Gap year benefits: why a gap year might be the best decision you ever make

Posted on By Mark Wilson

It’s that time of year again. In the UK, A-Level results arrive this week, GCSEs next. Traditional and social media will be full of articles about “what to do if you didn’t make the grade”.

I won’t be writing one of those.

Yes, I messed up my A-Levels. I scraped into my chosen polytechnic, graduated from university with honours, and built a reasonably successful career. But that was over 30 years ago. I’m also male and white, and that privilege has opened doors that might not have opened for others. My experience isn’t a template.

What I do want to write about is the magic of a gap year.

After 14 years of education, maybe you need a break before doing more. Maybe you want time before resits or reapplying to different universities. Maybe university isn’t for you at all. Or maybe you just want to live a bit before deciding what’s next.

Gap years are amazing.

Challenging the “gap year = unemployed” mindset

Some people will tell you a gap year is “just another name for being unemployed”. I think they’re wrong.

A gap year can be a year of growth, challenge, adventure, and learning about yourself in ways that a classroom can’t teach.

Two gap years, two very different stories

As a parent to two adult children, I’ve seen this first-hand.

My eldest son, now 20, took not one but two gap years.

The first followed his passion for cycling. He worked as a holiday rep leading cycling tours, returned to the UK to work in a warehouse, and tested whether he could make it as a professional cyclist. The racing results don’t matter — he’s great, but greatness isn’t the same as being exceptional. What mattered was what he learned along the way:

  • How to train 16 hours a week alongside a full-time job.
  • How to plan every meal and every drink to fuel performance.
  • How to deal with disappointment when a promised training arrangement fell through.
  • How to adapt in a foreign country, find a house share with a professional cyclist (thanks Sophie), and live his best life until returning to race in the UK.

His second gap year was more “traditional” — travel to a variety of European destinations, a few weeks volunteering for a charity in India, more warehouse work (he needed to fund it all), and more racing but this time without the professional ambitions.

There were challenges too. An internship had led to the promise of a job, but that never materialised. Undeterred, he followed up and found a new opportunity with the same firm — only for that to go quiet as well, this time because of an administrative error that meant no contract was ever issued. By then he was applying elsewhere. And it was the self-confidence built over two gap years, outside formal education, and without relying solely on his parents for guidance and support, that made him shine as a candidate in his assessment centre for the role. That confidence also helped him be certain the degree apprenticeship was the right route for him — so much so that he let go of his deferred place at The University of Sheffield.

Looking ahead

My youngest son is 18. He’ll get his A-Level results on Thursday and we have fingers (and toes) crossed that he gets the grades for his place at Exeter University. But before that, there are travel dreams to chase — which will also be funded by casual work.

Oktoberfest is already in the calendar (inspired by our Interrailing trip together last year). Applications are in for a ski season. There are plans for a few months in South East Asia. He’s seen his brother’s adventures and has role models in his parents and maternal uncle, who all travelled extensively before him.

When I first travelled, I had no idea what I was doing — I was the first in my family to go to university, the first to go Interrailing, and the first to fly around the world (that wasn’t on a gap year — I took time out after a few years in the workplace — and, by then, my career direction was set and it would have been very difficult to change).

The takeaway

Of course, not everyone will have the opportunities that my sons have. I wrote of my privilege, and my sons benefit from this too — perhaps even more so. They have both had part-time jobs alongside their school work, played sports, and taken part in many other extra-curricular activities that expanded their horizons. And my wife and I will continue to do everything we can to support them, just as we always have.

But here’s my message: think about a gap year.

It might not be for you — and that’s fine. It might be harder to make it a reality — but I urge you to consider it, if you can possibly find a way, because it might open your eyes to a world of opportunity. At the very least, it could give you the kind of stories, skills, and confidence that make you stand out from the crowd, spark curiosity in future employers, and set you on a path you might never have found otherwise.

And that’s why a “gap year” is certainly not a euphemism for being unemployed whilst living with your parents.

Featured image: created by ChatGPT

Andalucía remembered

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Two decades on, we came once more,
To southern Spain, and sun-kissed shores.
Nerja welcomed with skies so wide,
Where sea and mountain gently collide.

From terrace high, the blue expanse,
Each morning caught us in a trance.
Fresh coffee, then to the beach we’d roam,
Before the heat would drive us home.

Villages basked in golden light,
The sea turned silver come the night.
Warmth on skin, cool drinks in hand,
We let the days unfold unplanned.

Laughter echoed, glasses clinked,
We paused, we smiled, we stopped to think.
Days defined by time and place —
Sun and family, gentle pace.

One final day in Málaga’s hum,
Before the holiday was done.
Now back to clouds and colder climes,
But held inside, those warmer times.

(A collaboration between me, and ChatGPT… showing why I should stick to tech and leave the poetry to poets…)

Featured image: author’s own.

Is this really progress? The downsides of the app economy

Posted on By Mark Wilson

A simple plan goes sideways

I should have just phoned the local taxi company.

But no. I listened to my son — who, to be fair, meant well — and took a modern, app-based approach. “Use Bolt,” he said. “It’s just like Uber. I use it all the time.” And that, it turns out, was the problem.

We’re on holiday in Andalucía, trying to get to a nearby village for dinner. I booked the ride through Bolt, selecting a pickup slot between 17:00 and 17:10. The app stressed the importance of punctuality: we had to be outside on time, or the driver might only wait five minutes before cancelling. Fair enough. So at 16:57 we were all standing by the road, ready to go.

By 17:10, nothing had happened.

Then the app admitted defeat. “No drivers available.” Ride cancelled. “WTF? I booked that hours ago”, thought I.

Platform to nowhere

OK, so Bolt has no drivers and our evening plans are in disarray. So I tried Uber. First, it quotes a price. Then it suggests paying extra to “increase the chance of getting a ride”. You know, because surge pricing and nudging people into premium options is apparently what counts as innovation now. Unsurprisingly, that didn’t work either. After taking my money and several minutes of repeatedly trying to get a driver to take the ride, feasting on my iPhone battery and drinking my mobile data allowance, it finally gave up on the cutesey “sorry about the wait” and admitted that there we no drivers available.

So here we are. No car. No ride. No confidence that we’d even get back if we somehow found our own way there.

I did everything right. I booked in advance. I turned up early. I trusted the system.

And the system is broken.

The slow death of a good idea

This is the very definition of enshittification — the gradual degradation of a service as it prioritises growth, then revenue, then cost-cutting. What starts out as a great user experience slowly turns to dust as the platform corners the market and lets quality slide. First they undercut local businesses, drawing customers in. Then they ration supply, push up prices, and shrug when things go wrong.

Talking with my son about his experience back home, and it seems the traditional minicab firms are fewer and fussier — because they’ve been undercut too. Just like high street shops were when Amazon trained us to expect fast, cheap delivery with no human interaction. And what happens when the competition’s gone? Well, you can guess what happens to the prices and service levels.

App-based everything

It’s not just transport or retail. It’s food delivery, hotel bookings, eBooks, music, even how we consume the news. Everything’s an app. Everything’s global. Everything’s slick — until it isn’t.

And I’m clearly not alone in thinking this. I recently reshared a post on LinkedIn that echoed a lot of my frustrations. From self-checkouts to smart homes, booking travel to banking queries, we’ve been sold the idea that technology makes everything easier. But the pattern seems to be this: companies use technology to reduce their own costs — while shifting the work onto us.

We scan our own groceries. We manage our own bookings. We dig through online portals to find PDFs that digitise our paper records. We chat to bots that often can’t help, and fill in digital forms just to get the most basic of services.

Grumpy Old Man

So yes, I may joke about my Grumpy Old Man Syndrome, but the underlying point stands: just because we can do something digitally, doesn’t mean we should. Especially when the “innovation” really just amounts to taking humans out of the loop and putting consumers to work.

Of course, some people prefer the new ways. Not everyone wants to chat with a travel agent or ring up a cab office. For many, the ability to access data and services 24/7 is empowering.

Progress means keeping options open

But what matters most — and what so often gets forgotten — is that there should still be a choice. Because if everything goes digital with no fallback, we risk excluding those who can’t (or don’t want to) play the app economy game.

Maybe I am just an old man yelling at the cloud (service). But the app-based, gig-driven, digitally transformed economy isn’t always a step forwards. The frictionless experience often hides a lot of pain behind the scenes — for drivers, small businesses, and occasionally, for frustrated tourists standing by a road in southern Europe, hoping the app will work this time.

The world is increasingly run by tech bros in California. And we’re all a little poorer — culturally and economically — for it.

Featured image: created by ChatGPT

Post Script

[14/7/25] Yesterday morning, I walked to the local tourist office. I know, really old school! There, I spoke to a really helpful lady, who advised me on local buses and taxis. We called a central number for taxis in the town — no advanced bookings can be made but the first off the rank came to collect us. And we had our evening in the next village. It was lovely.

Everything is connected

Posted on By Mark Wilson

“Blue Screens of Death” on public displays amuse me. There’s something oddly entertaining about a railway station departure board throwing a Windows fit or a high street advertising screen stuck waiting for a DHCP lease. It’s the digital equivalent of seeing behind the curtain — a reminder that there’s a PC in there somewhere, doing its best to run the show.

And that’s the thing, isn’t it? It is just a PC. These days, so many of the things we take for granted — the TV, the fridge, the car — are just another node on the network.

Take my car, for instance. I recently renewed the subscription for its connected services. For a modest fee, I can check if it’s locked, see its mileage, locate it on a map, get a journey history for my expense report, and browse a whole range of data that used to stay hidden behind a service technician’s diagnostic port. And it’s not just a luxury add-on — since 2018, EU regulations have required all new cars to include built-in connectivity for emergency calls (eCall), so the hardware is there whether I subscribe or not.

Later in the day, I stood at the station as a train rolled in. Its destination display had gone wrong and cycled through what looked like debug information — including an internal IP address and MAC address. Those probably belonged to the signage system, but I’d bet good money the whole train runs a local network, linking everything from passenger information to onboard diagnostics, and connecting it all back to control centres via mobile data or trackside Wi-Fi.

It made me think: everything really is connected now. Not in the “1990s vision of the Internet of Things” kind of way — more in a quietly omnipresent, of course it’s online sort of way. If it’s powered, it’s probably got a network interface. And if it’s got a network interface, it’s probably talking to something.

There’s real value in that — better data, faster diagnostics, new services, and a smoother user experience. But it comes with risk too: more complexity, more places where things can go wrong, and a bigger attack surface. When my coffee machine has its own app and occasionally needs a reboot, I know we’ve crossed a line.

The future is here. It’s connected. And every now and then, it forgets its IP address.

Featured image: created by ChatGPT

A two week trip around Europe by train #MarkAndBensExcellentAdventure

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 1 year old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

My June/July 2024 retrospective was written as I was preparing to head off for a couple of weeks’ travelling with my youngest son, Ben. Well, after a few weeks back at work and with August’s roundup on the horizon, I thought I’d look back over what we got up to on #MarkAndBensExcellentAdventure.

A few words about Interrail/Eurail

Ben and I travelled by train, using a ticket called an Interrail pass. Interrail has been around for years and works across 33 countries. It’s also known as Eurail. Confusingly, European residents use Interrail and international visitors use Eurail. I know. It’s counter-intuitive. I just had to get over it, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference in practice. Oh yes, and “European” is defined by geography, not politics (so the UK is still European).

There are various passes available – either global (which is European, not global!) or single country passes. Passes can be valid for a block of time, or for a certain number of days over a period. I spent €833 on two 15-day second class global passes (one youth, one adult). For reference, one train journey in the UK can cost hundreds of pounds, so that seems very good value. The passes can’t be used in your home country, except for one outbound and one inbound journey. For us that was a CIV journey on any UK operator from Bedford to St Pancras International and onwards by Eurostar to Amsterdam, and the return back from Lille to St Pancras International and on to Bedford.

When I first “interrailed”, in the early 1990s, you couldn’t use Interrail on high speed rail services (e.g. TGV). Now you can, but you’ll pay a supplement for a seat reservation. Interrail reservation space on some trains is limited (so book ahead). Interrail/Eurail will sell you the reservation, for a premium, or you can buy it from the in-country train operator.

Professional me was interested in the “digital transformation” of Interrail since I last used the scheme. Basically, instead of a dog-eared piece of paper with journeys filled in by hand, it now uses an app. The app is pretty cool actually and shows where you are going/have been (in map or list form) as well as helping to plan and activate journeys on your “pass”.

There is a paper option, I think, but I didn’t use that. I also needed to download separate apps for various cities’ public transportation services. Normally they have a day pass that can save money but it varies from city to city.

One final point, in some places, an Interrail pass will provide other discounts. For example, in Interlaken, our travel on the BLS ferries was included if we added it as a rail trip, and the funicular to Harder Kulm was half price. Other discounts can be seen in the Interrail/Eurail app.

The trip

Here we go, day by day, with a brief summary of what we got up to. It’s in bullets, because if I write it in prose you’ll never read it all!

Day 1

  • Not the best start: East Midlands Railway train from Bedford cancelled; jumped on a Thameslink service, which was delayed at Luton because the relief driver was delayed (presumably stuck on the cancelled EMR train); then switched trains again and made it to St Pancras International in time.
  • Huge queues for the Eurostar but well-managed and we made it through security, and were the first passengers onto the platform (thanks to Real Time Trains telling us which door to wait close to).
  • Comfortable, but delayed journey to Amsterdam.
  • Tram to our hostel (more on that later), then into Amsterdam.
  • Wander around the city soaking up the atmosphere.
  • Frites!
  • See the incredible Stationsplein bike park with over 7000 spaces at the station.
  • Dinner and back to the hostel. Dutch food is better than its reputation suggests. Well, I suppose it wasn’t really Dutch food, but we found an excellent Hummus Bistro.
  • Cityhub is the most incredible hostel:
    • Miniature pods provide privacy, and meant that this hostel was not cheap but was far less expensive than any city centre hotel.
    • It’s like something from a sci-fi movie.
    • Everything is controlled with an RFID tag on your wrist, including access to the bar, so self-served drinks go on your bill.

Day 2

  • More wondering around the city, including a boat trip on the canals. There are many operators but we chose Flagship.
  • The XXX is the city logo, not what you might otherwise think…
  • The view with the church is the Zuiderkerk, as featured in Claude Monet’s 1874 painting viewed from across the river Amstel.

Day 3

Day 4

  • The Nightjet “sleeper” to Vienna:
    • Delayed leaving Berlin (it disappeared from the departure board for a while, which was disconcerting), not yet upgraded to the new stock, but I really wanted to do this!
    • ÖBB/Nightjet provides a little goodie bag with things to help passengers sleep. Slippers, ear plugs, eye mask, face cloth, water and snacks. There’s also a breakfast order to complete (and a pen to complete it).
    • A while after leaving Berlin, the steward took our tickets (which have to be printed on A4 paper), took the breakfast orders, and converted our cabin from seats to beds. I’d thought we’d use the seats for longer (and convert it after dark), but the bed is still comfy.
    • Our room has a wash basin, mirror, etc. but I realised there’s only one shower for the whole carriage. Not much chance of getting in there in the morning, so I tried it in the evening instead. As to be expected, water pressure is limited, but it’s warm and it did the job!
    • I spent the rest of the evening relaxing on my bed, watching the trains as we called at a variety of stations, and my son said it felt a bit like the scary Thomas story when Oliver and Isabel hide from the diesels as they run away to Sodor!
    • Part way through the night I gave up on the tiny pillow and used the duvet instead. I think I woke every time the train stopped. So much for the “clickety-clack” (or modern continuous welded rail version) helping me sleep.
    • Shortly before 6, an electronic alarm woke me… set by the steward. After getting dressed and repacking all my gear, I ate my breakfast, though our order was incomplete as the catering had no working facilities to make hot drinks.
    • So that was the end of my Nightjet odyssey. I finally got to experience a sleeper train! Perhaps, if we do it again on a budget trip, I’d go for a couchette… but I might have to try the full experience again one day with the new Nightjet coaches…

Day 5

  • If Berlin is full of character but not the most attractive place, Vienna/Wien is beautiful but a little bit dull.
  • Ben had tracked down a coffee shop for me, as he knew I was missing good coffee.
  • We visited some “palaces” – one was a government building, another an auction house – but they were open to the public and had amazing architecture.
  • Lunch was a Wiener Schnitzel, of course. (When in Rome… or at least in Wien…)
  • I was exhausted so went back to the apartment for a while, then met up with Ben again in the evening… and introduced him to weiss beer.

Day 6

  • We’d realised that heading west across Austria to Swizerland would be slow… but we could squeeze in a quick trip to Munich/München:
    • I booked us a pitch at The Tent. When I stayed 30 years ago it was just a space on the floor of a big marquee but now there are various accommodation options.
    • After wondering around a bit, and a visit to a beer garden, we headed to the Hofbräuhaus for an authentic Bavarian meal and entertainment. Great fun!
    • I loved the short time we spent at the bar next to Pfistermühle – chilled house and a bottle of beer!
    • Then back across the city to catch a tram back to The Tent.

Day 7

  • Up early to travel to Switzerland.
  • Bern is stunning but we stayed on the train and headed for Interlaken.
  • Camping again. A last minute two night reservation at the excellent TCS site, which is ideally located across the river from Interlaken Ost station.
  • Then onto a bus to Bönigen for a swim in Lake Brienz/Brienzersee.
  • Interlaken itself is nothing special, but the scenery around the area is stunning.

Day 8

  • Another day in/around Interlaken, starting with a train to Brienz then a ferry (paddlesteamer!) to Giessbach falls.
  • We swam in the falls, and hiked to the top, then headed back to Brienz and on to Oberried am Brianzersee for some more lake swimming.
  • Ben left his phone behind on the station but, because this is Switzerland, it was still there when we returned!
  • After eventually getting back to Interlaken, we found the funicular to Harder Kulm was open (it had been closed in the morning due to technical issues). The views are incredible… though a rainbow on the Jungfrau was an extra bonus.
  • Then, back down to the campsite for a simple meal and some sleep.

Day 9

Day 9 was a travel day, in two parts:

  • Then, a few hours to take a look around Luzern. This was one of the places Ben had particularly wanted to visit.
  • It is beautiful, even when the sun didn’t shine for us!
  • Then it was time to catch another train to Lugano, and on to Milan/Milano.
  • This took us through the Gotthard base tunnel (not the more scenic pass) and also gave some glimpses of the Italian Lakes, though nothing that made a good photo.
  • We had enough time in Milan for a couple of hours in the city centre and a very good meal (Italian, of course).

Day 10

  • Up early, to catch the train to France, via Genoa.
  • We set up camp near Nice, at Parc des Maurettes. I was a little shocked that the floor was stone (I literally had to bash the pegs into the ground with a rock), but that was to be our home for the next three nights…
  • After pitching the tent, we caught the train to Juan Les Pins and walked back to spend the evening in Antibes.

Day 11

  • 34°C and still very warm overnight. Gravel floor. Noisy neighbours. I didn’t sleep. In fact, I spent most of the night in a chair close to the campsite reception, where I had access to power and Wi-Fi for some photo editing and battery charging.
  • In the morning I did some washing, and booked into a hotel for the next two nights. One with air conditioning.
  • Ben was visiting a friend in a nearby village, so I had to move all our luggage (two large packs and two daysacks) on my own. Luckily it was downhill to the station at Villeneuve-Loubet and the hotel was immediately adjacent to Nice-Ville station.
  • After checking in, I got a couple of hours’ sleep, before Ben came back and we explored Nice. Which was nice.

Day 12

  • Monaco Monte-Carlo. Boats, cars, a visit to see the Prince’s cars, lunch, the foyer at the casino, a look at the racing circuit. Cool.
  • But Monaco is just, not real somehow. It’s dripping with wealth but, after a few hours, it was time to go.
  • We stopped off at Cap d’Ail for a swim, and then at Eze, where I was charged €20 for two cans of Coke.
  • Then we waited for a bus to Eze village, that didn’t come. So we caught the train to Villefranche-sur-Mer, which was lovely. I later found that, at one point, I had been just a few metres away from a friend, staying there with his family, but we had missed each other!

Day 13

  • We left Nice and caught the train to Cassis, and a bus down the hill from the station towards the town.
  • Cassis was probably my favourite destination on the whole holiday. I’m planning a return visit with my wife.
  • Somehow, even thought it was last-minute, Ben and I had managed to book two spaces in a shared dormitory at Cassis Hostel. We lucked out there. It was cool enough, even without air-con, and the infinity pool was the icing on the cake.
  • But the highlight was that afternoon’s walk – to the Parc National des Callanques – which had some of the most stunning scenery I’ve ever seen, albeit a challenging walk in the heat:
  • In the evening, I’d earned a swim in the hostel pool, and a lovely steak dinner (washed down with a local red wine) along with soaking up the atmosphere in Cassis:

Day 14

  • After catching the bus to the station, and then waiting around there for a while, we finally caught a train to Marseille and then on to Avignon.
  • Avignon is pretty, but not as impressive as I remember. And you have to pay to go on the bridge now. We didn’t. You get a better view from above anyway! Look carefully towards the horizon (in the other direction) and you might also see Mont Ventoux.
  • Another piece de boucher (steak) dinner, then back to our accommodation.
  • I was glad we’d switched from camping to an aparthotel next to the TGV station as a huge thunderstorm came through that night…

Day 15

  • Up early to catch the 7:15 TGV to Lille. Four and a quarter hours to cover the entire length of France. This is why high speed rail is such a benefit for those countries that have invested in it…
  • The trains from Paris were full (at least for Interrail) – probably something to do with the Olympics – but I’d booked a TGV that bypassed Paris and then we were getting a Eurostar that came through from Brussels. That meant a few hours hanging around in Lille. Ordinarily, that’s no problem but we had our luggage and were tired.
  • We found a cafe and hung around there for a bit before heading back to the station.
  • Then, onwards towards the UK, through the channel tunnel and back to the land of poor phone signal.
  • The last leg back to Bedford was uneventful, and we were re-united with Mrs W!

4755 kilometres; 44 trains; 42 places; 10 countries

(The 8 countries the app shows is wrong. We passed through Belgium and Czechia. We also travelled to Monaco.)

On reflection

I was the one who wanted to take the sleeper train; I was the one who suggested Amsterdam would be a good first destination; and I was the one who insisted on booking our trains out and back a couple of months ahead of time; but the rest was all down to Ben. We quickly realised that it wouldn’t work to go to Copenhagen on the way to Berlin, and he wanted some flexibility in the second half of the trip, but what we did is remarkably similar to my trip, 30 years ago.

For me, this was a trip down memory lane, but wonderful to share it with Ben. For him, new adventures, a sense of what travelling can be and, I hope, some lifetime memories of a trip with his Dad.

Photos: all the author’s own

Retrospective: June/July 2024

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 1 year old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

In 1999, I left the only company I’d worked at since graduation. After 5 and a half years (plus a year or so during my degree), I moved on from ICL and followed a colleague to Capita, to be part of a new Microsoft practice. I still remember the conversation on the night before I started: “so, what’s it like to be unemployed, Mark?”. Leaving a place where I was comfortable and respected to start again elsewhere was a big deal for me so I wasn’t amused. Even more so as I’d taken out a mortgage on a house a year or so earlier.

I can’t remember the timings but it soon became clear that a recent re-organisation had changed the focus. The Microsoft practice was no longer a priority. My colleague left Capita soon afterwards. I remained, in a strange organisation, like a fish out of water. I made the most of it, built up my technical skills, and annoyed a few people by taking an outsourced client through the Technology Adoption Programme for Exchange Server 2000. (I was told that “our standard is Exchange 5.5. – you can’t just put in a new version”. Well, I did.)

I stuck it out for 18 months before I left to travel and work in Australia. That was a shorter trip than originally intended (a different story, which involved returning to the UK to settle down with Mrs Wilson). The point is that I learned not to build my career around other people. If I moved jobs again, it would be for me (or in one case, redundancy).

So why tell this story? Well, I’ve written on previous posts about my journey into my current team – and I feel like I’ve found a place that suits me and where I can make a difference. But June was an unsettling month as we prepared for a change of leadership for the Node4 Office of the CTO. It’ll all work out – but I won’t pretend I found it easy. And it reminded me that, however much respect I have for my outgoing CTO, there’s only one person responsible for where I take my career – and that’s me.

Right, enough of the career history lesson. What did I get up to more recently?

At work

Work highlights included:

  • Renewal of my Microsoft Azure Solution Architect Expert certifications.
  • Attending the second and third modules of my level 5 leadership and management training (inclusive leadership; and driving and implementing strategic change). I missed the first module in April, so will have to go back next year to learn about developing my personal leadership brand.
  • Two days at Commsverse – a Microsoft Teams conference organised by, among others, two of my former colleagues (Mark Vale and Martin Boam), at a really cool venue (Mercedes-Benz World). I have a whole load of blog posts planned from that event, though the backlog is pretty huge now. In the meantime, here’s my Twitter thread:
  • I managed to get a couple of posts published on the Node4 site, even if my own blog has been a bit quiet:
  • I also got my paws on this one, though only as an editor:
  • A trip to the North East, to help a client define their future technology direction, including facilitating a workshop with around 15 of their team to identify the challenges that they face.
  • Preparing for the audit (and hopefully renewal) of Node4’s Azure Expert Microsoft Solution Provider competency in a few weeks’ time.
  • Time spent together as a team, planning the future for the Node4 OCTO.

At home (the tech)

CCTV

I’ve been looking to install some CCTV at home for a while. Whilst many would recommend I go down the Ubiquiti route (UniFi Protect), I decided to save some money, using Reolink cameras with my existing Synology NAS.

So far I’ve installed an RLC-811A, which was also my first foray into PoE-powered devices (with a UniFi PoE adapter). Despite the low price, it’s remarkably good camera, both day and night, with the added bonus that it’s supported by Home Assistant.

Correlation or causation?

Sadly, it wasn’t enough, but was it really just a co-incidence that, as I changed my addressable LEDs from blue to red and white, England scored a goal in the Euros final?

And some writing

One blog post that did make it out of the door:

Ignore the hype, but think about getting AI ready

At home (the rest)

Whilst I’m not getting to many of Matt’s cycle races at the moment, I did head up to Darlington with him for the British National Circuit Race Championships. The race didn’t end as we hoped – he crashed – but his on-bike camera footage has 2.8 million views on Instagram at the time of writing!

He was back on the bike the next night as we went down to London for the Via Criterium at the London Cycle Festival. Oh my. What an awesome event. And a good result for Matt too…

And he’s got some decent results in some of the other crits… here’s Otley:

That bike didn’t last much longer though… this happened a week or so later, but he did at least jump back on and ride it to the finish!

And only a couple of days ago, he got caught up in a crash at Sheffield. I’ll be glad when the crit season is over.

I’ve been just as busy travelling around the country with Ben, as he visits the universities he might like to apply to. I missed the Warwick weekend but with Exeter, Bath, Bristol, Nottingham and Cardiff it’s been full on. And, just as when I did the rounds with Matt a couple of years ago, it’s left me wishing I could do it all again, knowing what I know now!

And, as for that car that I spent lots of money insuring recently. Yeah, not what I had in mind…

Watching

I haven’t written much recently about our TV watching, but in addition to my Tour de France addiction that has to be fed each July, Nikki and I have enjoyed:

  • All the light we cannot see, on Netflix. Set towards the end of World War 2, this mini series shows how the paths of a blind French girl and a German soldier collide, guided my the medium of radio. As a bit of a radio guy, I found it quite magical, along with this (unrelated) tweet: Where was Hilversum, anyway?
  • Douglas is cancelled, on ITV. Episode 3 is difficult to watch, but persist – the twist at the end of Episode 4 is worth it!

Travelling

I wrote most of this post as I was preparing to head off for a couple of weeks’ travelling with my youngest son. In fact, that’s why the June retrospective is mashed up with half of July… I’ll be off travelling for the other half.

It’s also meant a very busy week getting ready. New purchases from outdoor shops: lightweight sleeping bag; new walking trousers; new trainers. And cleaning my down jacket (because it might still be cold at night in the Swiss Alps). Rab Equipment are ace:

Tomorrow morning we should be catching the Eurostar to Amsterdam. Or we will be if today’s Microsoft Azure/Microsoft 365 outage and the separate but still severe Crowdstrike/Windows outage don’t affect my journey! I really must stop catastrophising…

Photographing

Elsewhere

A few things that caught my eye over the last few weeks…

  • Improving your messaging:
  • Milton Keynes Geek Night:
  • Wellbeing:
  • Initial view on Copilot-generated meeting notes:
  • Lazy coding:
  • It’s going to get harder to buy a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement:
  • More on getting your message across:
  • Tech life in China:
  • AI image generation:
  • Business strategy planning:
  • It seems I have a new soapbox… more on Copilot meeting notes:
  • And this is what two professional writers think of AI (and more):
  • Another post where I suggest that AI may not be very good for society…
  • Especially when senior Microsoft personnel seem to “forget” that we have copyright laws:
  • I do get cross when people suggest that a company running Microsoft software is somehow making bad choices and should be avoided:
  • A thread on how AI was amazing. And then it started making things up. It’s not much help if I have to check the output…
  • I feel this discussion will continue to run on for a very long time yet:
  • It affects employee engagement too:
  • You did read the terms of service, right?
  • Customer service calls in real life:
  • It seems that we really are spending more time in meetings:
  • Apparently I’ve spent over 15 years scrolling through Twitter…
  • A slightly different take on introversion:
  • Just imagine if AI did become self-aware:

Featured image: author’s own

Monthly Retrospective: May 2024

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 1 year old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

May’s update was late, and June’s is in danger of rolling into July, so here’s a few highlights from my life in and around tech…

At work

On the work front, it was a short month – I was on holiday for the last week and with public holidays too there was lots to cram into a few short weeks. Nevertheless, I still managed to:

  • Continue to develop Node4’s new ransomware scanning service.
  • Finalise a dozen product data sheets for our public cloud services.
  • Submit some blog posts to our marketing team to support upcoming campaigns.
  • Keep pushing some pre-sales activities forwards.
  • And mine and Bjoern Hirtenjohann (/in/BjoernHirtenjohann)’s internal Node4 podcast on public cloud was released:

But the biggest activity in the month was presenting at Node4’s Infrastructure Symposium. One of our Practice Directors brought all his teams together to learn about the products and services that we jointly deliver. With four (or five, depending on how you look at it) companies all merged, there’s been a lot of change at Node4 over the last year or so. Getting everyone together is a great way to break down boundaries and understand the direction we’re headed in. And for me it was a chance to outline that our cloud offers span public, private and hybrid delivery models – and that we will deliver what’s right for the client, not for us. We call this Pragmatic Cloud (and I freely admit we didn’t come up with the term, but it I like it a lot).

I also celebrated my 9 year anniversary of joining risual/Node4 in May. And, for those who were confused by my comments last month, I was saying that my recent move has been overwhelmingly positive and I’m in a better place than I have been for a long while!

Elsewhere

Away from work…

  • My youngest son, Ben, passed his driving test. I was ready for a big insurance bill, but what I wasn’t ready for was: a) no decrease on the bill for the 19 year-old’s insurance (now with 2 years’ experience); and b) a 350% increase in premiums between him passing his test 2 years ago and the 17 year-old passing now. Even with a black box, parents as named drivers, etc. the car insurance bill for the two old cars that our family share with the teenagers was around £4500. For contrast, the bill for my Volvo (with just me and Mrs W as drivers) actually fell and is now back under £500. Public transport is just not reliable enough where we live, so the choices are: a) drive the teenagers everywhere; or b) pay the money. I’m still getting over this assault on our savings… some families just won’t have that money and I dread to think how many uninsured cars there are on the road as a consequence.
  • My eldest son, Matt, continues to race his bike up and down the country. After a catastrophic failure of the fork steerer tube, his Canyon road bike was hastily replaced. That meant a drive to Wakefield to collect the new bike, but it is rather lovely. I don’t get to all his races these days but I did manage to watch him in Ixworth and I was in the team car again for the Lincoln GP. Unfortunately, when he went to Ireland to race the Rás Tailteann I had to make do with watching for updates on Twitter!
  • Ben and I have been planning our Interrail trip – and now we have bought our passes along with inbound/outbound travel. Plus, we’re going to be taking the NightJet sleeper train from Berlin to Vienna! There were a few challenges with seat availability (things have changed since last time I went – we can use high speed rail, but there’s limited availability and we need to pay a supplement). This is more of a problem when dates are fixed so we had to change our route a little. On the flip side, with the start and end locked in, the middle section of the holiday is now free for us to be flexible.
  • I completed the home network upgrade. Was the switch from AmpliFi to UniFi worth it? Time will tell. It’s certainly more flexible but it’s cost me more and my house does not lend itself to structured cable runs. Maybe I should have just replaced the broken AmpliFi mesh point but it felt like I could fall into the trap of the sunk cost fallacy.
  • On the home automation front:
    • Octopus Energy sent us a Home Mini, which should give more granular data on electricity consumption, once I get the Home Assistant configuration right (I’m still tweaking).
    • I’ve also continued to play around with Home Assistant, including a bed occupancy sensor (which I can link to turning off the lights). I will admit that’s probably a step too far into nerd territory.
  • The month ended with a short break in Spain. Originally scheduled for May 2021, we never did get to go on a family holiday to Barcelona and the Costa Brava, though Matt made it out there on a training trip to Girona earlier this year. So, half the holiday, with only one of the “children” (though he is now twice the size!), Nikki, Ben and I spent a glorious few days in an around Begur.

Writing

These retrospectives are a bit of a blogging catch-all, but I did write a post on LinkedIn that turned into a blog in its own right. You can read it at the link below:

Photographing

Bits and pieces

  • 300m short of 200km!
  • Choose your PIN wisely:
  • Commentary on technical debt and the British Library’s ransomware attack woes:
  • Who doesn’t love a bit of Top Gun?
  • Thoughts on location tracking for family members:
  • Why it’s better to find a real application compatibility fix instead of just giving users admin access:
  • And why encrypted messaging is difficult:
  • Finally, shipping sunlight for green energy. Not as bonkers as it sounds!

Featured image: author’s own

Monthly Retrospective: March 2024

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 2 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

I managed the weeknotes for 9 weeks. The last one was posted as I was sitting on a plane, about to take off for a long weekend away with my wife. And then I started to take stock. I don’t have time for them. What had been a weekly reflective activity had become a chore.

And then the unwritten thoughts started to build in my mind. There were still things that I wanted to share. And the feedback had been positive, though the weekly cadence was probably too much.

So here we are. A new concept: Monthly Retrospective; 12 posts a year instead of 52. Maybe a better chance of me getting it out of the door on time too? I don’t promise it will be published exactly on the end of each month (I’m a week into April as I finish this post), but it will be there or thereabouts…

So what’s up this month?

Here’s a quick summary of what’s in the rest of the post

  • We have the tech – both at work and at home. Plus a few of the many interesting things I’ve spotted on my Internet travels (I still post most of them on X, and a more professionally curated set of posts on LinkedIn).
  • We have the events – typically evenings, attended to expand my knowledge.
  • We have the entertainment – music, film, TV.
  • We have life – family and friends.
  • And we have the photos – snapshots of life viewed through my iPhone.

So let’s get started…

In tech: at work

I’m busy, busy as always at work, with more organisational changes to keep me on my toes. One thing I’ve tended to avoid in recent years is working on bids. This is partly because I find there’s invariably a slow start and a mad rush to complete before the deadline, and partly because I prefer to work on a consulting-led sell where I have helped to shape the solution. In a competitive tender scenario someone else has influenced the client, so you’re already on the back foot, second-guessing what the client needs cf. what the invitation to tender says they want. In this case, one of my colleagues asked me to help out, and we have a few weeks to create our solution. It’s also a really interesting project so I’m enjoying pulling this solution together.

Meanwhile, the ransomware service is also moving forwards, though not as fast as I would like (or, more to the point, as fast as my boss would like). All being well, I’ll have something to shout about in next month’s retrospective.

In tech: at home

I’m still playing around with Meshtastic, with one node travelling mobile with me and another soon to be set up at home. Here’s the thread with the progress:

In addition to the excellent Meshtastic website, Andy Kirby’s YouTube channel has tons of information.

Other home projects include researching which CCTV cameras to put up (almost certainly from Reolink) and how to get an Ethernet cable to them…

In tech: some of the things I stumbled across this month

Some bits and pieces:

  • Advice to help build genAI prompts:
  • One of the many issues with QR codes:
  • Remembering some security advice I used last year:
  • One of my favourite design projects:

In events

March saw me getting out to a few tech events in the evenings

  • Milton Keynes Geek Night (MKGN) is always a good night out. In truth, it’s not really geeky these days – more creative – but I enjoy most of the talks and after a dozen years of attendance, I know a lot of the people in the crowd. This was the thread I created with the highlights from MKGN number 47:
  • A few days later, I headed down to London for the Windows Azure User Group Meetup. Unfortunately, I couldn’t use Node4’s London office, so I worked from the British Library and other locations for most of the day, before heading over to Elastacloud for the event in the evening. After Richard Conway (in/richardelastacloud) introduced the evening, Steph Locke (@TheStephLocke) from Microsoft talked about AI Landing Zones before Andy Cross (in/crossandy) gave a hilarious demonstration of how the death of coding is a little way off yet, even with multiple AI agents collaborating…
  • Towards the end of the month, I went to the inaugural NN1 Dev Club event, mostly to see what it’s about. I’m not a developer (though I might like to be…) and it seemed a good opportunity to get to know some of the tech folks in another nearby town. I enjoyed the talks – both PJ Evans (@MrPJEvans)’ tales of home automation (“Boiling Nemo”) and Dr Junade Ali (/in/junade)’s tales from the world of security research (“The Science of Software Engineering”) – so I’m sure I’ll be back for more events in future.

In entertainment

Cover image for The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier

When I was about 8 or 9, I read a book at school. I couldn’t remember much about it, except that it was about some children travelling across Europe, it was set in WW2, Warsaw was a part of it, and I really enjoyed it. I asked a group of friends if they remembered something like this and one asked ChatGPT. ChatGPT thought it might be The Silver Sword, by Ian Serraillier. I read the synopsis and that was it! Why I never thought to ask an AI, I have no idea, but it worked. I then had a very enjoyable few hours in the car listening to the audio book…

On the subject of books, some more reading has arrived:

This month’s TV has been about:

  • Explosive action (deliberate pun) Trigger Point, S2 (ITV).
  • Laid back and delightfully silly Detectorists, S2 (Netflix).
  • Stunning landscapes mixed with murder mystery Shetland, S8 (BBC).

None are new, but they had been on the list for a while. The jury is still out on Shetland without Douglas Henshall in the main character role though.

I’ve also decided that I need to get out to some gigs. My wife’s not into the electronic music that I enjoy so much and I was thinking about heading down to Greenwich with my youngest son for a Day with Chicane. Unfortunately the gig is 18+ and he will be 3 months short of adulthood, so maybe that will wait a while longer.

In life: a trip to Tallinn

The month started with a trip to Tallinn, Estonia. Nikki and I were celebrating 21 years of marriage and we had a fantastic weekend exploring a new city. As a country that’s been in and out of Soviet control several times in modern history we were not sure what to expect. What we found was a beautiful medieval city, food that seemed more Scandinavian than Eastern European, and public transport that was cheap and plentiful.

Our hotel was only just outside the old town, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so we didn’t actually need to use the transport much (the city is compact enough to walk). Even so, €2 each way for a bus to/from the airport seemed amazing value.

Similarly, we ate and drank well at remarkably good prices compared with the UK – whether that was hot chocolate in Pierre Chocolaterie, hot wine in Ill Draakon (a medieval-themed bar), or one of the modern Estonian restaurants that we dined in. (For future reference, they were: Kaerajaan, Rataskaevu 16 and Pegasus). I came home thinking that, for the most part, the UK is a very dull and overpriced culinary destination.

Other highlights were a visit to the top of the tower at the Niguliste Museum for views across the city. We also enjoyed a walk along the old town walls. Outside the old town, we took a short walk to Telliskivi and visited the photography exhibitions at Fotografiska.

If you’re inspired by this and you fancy a trip to Tallinn (highly recommended), we flew with Wizz Air from London Luton and the Visit Tallinn website has a mine of information.

Oh yes, and linking back to tech for a moment, I forgot that the delivery robots I see in Milton Keynes and Northampton have Estonian cousins…

…and was amused to see people out and about experiencing virtual reality headsets in the centre of Tallinn…

In life: a Welshman in Twickenham

I may have been born in Northampton, but I identify as Welsh. And certainly when it comes to international Rugby Union, my team plays in red. I wasn’t going to say “no” though when I got the opportunity to watch England host Ireland at Twickenham. What a game! The final drop kick was at the other end of the pitch to me, but it was a brilliant match to be at.

In life: sporty teens

As ever, my sons are a huge part of what I get up to outside work. With Matt away in Spain, I was able to get to watch Ben play Hockey a bit more, including the Eastern Counties U17 tournament. Now Matt’s returned and he’s racing as much as he can, trying to get his Category 1 (and maybe Elite, if he can get enough points) road race licence. That needs my support sometimes (passing bottles, driving on the longer trips). At the other end of the scale, it was exciting to be able to watch him pick up a win at our local race:

It’s fantastic to see the support he gets from his own teammates and some of the guys he’s racing against too (the video cuts off Richard Wiggins exclaiming “he’s got it!” just as I hit record). #ProudDad

After a couple more races that I didn’t get to see (and didn’t exactly go to plan), he wrapped up the month with a particularly eventful weekend. On the Saturday, a couple of punctures meant his race only lasted a few minutes, but that was probably lucky as we then found the steerer tube at the top of his fork had a huge crack in it…

That afternoon and evening, he rebuilt onto one of the spare cyclocross frames that were waiting to be set up, and then raced the Fakenham town centre crit’ on Sunday. It was a wet afternoon and my heart was in my mouth for the whole race but coming in third after an early break and leading for a good chunk of the race was a great result.

In photos

Wrap-up

That’s all for this month… please let me know what you think in the comments and I’ll be back in early May to recap on April… plus, hopefully, with extra time for some other posts in between.

Featured image by 139904 from Pixabay.

Weeknotes 18-19/2021: Doubling up

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 5 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Last week didn’t have a weeknote. I just didn’t get around to it! To be perfectly honest, my weekends are packed with cycling-related activities at the moment and work has been pretty busy too… so here’s a bumper fortnight-note. Even this is delayed because I locked myself out of WordPress with too many incorrect login attempts… but the very fact I managed to post this indicates that I got in again!

Working

There’s much I can write about my work at the moment but we are approaching my annual review. That means I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on the last 12 months and looking forward to where I need things to head in the coming weeks and months. It’s not been a wonderful year: although my family has been fortunate to avoid Covid-19 we’re still living in strange times and I really could do with leaving my home office for the odd day here and there. Procrastination levels are certainly up, followed by evening catch-up sessions. That could be another reason there was no week note last week…

Learning

I did manage to squeeze in another exam. It’s one of the Microsoft Fundamentals series: Microsoft Azure Data Fundamentals (DP-900) and I used Microsoft Learn to prepare, passing with a good score (944).

I’m also really interested in building a body of knowledge around sustainable IT and I worked my way through the Sustainable IT MOOC from the Institut du Numérique Responsable’s ISIT Academy. Not surprisingly, some of the statistics are French-specific but, in general I found the content interesting and enlightening. Definitely worth a few hours for anyone with an interest in the topic.

Watching

I’m a heavy social media user and I’m under no illusions about what that means in terms of my privacy. I often say that, if you’re not paying for the product, you are the product. Even so, my wife and I watched The Social Dilemma on Netflix a couple of nights ago. Highly recommended for anyone who uses… well… the Internet. So, pretty much everyone then.

Cycling

After riding England Coast to Coast (C2C) on The Way of the Roses a couple of years ago, I’ve been planning my next big cycling trip.

My eldest son and I were planning to head to the French Alps after his GCSEs this summer but, well, that was before a global pandemic messed up our plans. So we’ve been looking for something a little closer to home. We’re planning on riding the length of Wales – from Cardiff to Holyhead on Lôn Las Cymru. 

After booking all the hotels, and the train travel to return from Holyhead (5.5 hours, via England, with a change mid-way at Shrewsbury) the biggest challenge was booking 2 spaces for bikes on the train. I had similar issues with the C2C and I’m just hoping that I manage to make the cycle reservations nearer the time. I certainly can’t allow myself to stress about it for the whole 4 day ride up!

Something that will almost certainly come in useful on that trip are the waterproof socks I bought from Sealskins… they are fantastic:

Still on the subject of cycling, the Trek X-Caliber 9 mountain bike that I bought last autumn is back in the workshop. It’s 6 months old, with just 300km on the clock and the forks have gone back for warranty repairs (and that’s after the headset bearings already had to be replaced because they were not fitted correctly in the factory). More generally, there’s a big problem with bike part availability in the UK right now – partly Brexit-related (inability to buy from some EU-based vendors) but some general supply issues with some parts on back order until 2023.

Meanwhile, I’m finding more and more of my weekends involve supporting my eldest son with his racing (either cross-country or cycle-cross, with the occasional road circuit). One bonus was that the usual Saturday Youth Coaching session was replaced by a pleasurable gravel ride (and pub garden visit) this week due to non-availability of our usual venue.

Random techie stuff

The last few weeks in pictures

Weeknote 17: Failed demos, hotel rooms, travel and snippets of exercise (Week 18. 2018)

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 8 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

This week, I’ve learned that:

  • I must trust my better judgement and never allow anyone to push me into demonstrating their products without a properly rehearsed demo and the right equipment…
  • There are people working in offices today who not only claim to be IT illiterate but seem to think that’s acceptable in the modern workplace:
  • That operations teams have a tremendous amount of power to disregard and even override recommendations provided by architects who are paid to provide solid technical advice.
  • That, in 2018, some conference organisers not only think an all-male panel is acceptable but are hostile when given feedback…

I’ve also:

  • Gone on a mini-tour of Southern England working in London, Bristol and Birmingham for the first four days of the week. It did include a bonus ride on a brand new train though and a stint in first class (because it was only £3 more than standard – I’ll happily pay the difference)!
  • Taken a trip down memory lane, revisiting the place where I started my full-time career in 1994 (only to be told by a colleague that he wasn’t even born in 1994):
  • Squeezed in a “run” (actually more like a slow shuffle) as I try to fit exercise around a busy work schedule and living out of a suitcase.
  • Managed to take my youngest son swimming after weeks of trying to make it home in time.
  • Written my first blog post that’s not a “weeknote” in months!
  • Picked up a writing tip to understand the use of the passive voice:

So the week definitely finished better than it started and, as we head into a long weekend, the forecast includes a fair amount of sunshine – hopefully I’ll squeeze in a bike ride or two!