Monthly Archives: June 2011

Can we afford such a cosseted society?

For the last 15 months or so, I’ve been taking my life in my hands on my daily commute to and from work. My chosen route takes me along a notorious stretch of road in the Hampshire countryside. Judging by what I seen with my own eyes, the warnings are justified. Firstly, if the regular collections of roadside flowers and ‘CRASH’ appeal signs are anything to go by, at least 5 people have lost their lives during the time I have been travelling this route.

Now, granted I don’t know the particular details of each fatality but I have seen how stupidly people can choose to drive and ride along this road. For ‘petrolheads’ and ‘speedfreaks’ it is what you would describe as an excellent ‘recreational’ road, with twisting corners, gradients and long sweeping sections.

Next time I am on a motorbike I am going to make a point of riding this road and I am well aware I will be doing so at my own risk. If I ride dangerously and ‘don’t’ think about what I’m doing I expect to do damage either to myself, the bike, another person or all of these. I expect to have to take responsibility for these actions.

What I don’t expect however is if I should kill myself through stupid actions that the local authorities will spend countless thousands on adding more warning signs, resurfacing the road in pretty colours, writing ‘slow’ on every corner and putting padding around telegraph poles. Continue reading →

The 'Gap' Delusion

Hold on to your seats, the rollercoaster is about to rocket skyward...definitely maybe?

The image above illustrates the current $14 Trillion debt pile being faced by the US administration. Some commentators are describing this as the biggest crisis in US history and given the influence the US has on the rest of the world, we can be sure the challenge and consequences will not be confined to within its shores alone.

To me, this chart could be seen equally as depicting the growth and reality checks resulting from the impact of the web and the world moving from a sporadically connected economy to one that is totally wired and always-on.

Hmmm – an interesting choice of words there I think… Continue reading →

Software vendor landscape is looking softer…

This is a literal and metaphorical observation based on some vibes that are filtering through.

In the literal sense it comes from a half year review of the landscape as seen by the Real Story Group and their excellent ‘subway’ map. I’ve always found this to be an insightful and interesting way to show the different strands of content technologies and how they interconnect and I have ‘borrowed’ this in the past for presentations about content management (like the one copied below for reference). So, comparing the 2011 map versus the 2010 map the most striking difference is that where once there were sharp angles and corners, the paths between vendors look much softer 🙂 Whether that is a subconcious statement that implementors may not need to make so many ‘sharp turns’ these days when negotiating the vendor map or the designer’s illustration skills have improved remains to be seen…

In a metaphorical sense, I am hearing about tougher times as multiple factors combine to ‘soften’ sales. This quote from an article I’ve read recently tends to reinforce those vibes… Continue reading →

Drupal 7 – a true 'multi-scenario' best fit?

Drupal Commerce in action (click for larger view)

Before I go offline for the summer months to enjoy the UK sun (yeah right 😉 ), here is a summary of my findings from spending the last 9 months immersed in Drupal – and particularly the new Drupal 7 offering.

Since becoming involved with web development in the mid 90’s and spending most of the last decade working on CMS orientated projects, I have become a great supporter of the Real Story Group and their excellent approach to CMS evaluation.

The terms ‘scenario‘ and ‘best fit‘ are synonymous with its analysis and I have always found its commentary insightful and bang on the money.

For my latest wave of professional and personal web projects, I have become drawn increasingly to the Drupal community and with the excellent support of a former colleague Simon at Holistic Drupal now have a range of commercial and social sites running on the platform – each of which has provided some different learning experiences. Continue reading →

iCar = Efficient + Intelligent + Fun

When I first started my current role in the automotive industry last year, I met with a bunch of publishers to understand more about the industry and how the media were covering it. Towards the top of the list was Future Publishing with titles like Fast Bikes, Fast Car and Redline and well known car mod events such as TRAX, JapFest and FordFair.

Fast forward 12 months and Future has just launched Issue One of iCar described as ‘The Definitive Guide to More Efficient Motoring’ and with a tagline of Efficient, Intelligent, Fun.

Now, there are posts on this blog that make it clear I like ‘fast’ and I like ‘fun’ however, having attended a few of these car mod events in the last year, I have to be brutally honest and say that the words ‘Efficient’ and ‘Intelligent’ would be pretty low down the list of adjectives I’d associate with them. Therefore, reading the manifesto of the iCar editorial team is like taking a breath of fresh (exhaust fume free) air… Continue reading →