Today marks the 25^th anniversary of the day I joined Leeds City Council.

I thought the occasion merited a few anecdotes.

Back in ‘87 there was no big signing on fee, no press photo call with me holding up a shirt with my name on it with my proud new manager. I just turned up with my packed lunch and certificates at the Department of Industry and Estates (to become Leeds Development Agency, then Development Department, then Planning & Development Department, now City Development Directorate, and next week.....).

I was greeted by a quiet young man from personnel, (to become support services, then Human Resources, now Organisational Development......) who did the admin bit (now aka induction). That young man is now assistant CEO. And not as quiet now either.

In these 25 years, I’ve had eight jobs;

Cartographic assistant

Planning technician

Graphic Designer

Senior Graphic Designer

Senior Communications Officer

Brand Manager

Communications Manager

Senior Communications Manager

I’ve loved them all, admittedly some more than others, and my current role is a tough gig; you can’t please all of the people all of the time, but rewarding too though. Over the years I’ve been retrained twice and had some fantastic managers and colleagues who have encouraged me to do the right thing, even if that meant upsetting apple carts along the way. And fruit has been spilled, but for the right reasons.

I recall a couple of years after I started, having to write an appeal report for a personnel and training panel to argue my and a colleague’s case to retrain/study to be graphic designers. We worked in the Planning Department, the only professional development opportunities were to progress to be planning assistants and then town planners and we weren’t having that! So we took the stance that planners needed help to explain to people what it is they ‘see’. We argued most people don’t ‘do’ maps and plans but visuals and displays could help in explaining the ‘vision’. Personnel were having none of it, “computer says no”; “it’s not on the list of training courses”. We suggested it should be, they disagreed, we challenged, it went to the top table for a decision – result! But the process had taken that long we had missed the start of the course and had to wait another year to enrol. I’m sure it was noted on my file; ‘awkward bugger that one' – perhaps it should have read ‘shows potential’.

If I’ve developed a bugbear about #localgov, it’s most definitely not been the people; it’s been some processes that don’t give the flexibility to make things happen – the empowerment to change the little stuff that would make a big difference without needing to go to three boards and get sign off in triplicate, four months after it was needed. Does my head in. I have to say though, Organisational Development, as a function has changed for the better in my time, as have many other things.

So there have been disagreements and raised words with colleagues; we are talking 25 years remember?

But there have been ace times too.

My best moment(s); getting our plain English campaign on BBC’s One Show; being invited to speak at a national conference on Brand Management in 2008; working with local colleges and universities to give students live briefs and in encouraging them to consider local government as a career. And in influencing people to not always take the safe option.

My proudest moment(s); helping to redesign the council logo and fighting (and it was a battle that we lost the first time but we regrouped and came back stronger) to get the powers that be to accept the design where we’d tinkered with the double ‘e’s in the word Leeds. When I see the logo on vans and buildings, I still think of our man from Del Monte moment when we got a ‘yes’. But mostly, last year when I was nominated by colleagues and won an award for being ‘open, honest and trusted’, one of our council values. That really meant something. And actually, 25 years is not a bad knock either. Yes, I will be getting a clock at this year’s awards. It’s not a mantelpiece job, but actually it is recognition and I’ll proudly accept it in September.

I’m now in a position to support colleagues in changing and improving how things are done and in their personal and professional development. I’m an enabler, when I started I was a doer. And obviously I still need to ‘do’, but have found I get more satisfaction from getting people to work together than I do from doing something myself. And over the 25 years, I’ve also become a storyteller, can you tell?

I’ve worked in some great buildings too, the Civic Hall with all its history and ceremony; Headrow Buildings, before it became the Light shopping complex, with its tiled walls and big wooden doors; the higher floors of one of our main office blocks which had a great view looking out over Leeds (not that we spent much time looking out of the window mind, just to bust that ‘council worker’ myth by the way) and not that it was a great building either, no opening windows, cold in winter, hot in summer! And at least 3 other locations.

My worst moment(s), there’s been the odd few; roundabout sponsorship springs to mind. What fun I didn’t have raising that one when I got back to the office. Definitely an apple cart moment. And the time when I’d been asked to do a shop use survey and note how many people used shops on a particular parade. We’d had a planning application for a change of use to a similar use to one of the existing shops. One of the shops was a post office. I’d been sat outside in my car all morning watching people coming and going and making notes. Then, sirens, blue lights, screeches of brakes, I get dragged out of my car, thrown across the bonnet* and accused of ‘casing up’ the post office. Didn’t enjoy that day much. I thanked my colleagues when I returned to the office. Those who said they’d made the ‘necessary arrangements’. (*Maybe thrown across the bonnet was a bit of an exaggeration).

Obviously, somewhere you spend the lion’s share of your day, week, year, decade, quarter century (ouch!) is going to play a significant part of shaping who you are. If you sliced me in half, I would probably have the council logo running through me like a piece of rock. In these days of social media, potential 24/7 open for business and changing working patterns, to split personal and professional lives is becoming more difficult; each influences the other, it has to and it’s becoming harder to switch one off and one on. That’s not a moan; but a statement of fact that needs careful management to give due care to family and employer and employee.

25 years on, the Letraset and drawing board has been swapped for a smart phone and laptop. I hot desk in various locations and work at home one day a week. Massive overall change, incrementally introduced.

What hasn’t changed is the golden thread of information. What do we have?; is it accurate?; what do people want?; what do they need?; how can we make it understandable to those who need it?....and, actually, can we make it available for others to make use of.....the open data thing.

I’ve always been proud to work where I do for the people of my home town. It’s been a good innings so far.

I’ve already used a blog title ‘Stuff I know nothing about’ so my fall back is a name the Quay brothers gave to an event in Leeds this weekend. It is part of the cultural Olympiad (?). Background, including video, is here.

And I’ll admit now, arts and culture is not my usual bag.

This two hour performance was repeated half a dozen times, over the three days, starting in a shopping arcade and moving through the streets of Leeds, culminating in what locals know as the dark arches. This is a place under Leeds railway station where the river Aire flows, giving an eerie atmosphere on the best of days. A performance route map was provided as there were many venues.

The event was live streamed, tweeted #owuw and #ow_uw (!) and images uploaded via various apps and tags. Even I (yes me, at an arts gig and now writing about it – who’d have thunk?) was commentating and tweeting images. And there lays the essence of this post - what to call what I watched. And there were many people in the same boat. I uploaded images, not wanting to 'describe' them, but sort of did using just one word. I was worried I might explain it wrong – Emporer’s new clothes and all that. Then the following conversation happened:

 “What are they doing dad?”

“Street dance” I responded

“Now what are they doing?”

“Acting”

“Whoa.... what’s that thing growing out of the street?”

“Sculpture”

“No really, what is it dad?”

“I don’t know; make it up, you decide”

“How can I make it up if it’s real?”

*Boom*.... and for me that said it all – what an innocent way of describing the dilemma – “you can’t make it up cos it’s real”

And that is where I realised we need to open our minds and be creative. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that. So those who like it; do, and those that don’t; don’t. And maybe we don't always need to understand to enjoy.

So I thought about my uploads – if that’s what I’m seeing, that’s what it means to me so that’s what it'll be called. I still mostly used one word titles though; Streetdance, All fall down, Ballet, Maidens, Cabaret, Domestic, Chalk, Underworld etc.

It’s fair to say there was great debate as to what other people thought. And perhaps that is exactly what it was about; interpretation. I heard one sceptic use a play on the title ‘Overproduced and Underwhelmed’ and I later read a tweet that said “more like Overcoats and Underpants”. There were a lot like me who watched without fully understanding but agreed that, while it was new to us and ‘different’, it was all the following; entertaining, wacky, weird, fantastic. The performers were really good and the costumes, makeup and locations/sets excellent.

Prior to the performance I had no preconceptions other than I knew I was intrigued and prepared to be open minded. But I knew it needed to be good as it clashed with the footy championship play-off final and with the Euro Cup Final. Perhaps that was the plan, maybe that is what a cultural Olympiad type event is - the arts alternative to the sport stuff, just a hunch – something for everyone, as it were.

All I know is it was entertaining. And it *did* and as I was discussing it with others whilst watching the footy then that is perhaps a guage as to how much I rated it.

So credit to whoever thunk it up and made it happen and especially credit to my youngest for that magic question;

“How can I make it up if it’s real?”

Last week @danslee blogged about Losing and connecting in a Cup Final. Well worth a read and big credit to Dan for writing from the heart. Posts that describe personal experience of the difficult things that life throws at us can be hard to write, even hard to read. They link writer with reader and I suppose that is what both writer and reader are after. I totally understand Dan’s use of the word ‘connecting’ and it has been so relevant for me this week too.

I lost my father-in-law at the end of January. Back then, I wasn’t sure if I should write about it. I sort of did suggesting that over time it would become ‘life leak’.

Total coincidence then that the day after I read Dan’s post, and on Cup Final day, our family made a trip down south to carry out his final wish. My father-in-law wanted his ashes buried with his parents.

The place he now rests is under a large yew tree where the birds sing, with a view of alms houses and the village pub where his family frequented over the years. A perfect little oasis of green in a large urban sprawl.

It was what he wanted and it was right.

On Saturday evening, following a small family service and get together, four of us returned to the graveyard. It was so peaceful, the sun had just come out. I walked round the graveyard with my father-in-law’s brother. He stopped walking.

“I’m on my own now” he said, welling up.

“Yes and no” I responded.

He smiled, forcing the tear in his eye to roll down his cheek. He knew what I meant; he has children, grand children and great grand children. But I knew what he meant too.

I’d never met him until that day, I may never again, but for that few minutes, we connected. And I'm hoping that we both took away something that will make a difference to our families. It will for me.

I like sayings that are used to explain or simplify complicated issues. Here’s an example from my literary toolbox:

'Knowledge' is knowing a tomato is a fruit. 'Experience' is not putting one in a fruit salad.

I’m also intrigued by the potential for ambiguity. It also really enfuriates me when I hear “it’s only comms, nobody’s gonna die”. [tsssk..slap!]

Being from Yorkshire (and I imagine there are equivalents in other counties too) there are words in our dialect (Tyke) that need changing when doing a pukka plain English job. [Here is a link to a translation guide].

The word ‘while’ in the Oxford English dictionary generally means ‘a period of time’, ‘during’ or ‘as long as’. However, locally it is also used as follows:

“I’m late, I’ll not be there while 9.15”.

It is generally understood to mean ‘until’. I use it that way too. But here is the thing; think of it in a different context. Imagine a level crossing sign with the following warning message:

“Do not cross while the flashing light is on”.

 How you interpret the sign may be the difference between living or not.

 Visitors to Yorkshire beware!

As a child I drew pictures of racing cars, houses, rockets, tanks, footballers and other sportsmen, typical boy stuff. I used to number them. My Thunderbirds and Ferraris never had single digits, they were mostly numbered 47. I wasn’t good at drawing curved numbers so I would use a ruler to make the two digits more realistic. A four and a seven sat well together and there had to be double figures as one wasn’t enough.

I used to play cricket with a golf swing which left a pretty big gap for the ball to pass between the bat and my legs. Not a good stance as I got used to hearing my wickets being demolished on a regular basis. But my highest score was 47 and I’m actually quite proud of it, although gutted afterwards that I didn’t manage 50, as it was against a team called Old Modernians who were supposed to be quite good. Not unexpectedly, I’m a better golfer than cricketer.

I now live in a house numbered 47. Total coincidence, honest! I’m not that obsessed! No really.

And last week I was 47 and it brought it all together. Birthdays always make me reflect. I’m contented. 47 seems to be an okay age. The digits sit well together, and unlike the cricket score, three less than 50 is fine! And as I said, I’m happy and mellowing nicely.

So the number 47 is probably my lucky number. Perhaps a total fluke that it has figured that much. But, next year I won’t be 47. If I ever move house, the chances of living at another 47 are remote to say the least. No really, really! There is a chance however that I will re don my cricket whites and knock up that half century, but more likely in my dreams and anyway it will be a hundred......and 47!

But the fact that I made the choice to select 47 as my number on my childhood drawings makes all the above pertinent, and looking back a good reason and actually sums me up nicely. I found a way round my weakness and produced something I was proud of.

Numbers do play a part in what I do professionally and generally. I’m always looking for facts and figures to pin things on. After reading Darren Caveney’s blog post ‘measure twice, cut once’ about the evaluation of his and Dan Slee’s Comms2point0 communications resource, I thought it sensible to look back at my purpose in setting up and maintaining this blog; which was to learn about blogging.

So my outcome of understanding why people blog has been achieved. People do it for various reasons – all good reasons for them and if people don’t want to read them they don’t have to.

Q. Can I measure my success and is it important? A. Yes and not really. Whilst not necessarily scientific, a first quarter return on my 16 posts shows 1744 views, and whilst I know they are not unique views as the comments tell me that people sometimes come back and read them again, a rough division sum would put the average at 109 views, which was well above 50 that I anticipated at the start. And that will do for me. My challenge - tag my content!

My favourite posts ‘My view and not those of my employer...really?’ and ‘life leak’ have had 432 and 435 views respectively and been the subject of wider debate – which is great. And the qualitative evaluation – well I enjoy doing it, and it seems people enjoy reading some of it, so box ticked!

This blog has been the place where I have actually realised that I am a storyteller. So thanks to all those who have commented and encouraged me. I owe you one for helping me to recognise it.

In Douglas Adams ‘Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy’ the meaning of life, the universe and everything was derived as the number 42!

I beg to differ.

..........so if you recall, I was in the initial project planning meeting for my organisation’s website and intranet replacements.

I’d just met a ‘Scrum Master’, by Jove! and had the Agile methodology speed dating equivalent and been tasked with cascading it to the world and his dog.

And I’d just suggested that the world and his dog might not need to understand it.........stony silence!

So that’s where my analogy toolbox came out to retrieve the situation otherwise the project team would probably think I might not be the man for the business engagement gig. Now this toolkit gets a lot of outings as I’m a story teller and sometimes, things need converting into real money for people to understand.

I picked out the one about the swan gracefully swimming across a lake. What you see above the water is the elegant movement, what goes on under the water, where the power is generated to produce the top side action, is not seen but no less important. I explained to the project team that sometimes you don’t always need to see or understand things to participate. We needed to engage people with the project rather than blowing their brains. And let’s face it, IT projects can often lead to ‘grey matter splatter’. Fact.

Introducing a new production methodology for probably the biggest project we have undertaken for a long while could have been construed as nuts. So big credit to our IT management team for running with it.

Admittedly it was a steep learning curve at first. Fail fast, fail hard, fail safe rather than fail last is the motto. It encourages doing the riskiest thing first, as the safe things that you know will work anyway usually end up being worthless. It does also highlight where there are ‘line of command’ breakages in an organisation. And actually it helps to fix them.

The Agile process requires ‘impediments’ (anything that stands in the way of the team's productivity) to be removed. This can literally be anything, from a broken keyboard to a business area not engaging with the project.

Those in the development team embraced the new approach and meet every morning at 9.30am for the scrum stand up meeting where they explain what they achieved yesterday, what they will attempt today and who they need to work with and what impediments the scrum master needs to take away and delegate to ‘be removed’. Fortnightly sprint and management planning and retrospective meetings keep things real.

And those of us in what I call the ‘support team’, (business change and engagement) have had to act as the transmission between the dev team and the business part of our organisation. Capturing requirements for build and testing various iterations and currently organising new content capture and identifying and training publishers.
My specific role was to get the rest of the business to plug in at the times it needed to. In effect, the feeding and caring for the ugly duckling before it could become the swan.

18 months down the road we have a few weeks left until launch. Squeaky bum time. It would be fair to say there is a smattering of organised panic, and there have been tears along the way. If we had started a swear box at the outset, it would have been filled many times and I would be a fair few quid down. But there is a lot to be proud of too. And for me, oddly it may seem this is not all about the product. That will be there for all to see and judge. It will be the foundation for further transactional services to be brought online. For me this has been about how we have done it. How we have broken down organisational barriers and worked together.

The project has started to get attention from other teams and managers in the organisation, looking at how Agile principles can be used in areas perhaps not technical or software related. And most importantly, I hope we are gaining the trust of people who perhaps in the past have not trusted in house project teams to deliver something worthwhile.

And I’ll admit I have been a bit tongue in cheek re terminology and I’ve pulled people’s legs and had mine pulled too and been called an awkward bugger and the one who is stopping people from doing their day jobs etc etc. Well actually this is now people’s day job, digital by default and all, so no apologies for pushing that message.

“.....’Scrum master’ yeah right, course you are pal, and I’m the ‘Story teller’ and this is not Ghostbusters4....... this is actually what I do” - point out where people might not ‘get it’ and translate in whatever way I can so that they do.

In my version of Agile PR, I’d be quite proud to be known as the ‘Story Teller’

When I was 11, my Fir Tree middle school report for ‘games’ (as we called it in those days) read “Philip is a well balanced athlete and a very agile cross country runner”. I’ve never forgotten that statement; not so much for what it said, but for what it didn’t say. It could have read “Philip demonstrates absolutely no interest in rugby and actually is a bit of a wimp when it comes to sports of a physical nature”. And that would have been fair.

I was the small kid. So when my games teacher recognised my nimble running attributes, he thought he could use them on the rugby pitch. So very wrong!

I had developed into a good cross country runner because I realised that the quicker I finished, the quicker I could get back in the changing rooms, have a hot shower, clean the mud off and get warm. Smart! And as the games teacher was stuck in the woods Sergeant Majoring the less well athletically endowed, then I was off his radar.

But unfortunately, we didn’t do cross country all the time – especially when your games teacher was Ian McGeechan.

So did I throw a potential sporting career and life of fame, fortune and cauliflower ears away? God, no. Did he miss realising a scouting opportunity for his future role as British Lions coach by not talent spotting a potential star ‘outside fly half hook scrum tight lock prop end thingy’? That would also be no.

He thought if he put me on ‘the wing’ (the glory position at the end of the line of players), that with my speed and agility I would be a guaranteed scorer of many tries. Great on paper but as the ball never made it along the line to me then not much use. And I just got cold and bored.

So he thought let’s put him in the scrum as hooker. Wrong again. The purpose of the hooker is to hang off the 2 tall guys (props) and when the ball is put into the scrum, drag it with your feet back towards your team.

My team never won a scrum with me as hooker. Far too rough in there for me. Big potential to get my legs kicked and muddy my socks. So I just hung on the 2 lanky kids and lifted my legs out of the way until the ball had gone, I could be put down and could tootle off to a part of the pitch that wasn’t muddy and where the ball was never going to find. Again, not the ideal attributes for a hooker, but I have a set of pins today to be proud of and the scrum was at least warmer than the wing.

Games teacher 0 Me 2...away win!   

And that is why I now so hate rugby union. Now if my games teacher had been Syd Hynes, then it might have been different. (Apols to those who are latitudinally challenged)

So what does all this have to do with the price of fish? Well, about 18 months ago I was invited to a meeting. A little project to replace my organisation’s intranet and website! There were circa 20 people sat round a conference table. We started with the introductions. We all stated our names and roles and then we got to someone who offered their name and then said “and I’m the scrum master”

“Course you are pal” I thought, “and I’m the Gate Keeper and this is Ghostbusters 4, now let’s crack on cos I’m a busy man”.

They went on – “Phil, what do you know about ‘Scrum’?”. I paused, wondering if I’d come into the wrong meeting, perhaps even passed through the Stargate on my way in.

Me! Scrum? - If only they knew.

Anyway – turned out ‘Scrum’ is a type of ‘Agile’ working approach that is now used in tech circles to help with technical build projects. (With that explanation I have probably dissed a whole working methodology – not intended, but actually it highlights a point and what my role with the project was/is).

The 'scrum master' is one of the key roles in managing the project. The process uses short ‘sprints’ of work that are tested and released and gradually build up to make the whole project. (The subject of Part 2, another post!).

They wanted me to explain this new Agile way of ‘scrums’ and ‘stand ups’ and ‘sprints’, 'product owners' and ‘retrospectives’ to ‘the business’

“And why would you want me to do that?” I asked, preparing my analogy toolkit* for another outing.

And that is how my role as business engagement lead on our web and intranet replacement project started. And boy, have we learnt a new trick or two. It has been brilliant to be part of the introduction of a new way of working. Part of a proper scrum - where my legs do touch the ground, even the ball and best of all, it's not muddy.  But that is for another time.........

.......*and one of gracefully swimming swans.

Last week I played away following a home fixture for #weeklyblogclub. I guest blogged for comms2point0. I wrote about my experience of flexible working and questioning the need to attend all the meetings you are invited to. It got me thinking – perhaps I do talk sense some of the time and definitely more as I get older.

Then I was part of a twitter convo with some good folk resulting in crowdsourcing a term “sociable enterprise”. You know, one of those partly facetious twitterings that evolve into something potentially bigger than anyone had planned  - sort of an unconference without the post it notes. Actually, I like those unplanned creative sessions which turn up a potentially good idea once in a while.

And then everyone goes away and thinks about it a bit more. Well these are my ‘a bit more thinkings’.

“What the hell were we just talking about?” I thought .......’sociable enterprise’ – what does that even mean?

My take; a ‘sociable enterprise’ is people getting together in a social (not work) atmosphere (real or virtual) and going with the flow. No preconceived outcome of achievement. No wasting time (well perhaps a bit by delaying stuff we should be doing, but that’s allowed). No letting people down if we don’t achieve anything as we're playing, right?. And we might even learn something from it...a bit of personal development.

I have a few examples of what I think sociable enterprise might be.

Example 1 Service Design Leeds’ SDDrinks SDThinks

This is a group of people who get together to look at how Service Design might play a part in delivering better outcomes. I’m not going to explain the specifics – see the link, have a read. And SDLeeds facilitated one of the UK Global Service Jams. It usually involves the pub and a good chat. There are probably similar groups where you live.

Example 2 #sugarfreetweets

This is a group of people who don’t particularly enjoy watching The Apprentice, so they ‘congregate’ on twitter on Wednesday evenings and see where the conversation takes them.

Example 3 #weeklyblogclub

A group of good folk who share and encourage each other to blog. One day they will meet up! Fact. And there will be cake. Lots of it.

I’m thinking there are a few others describing alternative meanings and looking at examples of sociable enterprises. Nudge, nudge @markbraggins

It would appear that the first parameter for a sociable enterprise is that it is enjoyable. And following the unconference rule of vote with your feet, people join in or not as they feel.

And taking this a step further, I’m now thinking that I do some things cos society dictates I should rather than me wanting to. I’m not a rebel or an anarchist but the idea of a sociable enterprise personal development approach, appeals to me more than my current plans, one of which costs me £200 a year, makes me read books I don’t always want to so I can earn development credits to stay affiliated. I see the point, was glad I did it but itperhaps there is an alternative to professional development.

So I will probably have a contribution to a cake fund for a sociable enterprise meet up. Any takers?

That would not be a chore.

There have been times in the past when I have watched the FA cup final on TV but turned the sound down so I could listen to the radio commentary via my sound system. It enhanced the experience.

Last Friday I watched Sport Relief on TV and happened to look at my Twitter time line. On TV there was some moving footage from Africa and Asia highlighting the plight of those enduring the consequences of natural disasters or daily living conditions that the western world would rightly consider not fit for humans to endure. There were some fantastic contributions by various celebrities (Frank Skinner, David Walliams, John Bishop to mention a few) and the general public, using sport as a catalyst, for fundraising opportunities.

Initially the supportive sentiment on Twitter ran in parallel with that of the images and contributions from sporting organisations and celebrities to help in the fundraising efforts to make a difference to the lives of the people similar to those in the video pieces.

But then some tweets and retweets introduced a different sentiment.

These tweets were suggesting that Sport Relief and the celebrities and presenters were perhaps also in it for themselves and that ’Sport’ [large sporting organisations, well paid sportsmen and women, sponsorship etc etc] was not doing enough for the rest of society.

From my understanding, and I’m happy to be corrected, the whole purpose of Sport Relief was to use sport as the catalyst to raise awareness of those less fortunate and to do something to raise a few quid to help out. I could not believe these comments were being tweeted.

I totally understand that people are entitled to their views. But some of these tweets really shocked me. So much so that I chose to unfollow people.

If I don’t like a TV programme, I turn over. If I have CD’s that I don’t like certain tracks, I skip them. I did not want to see those sort of comments in my time line.

That has been on my mind quite a lot this week.

I went to a conference a couple of weeks back – Leeds Health and Wellbeing conference. There was a reference which I can’t recall exactly but generally in Britain, for every positive comment there are eight negative ones. Quite a few delegates said they would take that away and consider in how they interacted.

So I did the same – glasshouses and stones etc etc. I took time to go back through my tweets and consider their potential impact - tone and positivity, use of humour or otherwise. Quite an eye opener – try it.

Fortunately, I’m generally comfortable and confident with how and when I use my words, but then my job is communications so I have benefitted from seeing the good and the bad....and appreciate the true meaning of ambiguous and that perception can be reality. And I could have worded some things differently or better and there was the odd sarcastic comment in there too. But definitely as I have got older and wiser I have learnt to bite my tongue and not press ‘send’ even if I have typed the words.

This week one of my colleagues @gwilce wrote our work team blog. He started with a story about how his Gran had received some bad customer service. So bad that he and his family encouraged her to complain (or more appropriately – explain what had happened), even though she thought she would get someone into trouble. The experience further reinforced to him the dilemma for organisations when shaping service provision. Public meetings, consultation exercises, the letters pages of the local paper, radio phone-ins and twitter feeds can often be dominated by the bold, the vocal and the brash.

He rightly pointed out that we need to make sure that we’re making an extra effort to hear the voice of the timid, the polite, and the altogether reasonable people who don’t want to cause a fuss but have a valid point to make and whose collective views may be considerable but not generally heard.

Following Sport Relief, my conference visit and reading my colleague’s blog, I have edited my Twitter settings, creating lists so I can keep track of the noisy people whose one positive comment out of eight is sometimes a gem – that valid, well made point sometimes hidden in a sea of cynical sarcasm. I now have lists for sporty people, Leeds people, PR people, cake eaters, bloggers etc etc. Some people on my lists are also in my time line too.

So I have the best of both worlds........that which I choose to see and that which I don’t, but can.

Out of sight but not out of mind.

Last week I did stuff that mattered to me and my family. Mother’s Day and my eldest son’s 18^th birthday were the important things. Cakes got massacred! I didn’t have time to write a blog post, it didn’t worry me. I even did fewer hours than normal at work for a change and for once that didn’t worry me either. Today I took a day off to play golf with my Dad.

And next week is my youngest son’s 16^th birthday. At the end of May I will have spent 25 years working with Leeds City Council. Later this year both me and my sister have 20^th wedding anniversaries. Read it back! Separate weddings!... to our other halves. My other half also has a significant birthday this year and big son will be going to Uni.

For our household there is a lot going on. Cakes whose ingredients have not even been manufactured yet will succumb.

And this year we have the Olympics and Euro footy finals and Diamond Jubilee and Ryder Cup. These are all pretty big events which also just happened to fall in the same year.

But I have decided our family events will not ‘just happen’. They are all more than significant and I’m really proud of the achievement that these milestones, represented by ‘significant numbers’ represent. We will take time to celebrate and reflect on what they mean. My family and friends mean loads to me, and this year will be a year to remember for the right reasons.

I had no plans for what this blog post would be about. I just sat down and started writing. I haven’t yet got a title in mind.

What I have learnt about starting to blog is that it focuses my thinking. I’ve learnt this year that we can spend too much time on trivia, going through the motions, weekly grind, big projects at work, too many meetings for meetings sake etc etc to actually appreciate the special things and people in life.

And actually it seems to me that life can be so nose to tail that we sometimes need to come up for air. For ourselves and for others.

So I will be making time to celebrate all the above events and look out for next year’s too. And at work, if people can’t give me a good reason why they want me to attend a meeting then don’t be offended if I decline. Perhaps a bit radical but that's where I am.

Generally we are not actually good (that could have been one word!) at acknowledging achievement and promoting success. So here’s to all those people who have achieved something this year – personally or professionally. Good on you – take time to celebrate.