By day, I am a Digital Development Director for IPC Media’s Inspire specialist consumer division and also run a 60-strong end-to-end team that creates, hosts, develops and supports websites for the company’s Inspire, Southbank, Connect, Tx and corporate divisions.
By night I am a Digital Development Director for…it’s that kind of job.
However that doesn’t stop me having a rather silly number of interests outside of (and indeed, inside of) the virtual. Hence this site is a bit of a jumble, but I will at least attempt to categorise the blogs into some kind of order.
A (not so) brief biog
Prior to my current job I was Group Editor in charge of IPC Marine Media’s business and Internet media including International Boat Industry magazine and the ybw.com network. And before that, Editor of Motor Boats Monthly magazine for 11 years which took me on a journey from a one magazine start-up company, through United Newspapers and Link House magazines (via two management buyouts) to IPC.
My (currently incomplete) Linked in profile
Sailing and motorboating
I’ve been boating since my early teens, in sailing dinghies, cruising yachts and motorboats. Owned four motor cruisers (three steel displacement cruisers and latterly a 45ft semi-displacement 1974-built mega project called Formanda) and logged many miles in powered craft of all types. Headed Motor Boats Monthly’s cruise in company programme for 15 years, was a co-organiser of the BMF’s Try A Boat and Start Boating campaigns in the 1990s and undertook a round Britain cruise ‘Grand Tour’ on a flybridge 36-footer in 1999 that spanned 147 days and 109 coastal and inland havens. I posted daily news reports during that time that I guess you would call a blog now…one of my aims is to restore those posts on here at some point.
Computers and an Apple Mac love affair
An unhealthy interest in technology has included an involuntary love affair with everything Apple Mac since I saw a IIfx appear on my desk in 1992, along with an instruction to start using it to create magazines. This blog will mostly get updated on my own MacBook Pro although other current computers include a Dell Latitude 620 (the work-issue laptop) and a Mac G5 tower at my office. Perhaps even by Blackberry via email if I really feel the urge.
Have been messing around on the Internet since 1997 when sites were delightfully optional but it’s all got a lot more serious since.
Lighting
I guess some of that interest in all things technical dates back to my teens when I started collecting various bits and pieces to create a touring sound and lighting rig. At its height this sound and light system occupied the whole of a stripped out caravan that (fortunately) followed dutifully my old Vauxhall Cavalier all over the country. My long-suffering wife and brother formed the stage crew and Ian doubled as DJ when need arose. While I don’t think anything we did was intrinsically unsafe, Health and Safety would probably have a field day if we attempted the same now.
These days I mostly concentrate on lighting, using other peoples’ kit. I’m in the Hexagon theatre in Reading a few times a year, both to assist with rigging shows and, sometimes to design shows. I work with Reading Operatic Society, Sainsbury Singers and Reading Central Salvation Army. I’ve also worked in the Wilde Theatre in Bracknell, Kenton Theatre in Henley and most recently at the Bearwood College Theatre near Wokingham.
And there’s more
If I really thought anyone was still reading this far down the page I could blather at length about a fascination with aviation, reading (grade bookworm A++), music (broad mix, draw the line at hip-hop, whatever that is), cooking, travelling, sport (F1, football, just about anything else as well really). The only thing you won’t find is any reference to boredom, there’s not enough time, even if I was so inclined.