A Quick Update

Hello everyone!  People have been droping me notes asking for an update on life.  Instead of sending boilerplated email messages, I thought I would put up a quick blog post.

Busy is an understatement.  I am full on with my dissertation (thesis in US terms).  The topic of my dissertation is decision making in the public policy context.  I am working with Dorset County Council (a lovely place on the south coast of England) to develop a decision matrix and over come barriers to good decisions for their rights-of-way issues.  England has a law called Countryside Access Act 2000 which grants people the right to cross private property on defined rights-of-ways.  However, Dorset County does not have a methodology for making decisions and I will help them with that problem.  My previous topic was abandoned because it was not academic enough but made for great business problems.

Work is going well for me.  I am starting a new project in Manchester England for the Highways Agency which is a large national body that governs all of the highways.  I will be doing project management and cost benefit analysis modelling for the traffic officer service which is a £220 million programme.  We have to find a way to expand the programme by 100% with only a 5% increase in spending.  It is a fascinating change management problem.  Work will have me in Manchester on a weekly basis as well as visiting the seven regional offices through out the country.  Additionally, I will manage a £500,000 project for Dorset County which involves helping them develop business processes and data models to handle all of the management and improvement of their drainage assets.  As you can image, there are billions of pounds worth of public assets buried under the ground in the form of sewage and drainage pipes which require maintenace.  The problem Dorset faces is that the infrastructure is so old that they do not know what assets they have.  I will be helping manage a team that must determine the basic question of “how do we identify what we do not know and then locate it?”  It will be a challenge to say the least.

I have an offer to go full-time in January with Happold.  I think I will accept their offer as we have a good life in Bristol and we would like to remain in this corner of the world.  I do not want to move up to the Bains, McKinseys, or other consultants based out of London.  I would be away from Tera and Anoush 5.5 days a week.  Of course, I would be paid well, but frankly, money is not my driving motivator in life.

On top of being a working stiff and spending my free time communing with decision theory, I have been approached to start a business.  Last spring, I did a bunch of work for the University of the West of England’s Robotics Programme.  The university has one of the biggest research labs in Europe and they generate stacks of ideas.  However, we find that good research scientists make awful businessmen.  I have been asked to join a partnership (business plan currently in development) that will be an ideas factory comprised of a few of these research scientists.  We will take research, commercialise it, get it to a prototype phase and then market it.  With my computer background, I can lend a hand with the technology although writing machine code (aka computer programming for devices) on embedded microprocessors does not get me excited but taking the product to market does.  This would be a long term project which I would do on top of working.  The hope is that in five years the business would be well known and people would solicit our help to solve problems with technology.  The whole idea is making dumb things smart in a cheap and efficient manner.  Who knows long term if the business will develop legs but I know that I must start a business to achieve future success and flexibility.

I am quite “Jason focused” at the moment as Tera and Anoush are back in Clymer (of course you know that by reading the following post).  I am really happy that they both have a prolonged period of time to be home.  Ideally, we would live in WNY and maybe my future business eventually allows us the flexibility to have a home in Clymer.  However, for now, we’ll have to settle for long stretches of time like this were Tera and Anoush can be back.

The next two months will be crazy as I finish up my dissertation.  I am excited to take a quick trip home for Christmas.  Lots of changes will happen in the next 90 days.  Here’s to hoping they all fall into place …

A Trip Home

On October 1, Anoush and I traveled from Bristol to my hometown to spend a few months with family. We’ve had a wonderful time full of great experiences including: Katrien’s second birthday party, Aunt Connie’s wedding, Aunt Wendy’s induction ceremony, a visit to see Great Grandpa Sellers, home football games, raking leaves, Halloween, and just spending evenings with cousins, aunts and grandparents. Anoush has quickly adjusted to being in a household full of hustle and bustle and now seems to enjoy being in the middle of it all.

I’ve been substitute teaching a few days a week and have enjoyed teaching not only elementary, middle and high school classes but also gym! Anoush enjoys her days with Aunt Kim and her cousins, Katrien and Kiera.

There are two sets of pictures, and more to come (I need to get more from my sister’s camera and will put those up soon to include our trip to see Grandpa Sellers). Just click on the photos tab at the top of this page and open the top two galleries to view the pictures.

Keep your eyes out for more to come.