One of the great joys of working as a consultant for Eclectic / Maxima is helping them to grow using the technology and skills that we provide. Sometimes it is the simpler things like basic processes.
One particular customer when we first engaged with them had a poor history of doing change control and impact analysis. I’m pleased to say that they are much better now that they used to be, however I did have a big grin when I read the following e-mail:
I think we’ve come full circle as the only change we’re making here is to reverse the latest change we made.
The smile was not so much on the content of the e-mail; but the fact that the impact of the change had been analysed and the specification of the change had been attached to the e-mail.
I recently was fortunate enough to be doing some work for Arqiva on a day that they were doing maintenance up the tower and I got the chance to tag along.
The Emley Moor tower at 330 meters is the UK’s tallest free standing structure. On the inside is a ladder running all the way to the top with 865 rungs, I counted them all on the way up (kidding !) The lift takes just over seven minutes to get to the top.
The viewing deck is 275.3 meters up, the foundations are 6.1 meters deep. 7,000 cubic meters of concrete were used and the structure weighs 11,200 tonnes.
As you may have read in a previous post here the company I work for was sold by Glen Group to Maxima at the beginning of the year.
As I had shares in Eclectic, these were transferred into Glen Group shares. Unfortunately, as the purchase was a cash deal, I did not get Maxima shares but am left with Glen shares. As such I still get copies of the annual financial statement. Imagine my surprise to read on the front page.
Eclectic was the biggest company in the group and sat at the heart of the business in terms of turnover and profit. However, Eclectic performed below expectations, particularly in the second half, and when the opportuity arose we elected to dispose of Eclectic and inGroup and completed the sale in early January 2008.
I rarely “surf” to random sites any more, any site that wants my attention must have an RSS feed that I can put into Google Reader.
Fact
I am intrigued by the social networking sites, a few are listed here. LinkedIn is one that I can see the point of.
LinkedIn have recently introduced an RSS feed for my network updates, so it ticks both boxes. What’s the downside? I’m not sure what it is. It could be that LinkedIn is a work/professional focussed network rather than personal. It could be the immediacy of the updates from my colleagues. It’s strange but I feel crossed between a stalker and a voyeur in a way that I just don’t get from feeds from other sites.
I am often asked by my colleagues to explain dimensional modelling concepts to them. I will try to capture come on the concepts here. I am going to focus on Facts.
Specifically, types of facts: Accumulating, Factless, Transactions, Snapshots, Additive, SemiAdditive and Non Additive
If you send it a direct message with part of the name of someone who works at Eclectic it will send you their contact details as a return direct message.
The API is very straight forward, only my lack of bash skills slowed me down.
As I mentioned previously my company has been bought over. One of the immediate changes is that we are now responsible for booking our own travel and accomodation, rather than it being done centrally. Whilst this is a pain if you are busy, you can turn this to your own advantage.
This week i have “earned” £52.46 for doing my job !
