The Blog...

2023 has been such a blur from a business perspective, so much so that it took a 6 hour hostage situation with my business partner, chained to a lot of cheese, which was the deal breaker as usually you can't get 15 minutes with him, to come out with any sense.

Calling it growing pains is to soften the real impact it has had on people. However, it is the biggest opportunity that we have been faced with over the past 20+ years.

In building this Collaboration Nerve Centre over at the Dorset Innovation Park, it will mark, or hopefully mark our final milestone on our business journey in seeing it through to fruition and sustainability.

2023 has been the bulk of the preparation and 2024 should see the initial electrical impulses to bring it to life. I do live near Mary Shelley's theatre hence why that analogy has dropped.

All those things that I have been talking about for a while, if you ever follow my LinkedIn profile or Twitter posts, the job creation, the local community angle, taking Digital to new opportunities, businesses and entrepreneurs pivoting or seizing new sectors, and how for us as a business we have travelled the Digital -> Data -> Defence path. The D3 of D3IP (D3 Innovation Park).

I thing I need to do a lot more in 2024 is reading. Am so good at buying the book but not so good at opening them up, There is a Japanese word for that - Tsundoku.

Thank you to BBC South Today for featuring my blood pressure monitor campaign on TV.

Blood Pressure Reading

This is an Excel spreadsheet to help you track and see an average of your blood pressure readings. If you get a high reading at the GP surgery, they will normally ask you go away and take a set of readings at home. Sometimes they give you a piece of paper for you to manually write in your readings and then work out the average. The spreadsheet is to make it easier to show your average readings.

Download Blood Pressure Tracker (.xlsx)

I was interviewed for BBC South TV new programme about my campaign to raise awareness on high blood pressure, especially for business owners and to encourage them to buy one for themselves and to give one or two away to their fellow peers.

All to often we worry about the business, the staff and then end up forgetting to check on ourselves. This campaign was to raise awareness on how the so-called silent killer can creep up on us and increase our risk of stroke, heart attacks and heart disease. High blood pressure or hypertension can be easily treated with medication and lifestyle changes.

Something that costs around £20 can show us clearly that we need to see the GP.

I am hearing too many stories of friends and their friends having strokes now.

I posted multiple parts to Facebook in the run up to our 25th wedding anniversary in 2022 and thought it was time to save it onto my blog.

Intro:

I won Angela Hang Fong’s heart in the summer of 1987.
 
On first sight, across a pub called the Ivy House, she told her friend she was going to marry me when she started her nurse training up in Sunderland. We wrote to each other whilst at Birmingham Uni and met back up again after my return.
 
Her friend came back from travelling the world and ended up in Bournemouth Hospital too, not knowing we were here. She looked down at Angela’s name badge and said, you bloody did marry him!
 
35 years since we met and 25th wedding anniversary this year. See you on the beach in on Friday August 26th for a picnic and fireworks .

She said it was always meant to be and kept that candle burning until we finally did hook up. Always her number 1.
 
I know she has loved me from day 1, and even from day -1, but that’s another story.