Friday, 30 September 2011

Weight loss update 30/09/11

My current weight is 19st 7lb and I'm now down to 56 points a day which i'm still struggling to get to.

Need to do more exercise that fits in with a desk job (or need a job that fits in with exercise lol)

Wednesday, 28 September 2011

Ramblings of a Geek

Gary Kemp, a former colleague, has started a new blog/forum for providing peer support for IT issues.

Check it out - it'll be interesting to see how it develops

Tuesday, 20 September 2011

Personal Development

I've started the road to my next lot of education by signing up as a student at the Open University Business School. Initially, I'm taking the Professional Certificate of Management but I'm hoping to then go on to do an MBA.

As part of my initial reading, I've started reading James Caan's autobiography and it's actually very insightful. I'd recommend reading it even if you have no interest in business as it's a fantastic story in it's own right.

Weight Loss Diary 20/09/11

OK I probably haven't made the best start possible with this so I'm resolving to write something here every day.

I went to my first weigh in last night at weight watchers and i've lost 5 1/2 lbs which isn't too bad but it could be better.

Pro Points are a little different to how I remember WW - I get a daily allowance of 57 points but you also get a weekly 'overflow' allowance of 49 points. To be honest, I'm struggling just to get my 57 points and haven't gone anywhere near the overflow.

WW have an iPhone app which I'm using to track my food, points and exercise (which there still isn't much of) but there's no obvious way within the app to share this.

If I find it i'll post the link.

Tuesday, 13 September 2011

Weight loss diary 13/09/11

Last night I went and joined weight watchers. I weigh 20st 1lb so I can have 57 points.

Today I used 28 points.

Monday, 12 September 2011

Motivation

Those of you that know me personally will know that I could probably do with losing a bit of weight. Well a lot of weight. Having done biology to A-Level and the best part of an entire social science degree, I'm more than aware why I'm overweight. My issue is more one of motivation.

After some discussion with my brother, he suggested that one way to motivate myself would be to commit my progress to err... screen.

As such, mixed in with my blog posts from now on is going to be a diary of sorts.

I'll have to see how it goes.

Monday, 5 September 2011

How does tech support have an impact on the bottom line?

I've been thinking about this for a while so I thought i'd put it in a blog and share my thoughts on it.

It's a question I've come across quite often in my long(ish) career in IT - many guys that I've encountered working in support think that it's the sales team that bring in the money and that they just have to fix issues. I've been in that position and sometimes when you're right in the middle of something, it can be distracting to have to put it to one side to fix someone's print spooler or scanner or excel macro... well you get the idea.

The thing is, the support guys probably have far more contact with the customer than the sales team ever did - to the customer these guys are the company and it's their experience with the front end that decides how long they remain a customer. Ultimately, without customers you have no business.

I read a blog post over the weekend on the MS Dynamics Community that put it in a much better way than I could.

In my last job we went on training with Ken Blanchard who is a great speaker on effective leadership. One point he makes is that if you (managers) want to change your business for the better, then you need to lead from the front. Incentivising good performance is also another great way of actioning change in an organisation.

Any readers of my blogs from the past will notice that this post has a little more business focussed content than they're used to. I have just started the road to an MBA so you can expect more of this sort of stuff along with the usual tech stuff.