Category: Comedy

Welcome 2015!

London Fireworks 2015M25 Carpark

It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted much, mainly due to a contract which requires me to drive on the M20 and M25 (aka “the carpark” for those outside the UK) and as a result, I just don’t seem to of had the time and energy…

Javelin TrainOh, how I long for those lovely trains, and will never complain about a 30 or even 60 minute delay – the worst I’ve had in a car is a 1h trip taking 4h!!!

I look forward to getting on something where someone else is doing the driving so I can use my time effectively

Amazingly, it seems like only 7% (4.5 Million) people in the UK use public transport. Given that nearly 1/3 (22 Million) live in the South-East, where transport is generally pretty good, that seems pretty low. No surprise given the number of people on the motorways – I’ll be happy to take one more off them next contract.

So what’s up for 2015 for me and this blog?

For one, I plan to start getting back in to a bit more of a rhythm, both with my posts and the associated (play) work (generally outside “real work”), and I will continue to post based on my experiences – recent and past…

theme : ecologyWhat are the themes though? Here’s a list of where I’d like to go:

  • Lifestyle & Reviews
  • Process & People & ScramJet
  • Clojure
  • Architecture, including Enterprise & SOA aspects

in no particular order. I won’t get in to specifics as much of it is not yet planned, or I’m working on it but don’t want to reveal it until I have enough meat on the the bones so I can be sure it will fly.

teaserHere’s a few teasers though based on posts I know I’ll write or have in draft form:

  • Review of Bob Marshall’s “Thinking Different” happening last year
  • Review of the: BMW i3 electric car; Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  • Corporate Subversion – in a positive manner of course :-)

and that’s really just the “boring stuff” – there should be some very interesting posts coming as I hit my stride.

I hope you’ve all had a great XMas & New Year break and look forward to some great interactions in 2015!

Changearc – the thinking person’s RiczWest ;-)

Today I’m (@RiczWest) starting a new twitter account. It’s called ChangeArc. For those who follow me, you’ll recognise this as my “Blog Name” – so what’s the purpose?

Simple – when I started using Twitter, it was primarily as a bookmarking tool. To some extent I still use it as such, but also for so much more…

There’s one problem though – as I look at a lot of content, that means a lot of tweets, and not everyone likes that, including me! There are a number of great people I’d like to follow, but I can’t because they tweet too much.

To that end, I’m going to start a much lower volume (only a few tweets per day) account which is ChangeArc. So what can you expect apart from less tweets? Extremely high quality tweets that will include any posts I do.

I don’t know how this will evolve, but it will be interesting to see…

The Most Expensive form of travel in The World!

Ticket BarriersI had an interesting experience today – I swiped my Oyster Card and then remembered I had to top it up so I swiped back out the barriers. You’re not supposed to be charged in this situation, but when I went to a top-up machine it said my card was -£3! What??? Putting 1+1 together I then went to the ticket window and explained what had happened and the guy confirmed – I’d been charged £4 (as I’d had £1 on the card). No problems, he reversed the transaction and I topped up my card.

UndergroundOn the walk to work (where many of my “great thoughts” arise) I got to thinking – I walked roughly 10ft “round trip” so that makes the “journey” 40p/ft! Following on from this, it would surely make that kind of travel the most expensive, and most annoying as you’re locomoting yourself! Bought to you by our good old London Underground…

Carrying this silliness further I wondered how much would it cost to get to the US using such a pricing structure. A simple query to Wolfram Alpha (I knew it was good for something ;) reveals that it’s 1.832×10^7 feet from London to New York so simple arithmetic gives us a total cost of £7.3M or US$11.4M!!! Well that’s an expensive trip!

Virgin GalacticSo, if you want to “one up” all your colleagues who are talking about Luxurious Cruises, Virgin Galactic and all those “cheap” forms of travel, just go to a tube station, walk in and out of the barriers and you’re then a member of a very exclusive club :-)

We’re All going on a Twitter Holiday

Twitter Holiday

So, the time has come where I’ve finally been “overloaded” by Twitter on many levels.

This is not a bad thing, it’s just a thing… So as a result, surprise, surprise: I’ll be going on a Twitter Holiday (not really with Sir Cliff Richard ;) for a number of reasons:

  • A real Holiday has actually “emerged” in my life – I’ve finished a contract and:
    • An Aussie Mate will be visiting us for a while
    • We’re going to Seville in Spain for a while with our US relations (one of whom speaks Spanish because she works at a community library in US)
    • I’m catching up with an Aussie Uni Buddy and his new “girlfriend” (sounds strange as we’re both getting near 50 ;) in France
  • DailyRiczWest is dead! As I recently tweeted, I was going to do a lot more with that, but now that Twitter killed ifttt.com, I can’t really be bothered, for the moment… Anyone who knows or has worked with me, should know that I can be a stubborn, sneaky and clever bastard, capable of working around the most entrenched and stubborn systems. Needless to say, Twitter have handed me a challenge which I thank them for – Namaste’ :-)
  • I’m getting tired of the “cognitive constraints” of 140 chars! But as a result of those chars, I want to start  blogging more – around the 1,400 char point – concise, yet clearly explained
  • I love the twitter debates, but I want to get personal! Again, this is more a reference to the restrictions of twitter – I’m quite happy to email people. I could Skype them, or even maybe meet them F2F! Not Tweeting will inspire me to progress some relationships…
  • I’ve just finished up “handover” for another contract and in that way, this feels like a natural extension of that, as I’m kind of doing a handover of my experience on Twitter
  • We’re (ie my wife and I) are going through an incredible period of change – moving from the most amazingly toxic street, where we lived (foolishly) for two years to a most amazingly positive one in a totally new county! This takes time to integrate…

Finally, and probably most importantly, I’m just over-filled with Twitter Information and People!

I mean this in a totally positive way. I have formed relationships which will be developed and have been exposed to so many very smart and aware people, that I’ve yet to catch up with. And therein lies the problem – I can’t catch up with them by reading their tweets! I’ll meet some of them and read much material by them or recommended by them…

Another way to put it is that I need some reflection time from the firehose. During the past (really year or so as although I “joined” in 2009, I didn’t do much for a year or so…) I have gathered just so much information!

  • 4,444 tweets, probably a lot of which are links to articles
  • A lot (~1k?) of favourites, which I used when Twitter weren’t API Fascists to dump to text files
  • Other information related to tweets, which I have traced and tweeted

Probably, more importantly, I have formed what I feel are real connections with people – sharing my highs & lows. Having arguments, disagreements and agreements (mostly :) whom I’d like to acknowledge and encourage you to check out and maybe follow:

  • Jennifer Sertl @JenniferSertl – We just connect! I’m looking forward to meeting her some day (probably at CultureCon London 2013 :) Oh – what does she do? Strategy, Leadership and the Soul: Resilience, Responsiveness and Reflection for a Global Economy – we obviously need people like her!
  • Bob Marshall @flowchainsensei – sometimes we think the same, sometimes different. I like challenging him and having a good ‘ol discussion / debate / duke out (:) – hopefully catch up F2F @ XTC…
  • My Anonymous Friend who would probably have to kill you if you knew who he was ;-) We have so many good discussions that are not on Twitter, but should be, even if in censored form or relayed via me… You obviously know who you are – and who everyone else is ;-)
  • Alex Ley @AlexEvade – worked with him for a bit – you should check out his latest project : http://www.nerdability.com
  • tom_gall @tom_gall – Originally followed because he had a NeXT logo as his avatar – must admit I’m a bit dissapointed that it’s still not that, but he’s definitely worth following…
  • Tony DaSilva @Bulldozer0 – always great stuff – we like Control Theory ;-)
  • Andrea Chiou @andreachiou – puppy person and GREAT agilist
  • Jim Benson @ourfounder – do I really need to introduce him? no…
  • Scott Amber @scottwambler – do I really need to introduce him? no…
  • Grady Booch @Grady_Booch – do I really need to introduce him? no…
  • Ron Jeffries @RonJeffries – Never really been able to figure out who this guy is ;-) …
  • Peter Vander Auwera @petervan – I call him “The Banker”. But I mean that in a positive way – many good tweets
  • Tom Graves @tetradian – strangely enough, I have never really “twalked” with him. Probably because we think quite closely on the issues he tweets about
  • Ben Wilcock @benbravo73 – a “SOA Thinker” – Never met, but I found out about him when I worked at Glue / Reply. Good tweets
  • Ruth Malan @ruthmalan – now that Tom Gall has forsaken his NeXT Avatar, Ruth now has the best One!- we’re pretty aligned…
  • Phil Nash @phil_nash – met @ XTC – does interesting stuff
  • Dave Snowden @snowded– do I really need to introduce him? no, yes? I’ve only recently “really discovered” him, and he makes so much sense!
  • Byron Conway @aricochet – Recoveering Scientist – tweets some very broad and amazing stuff
  • Dan Mezick @DanMezick – was introduced recently – the man behind #CultureCon2012 and hopefully the one also behind #CultureCon 2013 which will be in London!
  • John Wenger @JohnQShift – hmm… hard to describe – just follow him! :-)
  • Bernd Nurnberger @CoCreatr – recently found out about him via #CultureCon2012 and an all-round interesting guy
  • Paul Klipp @agileactivist – Heard of Kanbanery? he’s that, and a lot more, including the ACE Conference, which I’ll be going to next year
  • Chris Ford @ctford – Saw him at a London Clojurians meeting. Music, Clojure – what’s not to like about this guy?
  • Ari-Pekka Skarp @apskarp – A mysterious Finn. But then again, which Finn’s aren’t mysterious? ;-)
  • Dave O’Hara @David_A_Ohara – hey – I’ve worked with Dave and he’s brilliant – you’ll be lucky if he starts blogging one day about what he really does – apart from check in to locations and listen to music ;-)
  • Richard Veryard @richardveryard – met at BCS event, works for CBDI and has some interesting EA stuff to say
  • Mark Pesce @mpesce – do I really need to introduce him? no? yes? Apparently has some sort of Secret Project – I suppose we’ll find out about it some time…
  • Ross Dawson @rossdawson – futurist and maker of many cool diagrams…
  • Sleepy Fox @sleepyfox – met at XTC – again, interesting
  • Sit At The Table @SitAtTheTable – so go sit at the table with her! ;-)
  • Rasperry Pi @Raspberry_Pi – do I really need to introduce them? NO! Yes, they are the one and ONLY – follow them if you don’t already…
  • Marcus du Sautoy @MarcusduSautoy – do I really need to introduce him? Yes? OK, if you’re outside of the UK, this guy is a maths legend…

Finally, to repeat my BlogRoll, here’s some blogs you may want to follow (that are not already mentioned above) :

So does that mean I’m disconnecting myself from the world? Hell NO! I’ll be going to XTC’s when I can. Probably also London Clojurians if timing is OK, ACE next year and any other things that are bought to my attention…

Finally, so you want to contact me? The best bet is to LinkIn with me at http://www.linkedin.com/in/rwest. From there, we can work to email / phone / video … – whatever is necessary…

The Possibility of Persistence

Morphy Richards Toaster

This morning, when I was making my Toast, I meditated on the controls:

  • There is a ‘darkness’ dial that sets the amount to cook your toast
  • There is a bagel toasting setting, which reduces the intensity of the inside elements
  • Finally, there is an eject button, which terminates the whole process, yet enables re-initiation

I think we have a lot to learn from the humble toaster, namely:

  • Why darkness? Could we surely not calibrate according to the lightness of the toast we want? In today’s new world, the dominant paradigm must be reversed so that the dark is the light. This is a major paradigm shift!
  • Bagel Toasting – it’s really a bit like organisations. Although you want them relatively “well done” on the outside, you don’t want to burn them on the inside. If you do, you won’t be able to make a tasty Bagel – you’ll just get a burnt bun with some food in it. Hint – Google and Microsoft don’t like eating burnt bagels
  • Then there’s the eject button. How often we forget about this. In the new paradigm of hyperdynamic business, this is probably the most crucial control on your toaster. Unfortunately rarely utilised by old world business

To continue with the eject button, this gives us the capability to “inspect” our business in an #Agile manner. If you want to know what’s going on, eject your toast! Not well enough done (or non-light enough)? Simple, put it back in for more cooking.

That’s the benefit of having a toaster, a case study, a role model for what can be done. The fact that it’s been done before means that you can make your own toast! Totally customised by Lightness, Bagel and Ejecting.Salmon Bagel

And it also means that doing something that’s never been done before is even more valuable than you’d guess, because your peers and competitors probably never set the toaster controls the way you did!

With that, I’m off to have my Salmon Bagel…