October 2015

Work

Work has been all too encompassing this month has certainly interjected itself into home life, something I’m trying to adjust and really think about the things I like to do along with the needs of others. We’ve had some major success’s with some well managed projects coming to a close, we are aiming to close yet more long running programs in the near future. The app we launched in late Sept. has worked out well with thousands of students downloading the app and some good comments. Proof I believe that we are able to directly impact the student experience.

Student Enrolment at Central St Martins

We’ve made some great progress as a management team and are beginning to move forwards as a cohesive unit. The management team are all very different individuals but have I believe a sense of direction of travel, we are aiming to become a highly functioning unit with shared goals and ambitions.

We also at the end of the month without some trepidation turned off what was basically an open Wi-Fi network and turned on a new Wi-Fi that required a user name and password to login which was linked to Active Directory, a big step forwards and our user community of around 50K did switch over with only some minor issues.

Some new programs are starting the biggest one and one I’m co-sponsoring is the Online Estate Program (OEP) which will take some years to finish but at least we have the first Million pounds of funding to get things up and running this year and complete some of the easier small projects along the way.  Essentially the OEP will look at all processes and try to move those processes into a more digital and streamlined configuration. We will also be adding new services as we go along. I’m also working on the digital strategy which is coming along slowly but we are making some progress.

Down Town Indianapolis

Towards the end of this month I attended the Educause 2015 conference in Indianapolis which was excellent, I’ve been to this conference a number of times and this time I really felt I had to engage with the community and go out of way to make an effort and be a contributors, its so easy at these big conferences to melt into the background which largely means you get very little out of it.

I think one of the most interesting talks I went to was about computational intelligence not artificial intelligence, super interesting in as much as computers are starting to learn far faster than ever and are entering into a period where progression of technology is going to dramatically accelerate given that according to Moore’s law the mid-point was reached in the mid 2000’s. On the way back back from Educause I decided to travel back via Washington DC and spent a couple of days in the museums.

Home

White house

I’m somewhat disappointed that the open water season has come to an end, (for me at least) its getting too cold. I’m sure I’ve let the side down and have ‘gone inside’ which is OK for continuing the fitness but swimming an hour of lengths in a local swimming pool is pretty mind numbing, but then perhaps that’s the idea? I am looking into somewhere between the to two options.

I enjoyed running in the parks and along the canals in Indianapolis and actually got to see more of the City than you would normally and of course a long held ambition to run around the Mall in Washington DC that was great fun albeit its in a bit of a mess with lots of ground works going on.

Enola Gay

I also really enjoyed seeing the museums in Washington and spent way too long at the Air & Space museum near Washington Dulles airport, albeit I couldn’t help thinking that if we spent as much on military technology as we did on science & exploration then we would certainly be on our closest planets by now and not watching a 3-D animation. It was both sad and poignant to see aircraft such as the Enola Gay and the SR71 Blackbird, alongside the space shuttle.

The studio work is changing with a greater emphasis on emotional response rather than articulated, ‘ve been looking at the work of Arthur Dove and others and looking how I interpret the immediacy of the world around me. I have also finished a number of plates for Oxford University press (OUP) these haven’t been easy and do take quite a bit of time to sort out!