.
Two things about this process surprised me. Firstly 1,000 new staples only cost 25 pence (Morrisons value) - so now I do not feel as guilty about stealing from Simply Health - even allowing for inflation and interest I probably owe them less than £ 2. More importantly I cannot bring myself to bin the red box. So, sad but true the new Morrisons staples are sitting in the old red box on my in tray.
Friday, 4 April 2014
Fighting Fantasy Gamesbooks - House of Hell
As a callow youth I was heavily into RPG's (role playing games) like Dungeons and Dragons, Traveller Call of Cthulhu and several others. An interesting side genre to the main RPG scene was the Fighting Fantasy games books by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, published by Penguin books from the early 1980's onwards.
I bought (and still own in a box in my loft) the first 30 or so of these game books and whilst idly surfing on the App store last week discovered that a developer, working with the FF books current publisher now has an app version of some of these books.
The one that caught my eye was called 'House of Hell' one of my favourites from the series and a 'horror survival' story a la Silent Hill or Resident Evil.
The basic premise of the books and now the app is that the player (controlling the story) after reading a passage then chooses their next action and turns to one of several numbered sections so for example :
"You find yourself standing in a darkened room and hear a rustling over to the left by the large window. Do you :
Go and investigate the rustling sound - turn to page 234
Move over to the opposite wall and wait to see what happens - turn to 456
Run out of the room and back the way you can - go to 18
and so on ...
In addition to this multi-action premise the FF games books also had an element of fighting opponents within the story using pre-generated life and health statistics and using dice - just like more traditional multiplayer RPG's. so it was perfectly possible (if you didn't cheat usually like me) to get two thirds of the way through the story, have your character die and need to start again from the beginning. I can't honestly think anyone played properly without 'fixing' the negative dice rolls !
As a child and teenager I found FF and similar books endlessly enthralling and must have bought and read dozens, nay hundreds of the damn things over the years covering fantasy, SF, crime and of course lots of branded licensed versions for DC Heroes and other franchises in addition to Fighting Fantasy itself which become kind of the 'gold standard'.
So coming across this app last week I got quite excited and decided to indulge in a bit of 'nostalgia'.
Having bought the app (£ 3.99 on IOS app store) I opened it up, rolled my character and began to play - bit of a damp squib to be honest - there's clearly a reason why I stopped reading these as an adult - they're not the best written pieces of literature and frankly the limits of the multi-ending book genre become really apparent, really quickly. If I died once I must have been killed 4 or 5 times and felt compelled not to cheat and had to start again and re-read the same sections over and over. To be fair there is a book marking system in the app version that enables you to save progress but you still need to go back and re-read endlessly.
So the unopened packages of FF books in my loft will remain so and I can't see me spending any more time or money on the app's I'm afraid.
Maybe sometimes childhood nostalgia really should stay as just that. Dungeons and Dragons anyone ?
I bought (and still own in a box in my loft) the first 30 or so of these game books and whilst idly surfing on the App store last week discovered that a developer, working with the FF books current publisher now has an app version of some of these books.
The one that caught my eye was called 'House of Hell' one of my favourites from the series and a 'horror survival' story a la Silent Hill or Resident Evil.
 |
| Here's the Amazon pic of the original cover from the 1980's |
The basic premise of the books and now the app is that the player (controlling the story) after reading a passage then chooses their next action and turns to one of several numbered sections so for example :
"You find yourself standing in a darkened room and hear a rustling over to the left by the large window. Do you :
Go and investigate the rustling sound - turn to page 234
Move over to the opposite wall and wait to see what happens - turn to 456
Run out of the room and back the way you can - go to 18
and so on ...
In addition to this multi-action premise the FF games books also had an element of fighting opponents within the story using pre-generated life and health statistics and using dice - just like more traditional multiplayer RPG's. so it was perfectly possible (if you didn't cheat usually like me) to get two thirds of the way through the story, have your character die and need to start again from the beginning. I can't honestly think anyone played properly without 'fixing' the negative dice rolls !
As a child and teenager I found FF and similar books endlessly enthralling and must have bought and read dozens, nay hundreds of the damn things over the years covering fantasy, SF, crime and of course lots of branded licensed versions for DC Heroes and other franchises in addition to Fighting Fantasy itself which become kind of the 'gold standard'.
So coming across this app last week I got quite excited and decided to indulge in a bit of 'nostalgia'.
Having bought the app (£ 3.99 on IOS app store) I opened it up, rolled my character and began to play - bit of a damp squib to be honest - there's clearly a reason why I stopped reading these as an adult - they're not the best written pieces of literature and frankly the limits of the multi-ending book genre become really apparent, really quickly. If I died once I must have been killed 4 or 5 times and felt compelled not to cheat and had to start again and re-read the same sections over and over. To be fair there is a book marking system in the app version that enables you to save progress but you still need to go back and re-read endlessly.
So the unopened packages of FF books in my loft will remain so and I can't see me spending any more time or money on the app's I'm afraid.
Maybe sometimes childhood nostalgia really should stay as just that. Dungeons and Dragons anyone ?
Thursday, 3 April 2014
No PMICast this week ... so far
I managed to lose a full day this week.
On Tuesday morning I realised at the last minute I had an all day meeting on Wednesday and that has (as you might imagine) totally buggered my week. Especially given that I'm super busy at the moment anyway.
I have this weeks episode of PMICast prepped and ready to go but I just haven't found the time to get it recorded. I made an abortive attempt to record in the car during the lunch session of my meeting yesterday. Unfortunately the less than ideal recording conditions and the vagaries of Garageband on iPad meant that didn't work too well. So the plan is still to record the episode and try and get it up for you tomorrow.
I was keen to record this week as I wanted to cover off one particular NHS news story this week if I can't get to it I will blog on the topic next week.
Watch out on iTunes and www.pmicast.podbean.com tomorrow - all being well !
On Tuesday morning I realised at the last minute I had an all day meeting on Wednesday and that has (as you might imagine) totally buggered my week. Especially given that I'm super busy at the moment anyway.
I have this weeks episode of PMICast prepped and ready to go but I just haven't found the time to get it recorded. I made an abortive attempt to record in the car during the lunch session of my meeting yesterday. Unfortunately the less than ideal recording conditions and the vagaries of Garageband on iPad meant that didn't work too well. So the plan is still to record the episode and try and get it up for you tomorrow.
I was keen to record this week as I wanted to cover off one particular NHS news story this week if I can't get to it I will blog on the topic next week.
Watch out on iTunes and www.pmicast.podbean.com tomorrow - all being well !
Thursday, 27 March 2014
Rant Time
Busy week and have gone dark on the blog for a day or two.
To get things back rolling thought I'd have a couple of rants.
1) Power companies
In the wake of the review on the big 6 power companies announced this morning I thought I'd rant about EDF - my price increased by over 20% in December 2013 despite the account being over £ 400 in credit and my being on a fixed price deal. To make this worse they didn't tell me about the increase so are in breach of the direct debit guarantee as well. I only found out three days ago when I happened to check a bank statement - on complaining apparently it's my fault for not sending them a meter reading. Brilliant.
2) Car Park
The clue is in the name - 'car' park. It's not a 'pedestrian' park (I think those are covered in grass and swings and don't allow cars to drive on them). I had to sit and wait as two women pushed their prams down the middle (literally straddling the white lines in the centre of the road with their prams) of the main exit out of a supermarket car park. They knew I was there and simply didn't care. Maybe they should have used the path to the side ??? Fantastic.
3) Restaurant disappointment
Visited one of our local fave restaurants and had one meal take 15 minutes to turn up after the rest of the main courses and one meal (mine) described as a Beef and Ale pie but was in fact a bowl of gravy with no pastry. Disappointing and overpriced. Sad !
To get things back rolling thought I'd have a couple of rants.
1) Power companies
In the wake of the review on the big 6 power companies announced this morning I thought I'd rant about EDF - my price increased by over 20% in December 2013 despite the account being over £ 400 in credit and my being on a fixed price deal. To make this worse they didn't tell me about the increase so are in breach of the direct debit guarantee as well. I only found out three days ago when I happened to check a bank statement - on complaining apparently it's my fault for not sending them a meter reading. Brilliant.
2) Car Park
The clue is in the name - 'car' park. It's not a 'pedestrian' park (I think those are covered in grass and swings and don't allow cars to drive on them). I had to sit and wait as two women pushed their prams down the middle (literally straddling the white lines in the centre of the road with their prams) of the main exit out of a supermarket car park. They knew I was there and simply didn't care. Maybe they should have used the path to the side ??? Fantastic.
3) Restaurant disappointment
Visited one of our local fave restaurants and had one meal take 15 minutes to turn up after the rest of the main courses and one meal (mine) described as a Beef and Ale pie but was in fact a bowl of gravy with no pastry. Disappointing and overpriced. Sad !
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