a week in edinburgh

I am happily and safely back down South again after a week’s conferencing in Edinburgh; yes the South is “rising again.” My week in Edinburgh was spent celebrating project successes before planning that next wave under the umbrella slogan of: "don't let your past get in the way of your future."

Sometimes you need to be reminded of that necessity of standing back and purposely reviewing what you have been able to achieve, because you don’t want to get caught in that inflationary syndrome where you are always chasing the next big thing without appreciating what you have achieved.

It’s like you spend your hard earned savings on the new ipod but before you can go showing it off, your bastard competitor is strutting around with the new Sony walkman which you now just have to get even though your Apple is but a few seconds old.

So Edinburgh was very good from that perspective, it allowed a globally dispersed team the opportunity to get together and enjoy each other’s company, to look at best of bred solution space and then to begin to plot that course for 2007.

In between we drank a bit of Scotch and saw some of the old town.

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If you didn’t already know it but carrots will improve your eyesight and make your hair curl. And telling the waitress this before your order the carrot and coriander soup will ensure that you receive good service for the rest of the evening. I promised myself a while ago that I would always try to dine with the most charming of the co-worker brigade particularly when it’s at the company’s expense and thus never mine.
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When asked what the concept of supplier enablement entailed this was one of the replies: “it’s crap, it doesn’t do what’s written on the box…”Some workshopped topics proved to be surprisingly good.
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When they set out to build the Scottish parliament in Edinburgh the budget was set at 50 million pounds. The eventually cost of the completed article was 500 million, thanks to “devolution of power,” and the English “check” book.
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My father learnt a lesson this week that we take for granted but it doesn’t matter how big your heart is if you don’t find ways of de-stressing you’ll end up in places which are reserved for “real” sick people.
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Scotland may have beaten France but every Scottish pub that we went to was too stingy to pay for the viewing rights. The Irish pub where we ended up watching the last half of the game was the real winner because it “forced” us to drink copiously and celebrate late into the night.
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Tips for appreciating Scotch: Check the colour; the body; the nose; the palate; and the finish. Then drink it but watch out for that strange “house” Scotch blend which you maybe be served in some pubs, it’s nasty stuff even if you check the colour; body; nose; palate and finish.
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I learnt that we don’t complain anymore, although I still reserve the right to do five minutes of it each day but that we now give feedback. My travel feedback is that there should be baby free flights because two, 12-hour, “upper class,” Virgin flights were ruined by the incessant cries of various infants.
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Finally for our special community of friends who were extremely supportive during the past week’s trails and tribulations – thank-you! I now own a Trainspotting t-shirt with those famous lines printed on the front: “Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose family …Choose your future. Choose life…But why would I want to do a thing like that?” Thank-you for choosing to be there.
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And nobody got my accent but “Am I bovvered? Am I…”