It seemed appropriate for the first blog I've written for Nemisys that I should muse a little on how on earth I ended up here. I began my working life with a PhD in Biotechnology, a first degree in Ecology, long hair, a beard and, yes, sandals. I now work as the CEO of Nemisys a company that provide creative, brand and digital expertise. So how did that happen?
Well the truth of the matter is that I was a fairly crap academic. I loved presenting on research findings I just hated the finding bit. On the way I also discovered that generally speaking I can't bear jargon, I laugh in the face of acronyms - poke pomposity in the eye. It was this plain speaking and a willingness to interpret complex data that first took me into computing. I passed my Viva Voce (woops - jargon alert - though to be fair I blame the Romans for that one - a Viva is the interview you have to pass when you submit a PhD it literally means ‘with living voice’) in less than 30 minutes - with no corrections. That's the PhD equivalent of a 3 minute mile and a 1st class honours all rolled into one. But I'm not that clever, so what was my secret ingredient? Well I had a good mate - an ex Rhodesian Paratrooper - who was a computer wizard - as well as the hardest bloke I've ever met. He worked in the CIM Institute at Cranfield University - and has access to as much software and hardware as you could possibly imagine (in the days when it was really expensive). It was he who handed me a copy of SPSS (a stats programme) and said 'learn how to use this and no-one can touch you'. I took the 20 odd 5.25 inch floppies to my hard drive free PC and entered into the world of obfuscation (ok I don't like jargon but I do like fancy obscure words...).
The millions of data points I'd generated vainly trying to prove a connection between acid rain and forest decline were duly imported into SPSS and magical analyses took place spewing forth graph after graph, table after table.
Now ecologists (of which I was now one) are generally not great mathematicians, I however had an edge as I was pretty numerate. So I had the numbers and I had the machine to prove whatever hypothesis I choose to make. Bingo - I conquered complexity and confused all comers - you couldn’t ask a question if you couldn’t understand what I'd done! And so my love affair with computers was born.
Now back to the plain speaking. Because I can grasp most complex issues and explain them in simple language the web was hugely attractive to me. I found a medium that had a wonderful mix of the arcane, obscure and amazing. I started working on the web in the very early 1990s – I learned how to network my selection of crap computers together (we even linked our mini network to a dot matrix printer via the power cables of the building - not many people will remember that technology!) and I found my niche.
Walking away from academia (without so much as a backwards glance I may add) I was lucky enough to start working with 3 guys I still work with today - Bill Craddock - a design god, Andy Ayers - a programming genius who comes from a long line of distinguished engineers and John Rutherford Duffy a man who could market the crazy ideas we had to a burgeoning web audience. We've now worked together for nearly half our lives and had the most extraordinary journey from ideas that helped shape the web, to dotcoms, through Nemisys into ipadio. Amazing times that I cherish and look forward to continuing for the rest of my working life.
All I have ever brought to the party is a 100% commitment to deliver what I say, a creativity that keeps me awake at night (I'm not being pretentious - it's a ruddy curse) but above all I can understand a process and known what technology can do to make it better.
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