allweatherhaulage

I notice a number of co-incidences this morning as I return to the blog. A symmetry of posting dates since 2008 and unbelievably at first sight, 10 years since I last posted. But more importantly in my thoughts this morning, 1 year since lockdown started.  I remember having a 48 hour head cold over that weekend last March and worrying whether it was anything more serious. Lockdown, no travel or contact and my first ever flu jab just prior to Christmas have meant a year free from bugs, colds and sneezes - apart from a token bout of hay fever in that glorious May weather last year. Having had my first vaccine jab on Saturday morning, I have had 48 hours soreness in the jab site and aches, surprisingly mainly in my fingers. Nothing that confined me to bed but a general feeling of being under the weather and woolly headedness.  What a well designed process the vaccination was. From the initial booking via the NHS website two weeks ago, to the volunteers at the site - which was a s...

I'm in the middle of some new business development at the moment - both for myself and for one of my clients. It's always hard to try to get an introduction and gain 30mins to talk through where one can help the business. No matter how one tries, it always comes across as selling. Demonstrating experience, enthusiasm and ethics are easy - it's relevance and ROI that are more tricky! One of the greatest barriers in trying to open doors to new clients is the actual word design itself. I graduated in the middle 80's when the word had been adopted to describe a particular attitude and approach - aligned closely with 'Yuppies' in the press and media. The word 'designer' came to be both descriptive and indicative of a period when perceived style, high price and gimmicky expressions of technology seemed to be all the benefits it offered. With the advent of the home makeover shows on TV in the early 21st century, another version of the power of design seeped int...

I guess it would have been more symmetrical to have waited until 28th June to reconvene the posting but in the grand scheme of things, 7 days short of 3 years makes so little difference.... Have I been waiting to gain a fuller perspective on life, technology or design during these three years? More likely too concerned with the need to get on with life on a day to day basis - and spending way too much time travelling up and down the country. So, with a little more time on my hands at present - good for the soul but stressful for paying the mortgage - I am trying to get into my head the opportunity to post on issues a couple of times per week. I hear novelists and writers talk about the need to 'find their voice' before being able to write convincingly - does the same apply for blogging? Can a stream of consciousness approach really pay dividends or merely fill space. I guess we'll see by customer satisfaction.....just need to find some themes and an opinion.

Well, without wanting to sound too ' consultant-ish ', if such a word exists, design activity connects a business to it's customers. Imagine three circles - like the Audi badge minus one, if you will. The furthest left encompasses what the business does, how it does it and what it's aims and aspirations are. The furthest right corrals the customers, the one in the middle, connecting them, delivering results and influenced by both is design. The process of managing that happen in a timely, predictable and cost effective way is design management. I am reminded of an old client from the mid 90's who came from Finland. He reckoned that consultant was Finnish for w*nker, having read that last paragraph, I think he might have had a semblance of a point......

...currently saving my pennies for one of these... Alfa Brera S

Well, primarily it's because of the late Douglas Adams . Author of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (a trilogy in four parts) and other great books, he was responsible for the creation of McKenna's All-Weather Haulage in the fourth part of the trilogy, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish. For those of you who've not yet read it, Rob McKenna is a long distance truck driver on whom it is always raining. He can describe, name and identify a variety of types of rain, drizzle, smurgh and because of the continual rain he is always 'a miserable b*st*rd'. Unbeknownst to him, he is actually a raingod and the rain clouds are following him (and worshipping) him wherever he goes. Am I a miserable b*st*rd? Is that why the blog is so named? Or, a long distance truck driver? Or, perhaps a raingod - it certainly feels so sometimes but no. It's because I wanted a blog that allowed me to post on a variety of topics around a common theme - that theme being getting from  A to ...