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Day 3: From ‘Campermory’ to the golden beaches
After the wonder of the previous day, the next day started dull and overcast. At times it also became a little fraught. But ended in a flurry with a lovely road trip, dazzling golden sands and even a paddle in the sea! Like holidays we’ve been on together, this morning started with me being up so much earlier than anyone else. I was up and showered and ready to go before 7 am, leaving everyone else still sleeping. Having done some in-van clearing away, or what I could do without waking Mikey, I went for a walk. At that time in the morning, the weather wasn’t great, it was ‘waterproof…
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Day 2: The mad dash of Pete ‘Schumacher’ Higgins
Wow… Day 2 was a crazy, mad, amazing day, full of fantastic sights (manmade and natural), great food, a mad dash, brilliant company, and our now obligatory visit to an ALDI car park! So, let’s go back to the start of the day… It was an early start! Up with the larks! Last night we’d agreed to pop into a supermarket to get some more supplies for a BBQ in the evening. To do that we needed to leave early to get everything done before the ferry left. We left in the two vans heading into Oban with us following Pete and Fi. It’s on the way to the supermarket…
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Day 1: Escape from the Lothians
So, we are finally here, day 1 of our road trip and we have arrived safe and sound at our first Campsite in North Ledaig near Oban …on the shores of Ardmucknish Bay overlooking Mull. I didn’t know this detail at the time, if you read the description yesterday you’ll remember that for me and Mikey this is a ‘Magical Mystery Tour’. We are following our great friends Pete and Fi on this journey. That said… earlier in the day we did wonder if the leaders of our little convoy knew the way, as we struggled to leave the Lothians, never mind head North! It’s Saturday 26th June and we’ve…
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Four people, two motor homes and one map of Scotland…
I’d like to be cool and say we simply threw a bag in the back of the vans and off we went …but that’s not quite true! Between us, we packed enough clothes, food, gin, beer, wine, bubbly and the all-important midge repellent to last at least a month maybe even two! (…all I can say is you can never have too much gin!) We were, however, ‘cool enough’ to have a couple of walkie talkies between us, tuned into our own frequency. We had an itinerary planned out with every stop, ferry and campsite (courtesy of our wonderful friend, pseudo travel guide and fellow traveller Fiona) and were ready…
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What have you done lately?
I think it’s fair to say, I’ve been a little busy recently… The other day I looked out at my poor old garden and thought “I must plant something, add some colour. Now spring (or summer) has finally reached Scotland, it’s time”… Well… that had to wait a little longer because if I was going to be in any fit state for the next day, I needed to rest. Having worked the previous 3 weekends, I needed to put my feet up. After all, those feet of mine were going to be important for the events of the next day… The Edinburgh Half Marathon On Sunday 30th May, I woke…
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Guest Post: Two BAs and a camera!
This week I have a guest blog from my good friend and fellow BALIFE committee member Julia Newell. This follows on from my recent blog charting our BALIFE journey together… but is a little more fun, see what you think… From Julia… How do you prepare for being interviewed and filmed? What do you wear? How do you calm the nerves? Have I practised enough? How bad will the stuttering be? What will people think when they see it? All of these questions and more were going through my head as I got ready one Saturday morning to be filmed for my interview presentation for BALIFE2021 on 3rd June. The…
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The clock is ticking down to BALIFE2021!
So here we are 43 days, 21 hours, 59 minutes and so many seconds away from launching our first-ever “Business Analysis Learning and Innovation Festival Edinburgh” …aka BALIFE. By the time you read this blog, who knows, maybe it’ll be 40 days or even 35 days and so many hours and minutes! It’s as if time has started to accelerate! As I write this a group of volunteers, with full-time jobs of our own, are currently up to our necks in extra work. To get this, our very first BA learning festival in a day, off the ground. And we couldn’t be happier, because today all our hard work starts…
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It’s a woman’s world too
It’s International Women’s Day …but hey, I prefer to consider all people and all influences equal! 😊 That said… To mark the occasion, I thought I would look at today as a celebration of the many women in my life who do great things every day.Women who I turn to for support and inspiration, like… Sally Rogan – UX, User Researcher, Content Designer Having spent the best part of 2 years working with Sally I’ve learned so much from her calm and perceptive nature. She has a fantastic ability to empathise with a customer and instinctively know when to say the right thing and when to let things go quiet.…
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2020 – What a crazy year!
Despite a new decade full of promise at the start, 2020 hasn’t been the year we all expected. It’s fair to say we anticipated a few ups and downs but none of us expected the year we’ve had. It started well but then when COVID hit in the Spring, throwing most of us into lockdown for months, and if you are lucky enough to work, a virtual working situation. The world changed very quickly. …and now, here we are again with a new virus strain, heading into more isolation and further lockdown for who knows how long. The start of 2021 isn’t looking too great either. BUT… For all of…
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Do Business Analysts add value?
Back in July 2020, I had the great privilege of taking part in an online panel discussion hosted by BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT. At the time the discussion was ‘Is Business Analysis still relevant?’ (you can check it out for yourself here). Well, that turned out to be BCS’s most successful webinar and so along with that expert panel we were invited back on the 25th November 2020 to debate the intricacies of Business Analysis some more. Specifically, what value do BAs add – and what should they add? It was a 30-minute debate finishing with 15 minutes at the end for the panel to take questions. My fellow panellists were:…
