2010 - A Work Odyssey

The first few months of this year have been packed with work for me (as you can tell by the scarcity of blogging or tweeting!). Here are some highlights of what I've been up to:

Writing

I was one of the writing team who put together four booklets and a microsite for HSBC Bank. The booklets were included in the Sunday Times and the Sunday Telegraph over the course of a month. The microsite is at: http://www.hsbc.com/100thoughts.

This project was fascinating, fun - and very hard work. Finding so many interesting business ideas that fulfilled all the criteria was tough. They had to be novel, widely spread across the globe, be capable of being used in many types of business in any country, and be interesting. Plus the featured companies had to give consent to be featured, we had to get photos and quotations - and all within an incredibly tight deadline. But we did it!

Conference Hosting

I regularly chair/moderate conferences or web events. Earlier this year I chaired a major international video-conference for the Business Continuity Institute and BT. It included speakers in over a dozen locations, with me hosting the event from a studio in London, and a worldwide audience watching on the web.
I've also chaired a number of teleconference events, and a fair few live events.

Business

I had the difficult decision to close one of my first businesses. It provided training resources to large corporate clients - primarily in construction, banking and telecoms - so when the banking crisis came in September 2008 it was hit fast and hit hard. I made the decision in November 2008 to put it into hibernation for a year to see how the market changed. A year later and that sector had not recovered enough, so the other shareholders and I decided to close it at the end of last year. I've been working through that process for the last few months. That was sad, but definitely the right thing to do, and we managed to close it cleanly. Not every idea will work, especially when a recession tests it!

Last month I launched a new venture with two co-founders. Wraply.com is a group gift giving service. It helps groups of friends to club together to get the perfect present for a friend, relative or colleague.

And my web development business, Pilot Internet, continues to do very well with lots of projects so far this year.

Moving

Ontop of all of that - I've now moved to London. That process took a lot of time and work in itself! But it's much more convenient for me because all the events I host tend to be London-based, and all my clients are here.

So, a busy start to the year!