Soulsailor

Full Foiling Freak…

noreply@blogger.com (Ant) — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 21:54:00 +0000

Went sailing on Saturday, it was looking the greyer but a tad lighter day of the weekend, so I figured my chances of success were higher…

Got rigged up and went sailing in the most breeze I’ve took the Moth out. Launching was fine, and got straight up on the foils, loads of kicker and cunningham and some tension on the wand and the boat seemed pretty stable.

So with a decent breeze the boat really freakin flies, not just in the air on the hydro-foils but also bloody quick, flying past the Y&J fleet and the university boats was great fun!

The breeze was from the North East so it meant my foiling runs were pretty much from the dinghy park and straight across the lake decent enough to enjoy the ride and get used to fore and aft trim and generally being in control a few feet above the bloody waves! It was an awesome experience……until I had to tack… actually first time round I thought I’d just go for it and try a foiling gybe…crap that really didn’t work…I think I know what happened (shouldn’t have bothered trying!?), basically need to be over the other wing mid gybe at the latest… hmm needs a lot more practice.

BTW tacking isn’t much easier… I did nail one or two half decent “learner” tack, not foiling but fast in and pretty quick back up on the foils… The rest of the tacks were bloody wet… I still have so much to learn!

The rest of the time on the water was all good, some great foiling runs, boat feeling pretty stable, high enjoyment factor, no erratic behaviour or anything…. then of course I got pitch-poled… that bloody hurt… and some point the boat bot me and I was bleeding from the finger pretty well… so I went on my final foiling run, trying not to turn the tramps blood-read, capsized near the shore and swam the bloody things back in…

A decent sail, confidence up, nothing broken… next on my list is to start actually doing more points of sailing, sailing a course etc…

Gutted know one had a camera to get some pics, next time I ain’t going out without a camera-man in tow..

Think I need to start watching a lot of Moth video’s and get learning the technique!

Cheap Gin, Drama & Too Many Sausages (Southport 24Hour Race)

noreply@blogger.com (Ant) — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 13:26:00 +0000

First Enterprise Yay!

So this post is very very rushed for 2 reasons.. (1) the memories are starting to fade already and (2) this laptop gets handed back tomorrow as I change jobs… sorry but it’ll be better than nothing, I hope!

Anyway, lets wind back to the start… It was touch and go for a while as to whether I was gonna make it to Southport, no crew meant no pass out, even for the Commodore! So social media (facebook, twitter etc) were put into action to try to attract an awesome crew to sail (and drink) with me.. a few false starts, lots of interest but “cant make this weekend” responses and then, from left field, Anne Jackson (already on the team) realised that Rachel had never done Southport and wanted too… perfect!

So The Jackson’s rocked up at chez Clay Friday night a few minutes after I’d finished my home-made steak and chips…good timing.. we transferred the contents of here car into my boot and headed-off in the bloody rain towards Southport and “the party”… two and a half hours later, a coupe of wrong turns and almost constant story telling from Anne we arrived, the rain had eased so tents were “popped-up” quickly and off to the bar.

Up until that point everything was clear, but after that it was a haze of pints of Bitter, G&T, friends I hadn't seen for 12 months or more, team members and random strangers.. I love how you just pick up from where you left off, proper friends!

So at some point in the way too early in the morning kinda timeframe I stumbled with a couple of “colleagues” over to the tents and we all disappeared. Despite the rain I actually slept bloody well until 8am ish (a lie in our house!), I was disappointed to have not managed to get a “lake view” but I think it was quieter at the back and therefore it was a small price to pay! I dozed for a while longer and then after some tweets etc located the best source of sausage, baps & coffee….

So after numerous cups of tea (the coffee taste crap 1st thing, improved later) and some “breakfast” it was time to help sort the boat our and get the starting guys on the water cleanly… Johnny & Alex had a decent start, second flight and great boat speed..and then that was it.. round the marine lake the guys went and I settled in for some watching sailing, drinking tea and catching up with everyone.

Went to the Commodores Reception as always, nice glass of sparkling wine and some canapes… didnt get mullered this year, think you only make that mistake once!

The time to chillax watching the sailing… I did think that it would be very cool if the boats had GPS’s in them so you could track the paths.. be interesting to see whether the top 10 did anything dramatically different than the rest of the fleet!?

We got ourselves over the course of the first few hours up to top 10 position and 1st / 2nd Enterprise so we were on the money, the course was very much in favour of the GP14’s so that was gonna be a battle to climb any higher in the rankings.. but we were god damn trying!

So come late evening, as the sun was starting to set, I was fed and watered (pizza mainly) me and Rachel Jackson sat watching the wind drop (ideal) and the HUGE menacing black clouds build over the sea…<gulp>, interestingly the talk around the boat park was of it getting up to 20-30knots but Johnny was adamant that some weird meteorological “thing” was going to happen and the wind would drop more.

Anne Jackson and Claire were on before us and, as we saw the rain move slowly across the retail park and the dark clouds come above us, and the wind squalling in at 20-30 knots…. I started bricking myself… the last time I sailed an Enterprise was exactly 1 year ago at Southport 24 hour race, I’ve lost weight and Rachel is shall we say on the light side… all up weight was barely 16 stone, not ideally for the squally conditions!

So after lots of pannicking, debate etc we decided to put me helming and Stevie Graham in the front, Anne had had enough so we dived in (a shall we say slick but hairy changeover) out into the middle of the marine lake and then a quick gybe and settle down for our stint… Nailing that first gybe out of the changeover area was awesome, and my confidence came back in bucket-loads… so we had a great 2 hours sailing in decent breeze, with the occasional mad squall coming through, we both sailed well and the boat felt bloody fast!

So we had a great session and I was absolutely buzzing when I cam off the water…. proper big GRINS! So had a half decent hot shower, cup of tea and then went and cracked open a bottle of organic Gin & borrowed Tonic in cardboard Waybuloo cups ;-) So that set me up for a great evening of merriment and then bed in the not too early hours of the morning …

So what was I think around 5am in the morning the alarm went off… coffee, lots of coffee and food, lots of sausages were purchased to get me awake enough to sail the Ent (in first place Ent and in the top 10 overall) around the marine lake with Rachel.

The wind was decent, Rachel thankfully was awake and we went out in her first sail at the Southport 24 hour race and had a great sail, we were consistant, had good boat speed and managed to hold our position nicely (Thanks babes)…. come 8am our stint was done and it was time to retire to the team area, drink more coffee, try to sober up a bit and watch the racing…

So by the end of the 24 hours we were 1st Enterprise, the first time SoulSailor Racing Association has achieved this AND we had 3 * 1/4 lap penalties… ermm didnt I mention that? OK, I only did one of them ;-)

So another awesome event, Southport 24 hour race is a must attend event for all dinghy sailors… it was an awesome craic!

Thanks very much to the team, it was definitely a team event and we succeeded in awesome fashion… see you next year and hopefully before then!!

The Goings & Comings of Ant! (Social Recruitment)

noreply@blogger.com (Ant) — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 22:51:00 +0000

I’m outta here!

So, after 3 1/2 years at Trinity I’ve spent the last month weighing up the pro’s and con’s of a great new opportunity and decided that the time and the place and the opportunity are right.

So I’m leaving the great people at Trinity at the end of September.

I’m joining Andrew Woodward (Microsoft SharePoint MVP, Owner & CEO) and James Fisk (CTO) at 21apps as Chief Strategy Officer next month.

21apps is a relaxed, high quality, deep thinking company that enjoys what it does, which is provide companies with the experience, techniques, tools and knowledge to deliver the maximum value from their people, solutions and services.

As an organisation we are currently focussed on adding business value through shared understanding, agile practices, leveraging our deep technical knowledge in the Microsoft stack (in particular SharePoint) to help deliver this value and working with the community to share our knowledge and passion.

21apps also embark on product development that solve real business issues and deliver value like 21scrum which was developed to provide a simple, easy to use, integrated scrum tool that meant companies could do SCRUM without the overhead/waste in using/learning complex products.

I am so excited to be joining Andrew, James and 21apps it’s a scary move going from a 250 strong Gold Partner to a 3-person SharePoint start-up, but it is absolutely the best thing I could have done at this point in my life.. The opportunities are immense, challenging and just freakin’ awesome!

Interesting (for me) the whole “recruitment” process took a month and was executed completely with Social Media tools (Twitter, blogs & Linkedin) and personal communications both face to face and on the phone.

No CV, no interviews… It all started with just a single Tweet:

AndrewWoody: Fancy working with me and @draken ?http://www.21apps.com/jobs/weneedyou/

Aching to Fly!

noreply@blogger.com (Ant) — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 22:29:00 +0000

So as I write this I ache, mentally a little and physically.

Sailing the Moth is awesome, I still haven’t got to grips with the beast yet, but each time I sail I get more confidence, more in tune and more flight-time.

Mentally its a challenge, the balance, the tuning of the rig, foils and physical position and movements… Rigging is now pretty much sorted, although I am still struggling with getting the mast up, not sure whether I’m doing something wrong, or lacking some upper body strength or just ‘cus I’m a short-arse?

I had some really decent foiling runs yesterday, the breeze was probably just sub-10knots the gusts may have been a little more, but not much… I loved the fact that at one point I was foiling but knelt on the centreline! Not sure how many foiling runs I had, but I managed a lot more variation in points of sailing and lots more course changing when up on the foils.

Strangely, and I think I may need external help on this, most of the foiling runs ended, at some point either because of the wind dropping, or more confusingly for no apparent reason… what tended to happen was either:

Loss of control and a broach with the windward wing smacking the water….and capsize
Foiling nicely and then a relatively slow heel to windward and then a sudden nose-dive, and a lurching to windward heel and capsize

Still in both the scenarios I didn’t need to worry about tacking… bloody boat did that for me as I was “ejected”! But why.. what is causing the end to the beauty of my foiling run?

Weed?
Issues on the surface of the foils?
Body position?
…or just the way it happens….(surely not?)

Anyway, the new aluminium trolley worked well I(thanks dad), nothing broke, reputation in tact…. just a shame no-one had a camera to snap my exploits!

I love the moth, I haven’t given it enough time, not enough time on the water, but I hope that Autumn and Winter will give me that time and I can saill in stronger winds and foil more consistently.

Sailing the moth is an awesome buzz, its a challenge on so many levels with associated grin-factor!

Day 3 – Successes & what I didn’t do…

noreply@blogger.com (Ant) — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 23:16:00 +0000

So I managed to get the moth out on Sunday, yay, kind of a “Father’s Day treat” outing for me!

The sun was shining, but the breeze was a fluctuating shifty 6-12 knots I would guess, but I’d seen Colin Newman out around lunchtime, foiling a lot but also flopping around as well in the lulls…

I got the boat rigged, spent a little more time looking at the rig and trying to set that up correctly…

Launched, without any issues! So that was a great improvement from last time to just be able to carry the boat into the water and get the thing going.

Wen sailing… the wind had, outside of the odd gust dropped significantly from earlier unfortunately… I did however manage to get a decent few foiling runs done (no photo evidence this time) and was up for a decent amount of time allowing me to start to get to grips with feeling the boat, balance, helm etc and be in control… there wasn’t enough breeze for me to manage to foil upwind properly, but it was nearly there. Also in the really light-‘n-shite stuff I did manage to carry on sailing the boat with a decent level of balance and control so again very promising.

In the “gusts” the boat was feeling well powered up, but they were short and sharp so it was difficult to tweak the rig and body weight to really work out how the thing should be sailed.

Weirdly on port tack I couldn’t get her to foil properly..up, up, up and then a very violent “periscopes up” crash landing… I tweaked the rudder angle and the wand tension a little, but didn’t seem to rectify the issue… we shall have to see what happens in more stable breeze hopefully soon.. So these disturbing “splash-downs” eventually caught me out and as I grew more confident I seemed to capsize more! Still, the technique for getting the boat back up and sailing again quickly seems to be nearly there so I’m happy about that.

So not much to report..

I didn't break anything
I didn't get frustrated launching or recovering from the capsizes
I did have a decent couple of foiling runs
I did struggle with tacking
I did enjoy myself
I do want to go back out there
I did get knackered
I am still aching!

Beg Borrow Steal… Compete

noreply@blogger.com (Ant) — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 22:08:00 +0000

Last Saturday dawned with a great breeze to go take the Moth out and have a semi-blast… unfortunately by the time I was actually awake the breeze had waned considerably!

I went up to Draycote to watch my eldest son sailing in an RS Tera and was so proud that he is coming on so well, really enjoying being out on the water and starting to find his “groove”… he’s even started to get a competitive spirit about him and in the next few weeks he’s gonna start race training which is awesome!

So, after deciding not to take the Moth out, I ummed and errred as to whether to go out in my Dad’s Solo and do the last two races of the Solo Open Meeting… with 20 mins before the start to go I decided what the hell… borrowed a sail, borrowed a wetsuit and lifejacket and went out bare-foot solo sailing in a F2 shifty-as-hell breeze.

So with hastily purchased tuna bap in hand I hit the water, practicing some boat handling and generally getting my smeg-together..

Wind was very patchy, and about a minute or so before the start of the 2nd race, I noticed a few gusts coming down the left side of the course. The line was fairly square so I legged it over to the pin end, had good boat speed off the line and went of a couple of hundred yards in breeze before tacking on top of the rest of the fleet, looked good for a while, with the breeze lifting on port tack, but as it started to die half way up the beat the wind veered and I dropped back into just inside the top 10. The rest of the race was pretty uneventful, had some decent boat speed downwind and made a special effort to go very deep on both the reaches and the runs to try to break into the lead pack.. By the end of Race two I’d managed to just eek myself into 6th place.

So, no time to go back in for a drink or anything.. Race 2 started in pretty much the same kind of breeze, with the lulls being depressingly lighter…I was feeling fairly confident so decided to make a statement and do a port tack flyer… left the final run too late and was around 5 secs late to the start, but pin was favoured so that limited the damage of my ineptitude! This race seemed harder going than the last, did some good moved both upwind and downwind and sailed pretty aggressively, but something always seemed to limit the effectiveness of my moves, gusts from the other side of the fleet, scuffles at the windward mark… and leeward mark around rule interpretations (and idiots).. So after lots of hard work for very little gain I ended up 8th in race 3.

It was a good couple of events, great to stretch the tactical mind a bit and 9th overall out of 22 and only doing 2 out of 3 races weren’t too bad…

The full report and results are here: Draycote Solo Open Meeting

Where am I & What am I talking about?

noreply@blogger.com (Ant) — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 10:02:00 +0000

OK, hopefully for the last time (ever, ever ever) I’ve moved my blogs around.. a combined one although less hassle for me is crap for you and so I’ve made the jump to have three “on-line” focal points plus Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook of course..

So you may find that RSS readers and stuff go a little weird and need updating.. sorry about that, don’t forget change is good, change is everything!

You can find out more about me (CV, profile, latest blog posts etc) here:

You can keep a track on my Sailing and more “personal” exploits at:

www.Soulsailor.co.uk

All my Business, Strategy, SharePoint, Social Media focussed ramblings, guest posts etc will be accessible here:

So hopefully that’s all logical now and we can continue to engage and exchange value…

Absolutely Trolley’d

noreply@blogger.com (Ant) — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 23:25:00 +0000

So I seem to be doing more boat bimbling than sailing recently (in conjunction with my Dad, Mick Clay who can’t help but help, thankfully!)…

I found soon after getting the new Moth that the launching trolley was quite heavy in comparison to the hull weight and that proved to make launching a moth in its traditional way (on the side & carried through the lapping waves!) a bit of a challenge…

I enquired around a bit for the cost of a new light-weight trolley and was quoted anything from around £250 to £350 for a few lumps of aluminium!

So I’ve (well mostly my dad) managed to legally obtain enough aluminium to be welded together to form a decent, very strong & lightweight frame… and over the course (hopefully) of the next few days we will be transferring the cradles onto the new frame and away we go..

Circa £55 for a great, lightweight, custom made, aluminium launching trolley. Bargain & Job done!

The cover, custom made by Pinnel & Bax is ready too (Thanks Stevie Graham) so that will be picked up very soon too…

Pics of Cover & Trolley soon.

Now time to go off and dream about sailing “my life-balance investment”.

Day 2 - Toruk Makto – Glimpse of Success..

noreply@blogger.com (Ant) — Sun, 16 May 2010 23:08:00 +0000

So Saturday dawned with a little more wind and the prospect of some reasonable sailing, not sure what the breeze was blowing, but it was fairly light maybe 7-8 knots max. Rigging second time round was a lot easier, although doing it in the limited space of the slip way was a pain.. Launching again seemed to be easier, grab toe-straps and boom and in to my neck… onshore wind and the way the shore slopes is a pain. But I got upright and sailing…

The balance–wire that is moth sailing is damned hard-work in light airs, some decent puffs came through enough for me to ride the wing properly and even in the really light breeze you could see her starting to plane nicely and the potential power… (also realised the toe-straps were far too short!)

I had a decent bit of time to start getting use to the controls etc then a a little increase in windspeed and I could feel the boat lifting, lifting, lifting <oh crap>, lifting until I must have been as high as feasible on my foils then… crash almost instantaneous drop back into the water… hmmm… tightened the elastic on the wand, a few mins later and the same again… up high and a scary crash back to the water… Grrrr.

Looked back at the rudder-foil setting and re-adjusted it to something that looked more reasonable…next gust and I got height and had a decent ride:

Man what a feeling…normal boat sounds, humming and then airborne silence, stability and euphoria!

Apparently my “whooops” could be heard from the shore… it was absolutely awesome!

The breeze remained fairly fickle and I figured it was best to give up for the day on a high! Coming back in was OK, but the trolley packing must have come off and putting the boat on the trolley at some point must have bent the outboard part of the pushrod (a-bloody-gain)…

So my to-do list is ever-bigger and includes, get a proper boat-cover sourcing a lighter weight trolley, straightening the pushrod and lengthening the toe-straps…

Apart from all that life is good!
Moth boat-bimbling FTW!

Day 1 - “Aerosol Ant Killer” (way too literal)

noreply@blogger.com (Ant) — Wed, 05 May 2010 22:19:00 +0000

Ouch! Tuesday night was a painful experience in numerous ways.

Rigged my new International Moth OK, as expected the camber-inducers in the sail were a pain, but got them sorted.. trying to remember how Mike Cooke had rigged it on Saturday required a photographic memory that I didn’t have and after numerous false starts, it was all logical and we got there in the end!

Eventually I got the boat into the water, the breeze had dropped to around 4 knots I guess at the most… Launching was a huge challenge for me, (a) not being as fit as I need to be (b) being shorter than most… I need a better technique to get over the wings as the boat comes up… (or more wind and do the wing-scoop technique??)

Sailing the boat in sub-optimal breeze was a bit of a nightmare… also one of the camber-inducers had popped off (I forgot to tension the main properly once the mast was up, despite Mike warning me!) the whole boat in such light breeze just flopped around a lot while I tried to get the main set and the boat balanced… (my muscles are still aching as I write this).. inevitably resulting in my arse and elbow being in the wrong place and doing more swimming!

At some point, although I don’t recollect when, I must have trodden on the hydrofoil rod from the wand to the mainfoil and cracked the housing and bent the rod.. also the outboard end of the rod got bent and i really don’t know how that happened… But hey there wasn’t enough wind to even think about foiling so that didn’t effect things on the water, although it really p!55ed me off when I realised when I was back on shore!!

So I spent nearly an hour trying to get to grips with the boat in conditions I probably wouldn’t sail in again… I have to admit I was pretty despondent yesterday evening, Had I made the right choice of boat/challenge was uppermost in my mind and thinking about my lack of progress, the breakage and the technique struggle I had in getting the boat upright when I launched / capsized didn’t help either… I have aches in muscles I had forgotten about, bruises and cuts both physically and mentally and a significant investment sat on the shore that can’t be given up on.

But it was day 1, it was way too light to get the boat to perform properly and it was the 2nd time I have sailed this year, probably around the 10th or so in the last 12 months…

So repairs have started on the push-rod…

I’m watching lots of video’s of Moths to “learn” technique…

And I am now looking forward to getting back out on the water and trying a little harder, with a little more technique and a little more wind and then I’m sure a little more positive results will follow..

Freakin’ Foiler…

noreply@blogger.com (Ant) — Mon, 03 May 2010 22:55:00 +0000

So I finally did it, taking into account some of the other stuff that’s happening with “me” at the moment it may not have been the most sensible move, but god it feels good!

I trekked down to the other side of Bristol, to see Mike Cooke of Aardvark Racing to pick up his sisters Axiom 3 (3190) International Moth. Some pictures below (not me) of Mike and the boat last year:

It’s a decent looking boat, 3 or 4 years old, solid, would probably benefit from a new main at some point, but for the moment the MSL10 or MS11 (it doesn't say!) will do me fine while I work-out how to keep the tramps and the red hull above the water!

The boat design does look absolutely amazing, and I am bummed that i didn’t get a chance to sail her at the weekend, but I’m hopeful that I’ll get a sail over the next week and post some proper reactions!!

It’s not until you get up-close-and-personal with these beauties and look at they way they’re put together, the lightness of the hull, the form of the hydrofoils (see above) that you can see the class has evolved massively over the last 20 years or so that I’ve been watching them from afar.

I’m really looking forward to the challenges (mental and physical) as well as the new era of me making and evolving “boat bits” in order to get the most out of the class. There’ll be lots more to say about this topic!

BTW any thought as to a name for the boat? “Aerosol Ant Killer” was my thought.. what’s yours?

Bloody Impatient!

noreply@blogger.com (Ant) — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 21:50:00 +0000

So now I have 110% decided to buy a foiling moth and got first refusal on a second-hand Axiom 3 through Mike Cooke of Aadvark Technologies, I’m starting to get impatient… I always want stuff I have my mind set on now, or at least next weekend… but I need to be patient..

I wonder how mad I am, but life is for living and this boat will either breathe life into my sailing or physically kill me!

Certainly I need to start getting into shape.. running around after 3 kids helps, but I think some sensible eating and drinking and masses of WII Fit may also help a little!

I’ve got Stevie @ P&B already lined up to sort a cover for me…I spent the morning watching Colin @ Draycote rig, launch and sail.. and I keep watching video’s and reading the “moth blogs”… hooked potentially, even without a boat!

tap…tap…tap…tap…waiting….excited….waiting…tap..impatient…waiting….

The Zen Encyclopaedia of Presentation Design

noreply@blogger.com (Ant) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:10:00 +0000

So in the light in such mediocrity, one of the key ways that I see we can excel and become the Linchpin in our own right is through the way we present our thoughts and ideas, whether this is in an informal conversational setting or formally with PowerPoint and mic’s and all that paraphernalia.

So I read Garr Reynolds first book Presentation Zen and loved it, it’s simplicity is infectious, it’s impact on me was phenomenal, I rediscovered what it means to deliver ideas, my interview for a past role was completely transformed, I read, learnt and gambled for the death of the bullet point and the re-incarnation of the story-teller… So I was very very curious as to what Garr could write about presentations next; the first book being pretty awesome around the simplistic, but highly effective techniques you can employ to deliver your message.

But Garr has succeeded, this next book is centred around the design principles you can utilise around, amongst a plethora of other things:

Colour
Fonts
Imagery
Transitions
Articulation of messages
Photography

I learnt a shed-load from the book, you really should go buy this book (and the one before it):

But, his last book you could read & learn, embed those take-away messages into your psyche and then rock-up at your next opportunity to present ideas with some awesome innovation and techniques to make you rock…This book is different.

This book does absolutely, through the great style of writing and the emphasis of simplicity, deliver messages subliminally to your “art” of presenting, but there is so much more detail and technique in PresentationZen Design that it’s not the sort of book that gets read and popped onto the shelf or leant out to your colleagues, you need to keep this book by your side, dip in to refresh your mind or to replay the lessons or deck ideas brilliantly laid out within its pages. This book is your:

Zen Encyclopaedia of Presentation Design

If you are passionate about improving your presenting skills and the quality of your decks then go buy this book now please… for me, for your audience, for your message?

I Want it Wet & Wild – A Mid-life Crisis?

noreply@blogger.com (Ant) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:22:00 +0000

So, I think I want one of these… I’ve got the Miracle for sailing with the kids, but I do miss getting on the water on my own, don’t forget my roots are in the Optimist..single-handed sailing is something that I’ll never grow out…

Actually I really want one of these, its a foiling International Moth...

So currently I’m looking to invest, purchase, blow some money on a Foiling International Moth..

I may get a Low-Rider i.e. a non-hydrofoil one, play with that for a while and then get it converted… but ideally, mad, stupid, insane or not, I want to go straight into a foiler….

The challenge will be awesome, just check out the footage below taken at the Moth Worlds being held in Dubai currently…

So, the old, the original, Soulsailor, may be back with blog posts about the thrills and spills of trying to go freakin’ fast without, hopefully, seriously injuring myself..

So, the plan is:

Convince wife the investment is worth it (gotta be better than a sports car?)
Any of you with contacts in the Moth fleet put the feelers out (sorry no pun intended) for a second-hand boat
I need to get fitter!
I’ll keep trawling the web sites for a bargain
I’ll keep dreaming!

Fast & Low my Friends… Fast & Low & Close(ish) to the Water…

Trinity achieve Microsoft Business Value Planning Services Certification (BVPS)

noreply@blogger.com (Ant) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:13:00 +0000

Trinity announced today that we have achieved the Microsoft BVPS certification.

http://www.tesl.com/TESL/News/Pressreleases/Trinity+achieve+Microsoft+Business+Value+Planning+Services+Certification.htm

Actually the reality is for the moment, I have achieved the MS BVPS certification… I’m certifiable around ensuring that you deliver business value for your organisation through the Microsoft Information Worker platform!

I’m extremely excited about the prospect of being able to engage with our existing and hopefully new (get in touch!) clients and driving proper ROI through their organisations.

Making a difference.

Engaging with business and IT.

Realising potential.

Changing cultures.

Maximising adoption.

Shipping value….

Get in touch with me or Trinity direct if you want our assistance in making you look good in your organisation and allowing your organisation to deliver its potential.

Why Facebook and not SharePoint 2010 could become your Intranet for 2010?

noreply@blogger.com (Ant) — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 10:20:00 +0000

Don’t panic, I don’t believe this!

I came across this article on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/Capgemini/status/10021634294
http://www.capgemini.com/technology-blog/2010/03/why_facebook_and_not_sharepoin.php

I have to admit, I don’t particularly agree with the premise for the article. Ignoring the fact that a lot of companies don’t trust their employees to access FaceBook in work (so they turn to accessing anyway over their mobile devices!), what I don’t like is that it makes the assumption that SharePoint isn’t a good platform for an Intranet which of course it is.. it’s awesome and with the launch of SharePoint 2010 in May, the Intranet features, including a heap of social features which I feel are key in bringing context into our everyday activities, are immensely strong.

The article states that FaceBook (obviously) doesn’t support integration into your back-end systems and probably isn’t the right location for confidential documents… Right so you’re telling me that I should have an external FaceBook Intranet for news, information and connections (internal and external) and then separate systems for all the other stuff I do each and every day??

I don’t think so guys… maybe in the “old days” with SharePoint 2003 and SharePoint 2007 that may be a credible approach as the social/connections focussed elements were weak, but SharePoint 2010 is a totally different beast.

What I do agree with in the post is that for Intranets:

Adoption is key
Building engagement with business partners is a key differentiator in business (Extranet AND other social tools)
Utilise platforms rather than custom build

With FaceBook not being a good platform from a security perspective, then why not consider SharePoint Online, that platform certainly meets the needs of this requirement that they state at the end of the article:

Save money, thrive adoption. Not every successful solution has to start inside your firewall or should be custom build. Use the tools your colleagues already know, use the tools that they already selected as the tools they prefer to use.

Finally, an interestingly, what they also say is:

“…If that holds you back to go full fledge into Facebook, just use your Facebook group as a portal to get your colleagues to the news on the Intranet (which could be based on SharePoint 2010)…”

Now that is a more sensible idea…

Build a social presence as a portal…
Use the social features of a decent platform such as FaceBook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Ning etc to engage with new customers
Use this as a launch pad for employees to an Internal Intranet (SharePoint 2010)
Use this as a launch pad for partner/clients to an extranet (SharePoint 2010)

Sorted! This approach give you a great transparent presence, and as much relevant content and business processes that the platform can deliver, and hands you off neatly to internal systems such as SharePoint 2010 for the really rich, contextual intranet (or extranet) functionality you need…

Make sense?

The Fear of the Linchpin

noreply@blogger.com (Ant) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 23:38:00 +0000

So I bought from iTunes Seth Godin’s latest creation from iTunes a a few weeks ago.. The audio book comes in two parts and during some of my commutes and occasionally at home I’ve been dipping into it and slowly working my way through the 8 hours or so of audio..

I like Seth, he has a great deal of interesting, challenging stuff to say… his voice works well in audio books (maybe he has a face for radio?). This book is another well thought out insight/self-help/business/innovation book, or piece of art as he may call it.

But I started to not enjoy it.. it wasn’t that he wasn’t making sense, ‘cus he was.. but he did seem to be banging on about “factories”, I’ve never worked in a factory, but my parents have, so although I can see it’s relevant, for some reason it feels distant and I didn’t connect. I found that lack of connection, for an undeterminable reason all the way through the first half of the audio book; I still learnt a bunch of stuff, I still got some of what he said, but the power and the connection wasn’t necessarily there..

But the second half…

Wow, Seth really started switching on some lightbulbs for me, that showed some scary insights into me and you and our behaviours that reinforce or work against us being the “linchpin”.

Disclaimer:- I haven’t actually finished listening to the book yet!

Stuff around a 2nd voice in our heads was fairly standard stuff, but the focus on fear stopping us from being freakin’ awesome and becoming a linchpin and developing a network of linchpin’s around us was extremely interesting. The leadership strands, seem to strengthen as the audio book progresses and I’m not sure whether this is because Seth get’s better at writing, kinda gets into his stride, or that I’m just learning in the first half and putting the relevance into play in the second… but persevere please, it’s worth it…

3 things stuck out on my way to and from a client meeting today listening to Seth..

Fear - Don’t be scared, things fail, people fail, failure is good.. learn from this, don’t stress, focus on (as Seth says) shipping getting things done, delivering
Stop Checking In - In order to succeed, in order to become a linchpin stop wasting time through the day checking-in periodically (email, Twitter, LinkedIn, intranet, colleagues etc) use that time to be awesome, to deliver, to “ship stuff” & to make a difference
Gift – Give things, knowledge, gifts, books, time or whatever with no thought to reciprocation

So I spent some focussed time this afternoon culling my inbox… I didn’t get to “Inbox Zero”, but I did get down to only 6 unread emails. (Stopped Checking In)

I shipped stuff… No fear, no pause, delivering this blog post, reviewed a draft RFP response, a manifesto and agenda for a clients IT Steering Group, an agenda for a SharePoint 2010 Organisational Readiness session all done, efficiently this afternoon and this evening (Fear)

And finally, as I’d discussed previously with Matt Groves previously, I thought I’d buy a book, a gift for my colleagues at Trinity; so a copy of Seth’s Linchpin is slowly making its way to the office for you to read, borrow, discuss or ignore (Gift)

So, I’ve got a day’s leave tomorrow to spend with my daughter on her birthday, but Friday and all next week

I’m not gonna let fear define what I do,
I’m gonna focus on shipping stuff and not a stack of spinning plates
I’m gonna give..

That’s all, simple, effective and movement towards my personal vision.

Personal ROI – Accept or Decline

noreply@blogger.com (Ant) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:15:00 +0000

I’ve been thinking a lot about “time” – my time, company time, family time…

I see time wasted all over the place, I hear people talking about wasted time, I see inaction and I see great uses of time and resources.

So I’ve had enough of wasting any time, mine, yours and everybody elses. To achieve balance “time” needs to deliver “value” otherwise what’s the point?

So from now on I’m going to start to re-dress the balance, every internal meeting, every conference call and every client meeting needs to deliver me, or my family, or my colleagues or my company an ROI.

Every time I receive a meeting request I’m going to question it’s value, I’m gonna do the maths in my head, work out the Personal ROI, then decide whether to click “Accept or Decline”…

Why am I attending?
What value will the other attendees add to me?
What will this meeting/call add to our client?
What will this meeting/call add to our project?
What will this meeting/call add to our company?
What value will I add?

Life is too short to waste on delivering “nothing”…
I am valuable…
I have something to add…
I am worth more than this…

Click “Decline” and go deliver.

Is SharePoint a Huge Pulsating Beast?

noreply@blogger.com (Ant) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:13:00 +0000

Ok, so at the last Trinity SharePoint 2010 event it is true that I stated, when talking about the huge value around context and knowledge that can be captured within SharePoint, that, and I quote):

“…SharePoint is a huge pulsating beast…”

OK, in hindsight that may not have been the best way to articulate SharePoint’s value but in my mind at that second it was accurate, without:

Governance
Clear requirements
Information architecture
Stakeholder buy-in
User adoption

Then SharePoint truly can be a beast when it’s left to it’s own device with your clients…

The following post is hopefully a better articulated version of “the beast”, that should make more sense!

So, when we deploy SharePoint our hopes, requirements and vision are that it will become a business tool that the whole organisation embraces, and with this large-scale adoption will come a deep pool of knowledge, data, information, debate and context.

The problem is, unless sufficient thought has been made around governance, information architecture, search, meta data etc, finding information in platforms like SharePoint can be like throwing a pebble into a fast moving stream, finding the exact same pebble again can be extremely challenging!

SharePoint 2007 is therefore very analogous to a complex maze of tributaries meandering towards the sea but going nowhere particularly fast… A fair bit of water (knowledge) flows through the tributaries, but there are also many twists, turns and dead-ends.

With SharePoint 2010, there are countless more ways in which knowledge, information and data can manifest itself, its more like fast flowing rivers on their way to the ocean. All that information flowing through the system can be difficult to take advantage of, but with SharePoint 2010, there are also an increasing number of ways in which you can harness the knowledge-flow, speed it up, slow it down, aggregate it, re-use it and give purpose to it (context).

So SharePoint in the future is going to allow us a greater level of control (governance) to properly harness the flow (derive business value), but we won’t ever fully stop that knowledge branching out, being used in ways we hadn’t anticipated and we should plan for and accept this uncertainty…

So I’m going to stop referring to SharePoint as a “huge pulsating beast”, and start referring to SharePoint, and specifically SharePoint 2010 as:

“…a river of knowledge that we can’t control, but we must harness…”

LinkedIn to Infectious Generosity

noreply@blogger.com (Ant) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 23:37:00 +0000

Last week, now that my role has changed, I decided to request from a few close colleagues a “LinkedIn Recommendation” for my time as both a Strategic Consultant and Deputy Head of Strategic Consultancy. I don’t know whether I deserve any recommendations, but sometime you have to push a little to take your life forward, and I figure if people don’t want to then they’ll just ignore my request, now worries.

Christmas (or early February in reality) is for giving as well as receiving, so I decided to recommend some people I currently work with whom I felt at the time warranted recognition… these included:

A Technical Architect at a client
A Trinity project manager
Two Trinity consultants
A Trinity “technology leader”
A Trinity solution architect
And a Client Project Manager.

There are of course lots of other great people I do or have worked with, but in the spur of the moment these “felt right”.

It’s a cathartic experience writing a recommendation, but it’s a little weird when you push those little “boats of reputation” onto the virtual lake and hope that they get to their recipient and they are accepted and become reality…

Anyway, the deed was done, I felt good about the “giving” and life went on… One of the recipients of a “boat of reputation” (not sure i like the analogy anymore!) dropped me an email the next morning stating:

It’s nice to feel appreciated – what prompted this then?

I don’t usually give or expect recommendations on Linked in ....

My response was:

Decided this year I need to be more proactive in being positive and giving credit where credit is due..

Plus its always nice to do something unexpected!

So go on, think of the last 3 people that inspired, impressed or were just plain awesome and go to LinkedIn and write a recommendation.. Why wouldn’t you?

Reputation and attention are rapidly increasing in value, give the gift of a recommendation, it’s infectious!

Social SLA

noreply@blogger.com (Ant) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 01:10:00 +0000

When I hear that “ping” or “boing” or see the flash of a new message, connection, thought, innovation, idea, friend request, poke, check-in, request, event notification, email, updated RSS feed, email or whatever I kinda find it hard to not just check who, what, where pretty immediately…

But responding back is a different matter; I seem to have a brain and psyche that can cope (on the whole) with multiple sensory inputs\updates\distractions… For me the stimulation is good, new ideas, new perspectives, creative sparks or getting bumped back on the right track.

But if I’m trying to get my “shit done” then responding is a different matter…

So what is the Service Level Agreement (SLA) for Social Media? Ask yourself this, when do you expect a response from a:

Facebook Poke
Email
Instant Message (work or personal)
Friend\Connection Request
Twitter @Mention
New Blog Post (comments).

If you mention someone on twitter and they don’t respond within a few hours, does that p!55 you off? How long should it take for someone at work to respond to a truly important email or an casual IM?

I think the “Social SLA” is determined by three key factors:

The proximity of the “engager” to your social graph (Family vs Acquaintance)
The transient nature of the “request” (Twitter vs Email)
Perceived value in the “payload” (Insightful Blog Post vs Checking-in@Gowalla)

Using a VERY rough rating table such as this:

Proximity	Transience	Value
Close = 1	High = 1	High = 1
Friend = 2	Medium = 5	Medium = 4
Acquaintance = 3	Low = 10	Low = 8

And an SLA calculation based upon:

Proximity * Transience * Value = SLA (Hours)

Lets look at the extremes e.g. Twitter\IM versus Email:

	Proximity	Transience	Value	SLA
Twitter	1	1	1	1 hour

Twitter

1 day

Email

10 hours

Email

10 days

It may be rough, but for a, lot of people this isn’t that far off reality!

Scenario 1 – Twitter, tweet pops into my stream from a close friend, family member or trusted advisor, its a valuable tweet i.e. a great link or breaking news or a fix to an issue – expected response within the hour.

Scenario 2 – Twitter, tweet pops into my stream from an acquaintance, its not a valuable tweet i.e. a link to an event or a re-tweet of something I probably already know – expected response (if any) within a day.

Scenario 3 – Email pops into my inbox from a close friend, valued colleague, family member or trusted advisor, its a valuable email i.e. breaking news, a great offer for something I am interested in, or a request for information that I can add value to – expected response within 10 hours or roughly a working day.

Scenario 4 – Email pops into my inbox from an acquaintance, its not a valuable email i.e. a catch-up email, newsletter or something I probably already know – expected response (if any) within 10 days.

The problem with a Social SLA is that the expectation and the ability to deliver are poles apart…
Maybe the recipient is on leave, currently Twitter doesn’t have an off-the-grid message?
Maybe they are up to their nuts in work?
Maybe they have a few hundred other connection requests, messages, tweets or IM’s to work through?

So maybe there should be some kind of leveller on the SLA according to how much traffic, reputation and engagement you get from elsewhere on the grid (or offline)?

Lots to consider and think about…I’d like to hear your thoughts, in a timely manner?

Stop Talking Fluffy Cloud Crap!

noreply@blogger.com (Ant) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:38:00 +0000

Awesome "How to talk about cloud sensibly" document from NIST:

NIST Definition of Cloud Computing v15

The key elements to me are (a) Moving focus away from “cloud” and more to what it delivers, (b) Definition of Models and (c) Simplicity! I’ve summarised these below, but please go read the 2 page-document:

Characteristics

On-Demand Self-Service
Broad Network Access
Resource Pooling
Rapid Elasticity
Measured Service

Service Models:

Cloud Software as a Service (SaaS)
Cloud Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

Deployment Models:

Private Cloud
Community Cloud
Public Cloud
Hybrid Cloud

The document doesn’t seek to define how these are implemented but does create a wonderfully simple common ground so we can stop talking "fluffy clouds” and start talking about what our clients need in a clear and concise language!

Go Read Today!

SharePoint Perception

noreply@blogger.com (Ant) — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 14:05:00 +0000

SharePoint is a “large beast”, it can deliver a wonderful array of functionality, however I still encounter clients and organisations in the wider world that feel that SharePoint just doesn’t deliver on its promises... But why?

To me it fundamentally comes down to 3 things:

1. Wrong starting point
Please don’t do a “SharePoint Project” any more! Technology never solves problems, it facilitates the organisation or end user to achieve, SharePoint is no different. Do a business change project, sort out a business process do something for your business.

2. No Directions
Just because SharePoint has a stack of functionality doesn’t mean you can go into a project without a clearly defined business vision and set of requirements, if you do the project will almost always fail to deliver.

3. Rose-tinted Glasses
Less obvious but equally damaging, is end-user perception, especially when your “showing” SharePoint to a client. Be it a causal “look this is what SharePoint does”, a formal pitch or an event you must be clear to clients as to what your showing, how far from OOTB it is and how they get what your showing. Office Versions, customisations, add-ins, ways of working all fundamentally change the SharePoint experience, what it can deliver and how much it’s going to cost to deliver.

“Lead with the business and be transparent; then think about SharePoint”

I’m Certifiably Delivering BVPS!

noreply@blogger.com (Ant) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 00:04:00 +0000

I bloody did it!
I passed the Microsoft Business Value Planning Services exam… I am well and truly certifiable!

It’s an interesting exam, I found it quite challenging because, well basically in most cases all the multiple choice answers were “positive” and could have been correct… What do I mean well, for the scenarios described the companies would have benefited if any of the answers were followed… what the exam looks for is the “most right” answer based on the wording of the questions…

I don’t think you get that by a course or cramming… It’s the experience of working with clients and understanding what is really important to them, what meets their needs, doesn’t step over their cultural boundaries and answers the question in MSFT’s eyes..

BVPS itself kinda fits only when there are clear challenges around business process with human interaction and links to the Microsoft Information Worker platforms and products… I’ll be looking to evolve BVPS thinking around more fluid, non-structured, loosely coupled, non-process orientated “flows” within an organisation.

So now I have the certificate, what next well… Firstly I’m developing a wider business value consulting proposition here at Trinity that includes BVPS and other consulting approaches I’ve architected, and also I’ll be focussing on business value at a Trinity SharePoint 2010 Event we are holding later in January in Coventry and March in London along with Matt Groves. Ongoing, I’ll be looking at a verticalised focus on BVPS, starting with the Public Sector.

So if you or a client need to engage around delivering business value from a general organisational or Microsoft Information Worker perspective, give me a call..

It’s official, Microsoft say I can help your business achieve your business strategy!

How Do You Make A Strategy Stick?

noreply@blogger.com (Ant) — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 12:50:00 +0000

Sticky Strategy is an interesting concept… I hear and see a great deal about strategies of all sorts in my consulting work both successful, ineffectual, innovative, obvious etc, but the number of true IT strategies that are operational i.e. have been implemented and are being managed and tracked are few and far between.

My definition of a sticky strategy is one that, once created (by the organisation or a partner like Trinity) actually gets implemented, no dust, no change of heart no ignorance, just strategy created + strategy followed = business and IT outcomes are being achieved.

There are a stack of challenges that prevent a strategy from sticking and deliver:

Confusion over what IT Strategy means:
- Applications
- Infrastructure
- Full IT estate
- Collaboration
- Virtualisation
- etc
Not taking sufficient heed over business strategy
Focussing on strategy duration
- Why will a 5 year IT strategy keep you in a better position than a 1 1/2 year one that is regularly evolved with business changes?
Evolving Service Models (see Stop Talking Fluffy Cloud Crap!)
IT resources
- People
- Financial
- Knowledge
- Skills
Business and economic influences

So back on track, how do you make an IT Strategy, whatever flavour it is, stick? I was going to way lyrical for a few “pages” about this, but the reality is that won’t add any value to you, and there are only, in my opinion, a small number of truths that together ensure the delivery of a “Sticky Strategy”..

Business Vision and IT Strategy Alignment
- Business first
- IT Strategy has to deliver “services” that directly support the Business Strategy
- IT Strategy must be regularly evolved to keep in sync with business strategy changes, market influences and economic drivers
Be Actionable
- Must be able to clearly articulate tangible IT projects from the strategy
- IT must be able to deliver with their IT eco-system (partners, contractors etc)
Deliver Demonstrable Value
- Primarily to the Business (first bullet)
- Secondarily to the IT function
Demonstrate Awesomeness
- Make the IT Director \ Senior IT Stakeholder look awesome in the eyes of the business and the Senior Executives.

Success starts at being able to clearly define what the strategy will do for the business and how. So every IT Strategy executive summary should start with something like the following, to ensure awesomeness for all involved:

“…This strategy will facilitate the delivery of business excellence and successful achievement of our key business objectives <list>; Delivering demonstrable value <list>; Through a programme of business-led IT projects <list>…”