Hi there and welcome to my blog.

The aim for this blog is to collect my thoughts and experiences together so they can hopefully benefit other people.

My career has followed a strange path but I have always moved on to a role that has stretched me and made me think more.

I did my physics degree at the University of Durham before moving on to do my teacher training ( PGCE secondary mathematics) at Edge Hill. After discovering that crowd control teaching was not for me, I became a software engineer. At AMS Neve I developed embedded, Windows and Apple Mac systems in C, C++, Cocoa and OCCAM.

I then moved on to the role of IT Manager for Citrus Office Group. Coming in to over see the change of Prestige Office Supplies, Blackburn from StatCat to Bluesky Horizon, and then acquiring Sankey Office Supplies, Burnley a Heart Pulse system was to say the least a busy 3 months. Added to that, I had to setup a brand new Windows Server 2008 for the network, as well as a new hMailServer email server. Once, I had got to grips with the Horizon system I had Automate sending out sales and management reports, Robot collecting terms files, and the Marketing Module ready to e-mail the customer base.

My role then expanded to IT & Marketing Manager for Citrus Office Group. I had taken the time to learn Report Builder which enabled me to create reports that better targeted customers for the sales team. It also enabled me to create exports for Google Merchant Centre allowing for products to appear in Google Shopping search results. My main marketing achievements were presenting at the 2012 Scottish Business Exhibition in Glasgow and the successful Eziball Pen marketing campaign through Twitter (growing followers from around 200 to 4,500+).

After getting married, I worked as the Data Analyst for Trinity Academy, Thorne. This provided a great opportunity to explore educational data, calculating Progress 8 and Attainment 8 measures in Microsoft Excel and validating this against SISRA Analytics really highlighted the importance of having accurate Key Stage 2 data. It was also fascinating to see how the new Power add-ins for Excel (Power View, Power Query, Power Pivot) can quickly provide data dashboards.

If you think I can help you, or you want to find out more about my experiences please do get in touch.