I can't believe that it's been a week since I last made an entry! Still struggling with the "tech" article - in fact it just hasn't got past the thinking stage and into any type of print material! Big job for the weekend! My golf on Monday was pretty dismal - a few good shots, but mainly a lot gong left off the tee! Lots to work on.

I have some new pinot noirs from New Zealand to try over the weekend - well maybe not both! They come from the Central Otago area which is a new area and one that seems to do well with pinot noir. Can't say I've been much of a fan of the Cloudy Bay Pinot Noir - its not a patch on the Sauvignon Blanc. The ones I have to taste are:- Akarua Pinot Noir 2001 and Dry Gully Pinot Noir 2002. I look forward to trying these as the Cloudy Bay which I was not too keen on was 2000, and I still thought it to be a bit "thin". It could be that my palate has been jaded by too many big Bordeaux, and New World wines. Anyway I'll try to report back on them. By the way they are both available from SWIG - see link below.

Fantastically busy today - lots and lots of reading and research about strategic issues, eventually got my paper for the Board meeting next week organised and distributed. Found a lot of useful material in David Maisters's book "Practice What you Preach". Also found a book on Amazon about the "Service Profit Chain" - so I ordered it I will let you know what it's like. Busy weekend ahead as we have a Staff Away Day tomorrow - when we will be discussing, amongst other things MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) and it's implications and applications in the workplace. Attending my parents 55th wedding anniversary lunch on Sunday. I was planning to get some info on the site about some wines and cigars, but that may need to wait. Having a day off on Monday when I'm playing golf with my coach - should be interesting. We are trying to determine why I can't take my practise game to the course! Deep stuff!! If I'm not too traumatised I will report back. I also need to find time to write my "tech" article on mobile computing and how it impacts in my job!

Read an interesting article about the book "Contest" by Matthew Reilly in today's Times, so I thought I would show a link to it! It's an interesting story - he was turned down by numerous publishers and then decided to pay to have it published himself. It was then seen by an editor from Macmillan in a book shop - and now, well you guessed it, six years later, four books on, his sales exceed two million worldwide. Gives hope to all of us budding writers! He talks about the size of the canvass he sets his stories against and the fact that he bombards the reader with lots and lots of information, much akin he says, to computer games and the like. Sounds interesting - I really like exploring different and unusual genres, so I think I'll need to make some time to read it! Overnight (this blogging is becoming compulsive), I have managed to add some new features, some links, and tables about my favourite wines, cigars and the golf clubs I use. Will supply a bit more info about all these in due course!

Ever so slowly getting the hang of this! Added today the current reading list adding the header proved to be a bit more difficult than I imagined! Business Planning research continues, I have found an excellent site for IT applications and the like - its called Journal of Information, Law & Technology. I'll add it to my links. Hopefully by reading more of Biz Stone's book this blog will at least get more interesting in design and style - and you just never know that may spill-over into the content!

I have been working on my Business Planning project. I have not as yet started to look at the raw data as it were, at the moment I am concentrating on reviewing new ideas and concepts associated with Business Planning to get some new ideas about structure and format. In time I will look at the data and then start to try to develop the structure of the actual day when we all get together to discuss the Plan and how it should be formulated for the next 3 years or so.

Apart from the Web I find that the Harvard Business Review is an excellent source of information and new ideas. One such article that I have been reading which I think is absolutely fascinating was published in the July 2003 edition. "What Really Works" (Nitin Nohria, William Joyce and Bruce Roberson) describes a very interesting five year project where the authors studied more than 200 well-established management practices as they were employed over a ten-year period by 160 companies. The research concludes that the most successful companies excelled in four primary management areas by utilising the following: -

Strategy-devise and maintain a clearly stated, focused strategy.
Execution -develop and maintain flawless operational execution.
Culture-develop and maintain a performance-orientated culture.
Structure -build and maintain a fast, flexible, flat organisation.

The best performing companies in the study complemented their strengths in the four primary areas with superior performance in any two of the following secondary practices: -

Talent-hold on to talented employees and find more.
Innovation-make industry-transforming innovations.
Leadership-find leaders who are committed to the business and its people.
Mergers and Partnerships-seek growth through merger and partnership.

Interestingly this article shows that despite all the fads and fashions that there are in management nowadays - you need to get the basics correct to allow anything else to happen and flourish successfully! It is good to be able to draw on such an empirical and relevant study.

I still have a number of other articles to get through, but I am sure this is going to be the most interesting and I think relevant by far! - but I'll let you know!

Well didn't take all that long for that great intention to fade away did it? I must really try and do better!

The golf last week went well - not too competitive, however I'm still having some problems with everything from my driver going right - however some good medium iron shots seemed to balance the round.

Haven't really managed to do too much with my proposed article - I must try and get down to some research otherwise the deadline will be here before I know it. However in my Business Plan research I hope to be able to meet with some IT experts who work in large legal practices and using the "Delphic Technique" I hope albeit very nicely, to pick their brains about what might be coming up in the tech word that impacts specifically on legal practices. No doubt some of this might be able to be used for the article. I hope to be able to use the Delphic Technique with some areas of the Business Plan. For those who do not know this is a technique where you approach an independent (to your organisation) expert(s) and ask them some structured questions to do with their area of expertise. The idea is really to pick their brains and tap into their knowledge base. What you are generally looking for is raw data and then it is up to you to apply it to your personal business circumstances. So the analysis and application is done by the person asking the questions. It is a technique that is widely used, but this will be the first time that we have attempted this! Not only is it time-consuming to try to think of people you might approach, it is also tricky trying to frame the questions in neutral terms so that the questions don't in themselves indicate an answer or approach.

This weekend is going to be consumed mainly with the Business Planning Project and I hope some bullet thoughts about the article and a golf lesson! Some mix!

Resolutions made so that the next posting is more timely!

Day two and another post! I'm taking this writing very seriously - I sent an idea for a article to a "tech" web site and they have accepted - so now I've got four weeks to produce it. I must make sure to use the time productively and not waste it as I usually do! I am going to be writing about how I utilise mobile technology within my job - but I have warned them that it won't be too "techy". I like the idea of writing - but sometimes it takes me ages to get down to it! I have written for a number of publications in the past - usually just the odd article or so. However from the initial ethusiasm/euphoria it always ends up being squeezed into a small amount of time and at the ends feels more like a chore. I will need to rectify this if I am going to do this on a regular basis - and I think that seems to be on the cards if I keep to deadlines and produce something of interest.

I am playing golf tomorrow for the benefit of the company I work for - taking one of our clients out on my Golf Course. So I hope my game stands up to the scrutiny! I'll let you know how I get on!

You would think that with all I have to try to fit into my life that last thing I need is another "new toy" to play with, but all the same here it is! I'm not sure of the real motivation behind this or exactly what I'm going to do with the site - but here goes. I will try to post something at least every few days so hopefully things will be fairly current.

I am interested in business, management, wine, golf and cigars (along with assorted other things) and not in that particular order! So I'll probably start by posting about some of these topics in a hopefully informative and at times amusing way. As a frustrated author (several books started but never finished) I thought I might serialise a story of some type! Anyway I'll see how it goes!

Thanks for stopping by.