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(21)Randomly selected client quote
This is a very very nice site. I think you should be proud of it.
Mike Smuts, M P Retail, 30 Mar 2004
In summer 2003 I gained a first class honours degree in Internet Computing at the Scarborough Centre for Internet Computing, part of the University of Hull in the north east of the UK ("CIC produces the best undergraduates (for placements) in the entire country", Sun Microsystems).
Ever since then, actually even during then, I've been doing what you see here.
Rather than just list my skills, I thought I'd provide more information by making a pop chart showing the skills I've been using in the last twelve months ranked according to how much time I've spent doing them. I think that gives you more information than a simple list. Workload permitting, I plan to update it each quarter, this was calculated on the 30 November 2005 for 1 September 2005 - 30 November 2005 and I've commented on it in my blog.
| John Allsopp's top 30 technical skills | ||
|---|---|---|
1 | Networking | (3) |
2 | Linux | (29) |
3 | HTML | (1) |
4 | Graphic design | |
5 | PHP | (2) |
6 | Procurement | (12) |
7= | Writing | (5) |
7= | Hardware | (15) |
9 | Search Engine Optimisation | |
10 | Systems analysis, engineering and design | (7) |
11 | Support | (-) |
12 | Formulation (defining project requirements) | (10) |
13 | Project Management | (16) |
14= | Marketing | (17) |
14= | Video | (-) |
16 | Software installation | (-) |
17 | Research | (-) |
18= | Photography | (-) |
18= | Mac support | (-) |
20 | Databases | |
21 | Data analysis | (-) |
22 | Sound synthesis | (-) |
23= | Domain names and DNS | (25) |
23= | Link management | (-) |
25= | Domain names and DNS | (28) |
25= | Security | (-) |
27 | Javascript | (13) |
28= | Testing | (29) |
28= | Spanish | (21) |
Between about 1992 and 2002 I ran a marketing consultancy company. I looked after the clients, and managed the company which at one point had seventeen staff with all that entails. I implemented Investors in People, and we all did a lot of training. I believe I have an empathic style and offer a powerful mixture of proven technical ability, marketing know-how, and life and business experience.
According to Belbin's team roles I'm mostly a plant (21 points), which means I'm a serious minded and unorthodox innovator, highly creative, and very useful as an ideas person and problem solver. The downside is supposed to be communications and while yes I'm not the life and soul of the party, I'm sure I do communicate effectively .. after all, that was my primary business during the marketing years. My next role is co-ordinator/chair (11), calm, self confident and controlled with the motto "consultation with control". With 9 points each come both resource investigator (extroverted, enthusiastic, curious, communicative) and implementer (well organised, enjoy routine, have practical common sense and self discipline). What I'm not good at, according to Belbin, are the roles team worker (7) (socially oriented, rather mild and sensitive), completer finisher (6) (painstaking, orderly, conscientious, anxious), shaper (4) (highly strung, outgoing, dynamic), and my worst score went to monitor evaluator (3) (sober, unemotional, prudent). I've used Belbin's team roles before to great effect so I'm quite a fan.
Being a systems kinda guy, I have a system for everything (yup, everything), not least, my bookshelves. There are four bookshelves in my office arranged into a primary, secondary and tertiary cache and long term storage.
The primary cache holds books I'm working with right now, either ones I retrieved from the other caches or long term storage, or new books. When I retrieve a book for use (from any cache), I put it back on the left hand side of the shelf. When the shelf is full, I remove books from the right hand side and place them in the secondary cache. So, my primary cache holds the most important books for me right at this moment.
You wanna know what's in the primary cache now don't you :-) OK, here goes. Informally .. I don't think I can be bothered to link them, or to properly reference them, you'll have to do that yourself :-) OK, here goes, from left to right, on the 30 November 2005:
So now you know.