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An encounter with an urban fox outside the British Library

Not the actual fox I saw - I couldn't get my cameraphone out quickly enough
Not the actual fox I saw that night

After my recent blogs about the variety of wildlife in my home location, varying from deer in my garden to the Beast of Balcombe, you can imagine my surprise by my latest encounter in the heart of London.

I was rushing to catch my train at around 8.45pm after a late meeting with a Business & IP Clinic client. I had just left the staff exit of the British Library and was heading north along a busy Middlesex Street towards St Pancras station. Suddenly I was face to face with a large wild animal. After a second or two I realised it was a fox, and although it initially appeared to be as surprised as me (we were less than 10 feet apart), it soon recovered its composure. I last saw it slipping down into our disabled entrance and then swiftly out of sight.

I had a brief conversation with a fellow commuter behind me who had also seen the fox, but had to rush on for fear fo missing my train.

I shall certainly keep my eyes peeled for more wildlife sightings in future when I am venturing out after dark in London.

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South of England wild with big cats

I’m not sure if BBC South have been reading my blog recently, but this evening they had a feature news story on big cats spotted in the South of the country.

They had a couple of scratchy videos which could have been a lynx, plus lots of citizens who had seen these beast close up – even brushing past in one case.

As you can see from the graphic copied from the BBC website there have been plenty of spottings. I still can’t quite make my mind up on this. Some of the stories are worryingly similar to the kind of alien or crop circle ones I have heard over the years.

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‘Beast of Balcombe’ spotted in my backyard

Definitely not the Beast of Balcombe
Definitely not the Beast of Balcombe

Although I feel very fortunate to live so close to nature in my rural retreat on the edge of Balcombe, I feel somewhat perturbed by the recent spotting of the ‘Beast of Balcombe’ just beyond my back garden.

As you will have seen from my recent post, deer are not unknown in my garden, and in fact are becoming something of a pest in to gardeners in Mid-Sussex. When I first moved into my current house we also used to have rabbits wandering freely in the garden. But that all stopped when our aged cat was replaced by two young and active farm cats. Now we just get recently deceased remains brought in through the cat flap for final consumption on the kitchen floor.

However this ‘big’ cat appears to be a puma from the recent sighting (and sounding) from a reliable source in the village. I shall certainly be on the lookout for the ‘beast’, and if I manage to snap a photo you will be first to know.

Fans of big cat sightings in the south of England can keep up do date with a blog dedicated to this topic.

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Our future world is Blue, Green or Orange

Just back from the ebic 2008 conference organised by TFPL, and exhausted from listening to so many speakers and ideas (plus networking late into the night). This year we spent an afternoon brainstorming the implications for the information and knowledge profession of the Pricewaterhouse Coopers‘ scenario worlds of the future, Managing tomorrow’s people: The future of work to 2020. This predicted three very different possibilities and gave each a colour:

The Blue World: Corporate is King: Big company capitalism rules as organisations continue to grow and individual preferences trump beliefs about corporate social responsibility.

The Green World: Companies Care: Social responsibility dominates the corporate agenda and concerns about demographic changes, climate and sustainability become the key business drivers.

The Orange World: Small is Beautiful: Companies begin to breakdown into collaborative networks of smaller organisations and specialisation dominates the world economy.

Our task was to attempt to answer the following three questions:

1. What significant developments/events/trends that will impact on KIM (knowledge and information management) activity can we expect/anticipate across the forecasting time-line in this world?
2. What KIM activity would ensure success in this world?
3. What KIM roles and skills would be of value to organisations in this world?

The outputs from these discussions were recorded and I am looking forward to seeing the conclusions in the next few weeks.

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Walkit.com gets me to work on time

Walking over the Millennium Bridge on a sunny morning

Having regularly walked from London Bridge station to work at St Pancras for nearly three years I thought I knew all the routes. Including the fastest ones which avoided busy and noisy roads.

However the newly improved Walkit.com website has shown me the error of my ways. Thanks to them I managed to cut nearly ten minutes off my 55 minute standard walk time. In addition their route gave me more time enjoying the view along the Thames before cutting up through the amazing inns of court including Middle Temple and Gray’s Inn Gardens.

Middle Temple Gardens
Middle Temple Gardens
Gray's Inn Square
Gray's Inn Square
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Deer in my garden

I like to think I live in something of a rural idyll, despite being less than forty five minutes from central London by train. And over the years I have been fortunate to see plenty of wildlife stray into my garden, including rabbits, squirrels, woodpeckers, pheasants and even a grass snake.

However, for the last two nights I have been surprised to spot a trio of deer (a mother and two youngsters) in my garden, just feet from my window. Tonight I managed to take a snapshot through the rain with my mobile camera (hence the grainy quality).

I’m just beginning to worry that if they become too settled, they may decide to start eating my vegetable patch.

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In search of the perfect mouse

I’m sure you are all familiar with the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote, “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.” There is even a book by Graham Barker & Peter Bissell called A Better Mousetrap: the business of invention.

However, as a computer addict for over 30 years (anyone remember the Commodore Pet) I have suffered from repetitive strain injury (RSI) for many years. The introduction of the mouse in the 1980s only made matters worse for me. Consequently I have spent much time investigating new and improved hardware and software.

For over 10 years I have been using my left hand for mousing at work and my right at home to spread the strain. When the pain was at its worst I experimented with auto-mouse-click software. (When the mouse pointer stops moving, the system counts down a fixed interval and triggers a mouse click.) However this was very tricky to use, especially for moving items around the screen.

A more successful approach has been to upgrade my mouse, first from the type relying on a physical ball for positioning, to infra-red, and more recently to laser powered. Also the introduction of a scroll wheel significantly improved the ergonomic experience, especially for those long hours surfing the web for information.

I briefly experimented with a track-ball mouse but couldn’t get on with it.

However a couple of years ago I saw the the answer to my prayers (and started saving the £70 required to acquire it). This particular example is from Logitech (although I’m sure there are similar ones available now). The key factors are its ergonomic shape, which comfortably fits into my hand, a high precision laser beam leading to less hesitation on the screen, and a wireless USB connection preventing snagged cables. It also has a scroll wheel with a needle roller bearing (something of an engineering anachronism in these days of high-tech). When the wheel is set to ‘free scroll’ (my default setting), I can whiz up and down fifty screens worth of information with one gentle flick of my finger.

I understand that thought controlled computer interfaces are being developed, but until that day I think I will be happy with my digital mouse.

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Goodbye Ken Livingstone hello Boris Johnson

As a resident of rural West Sussex I had not been following the recent London Mayoral elections with as much attention as I should. So the election of Boris Johnson came as a big surprise to me.

By chance I had a meeting yesterday at Boris’ new home at the GLA (General London Authority) City Hall. The whole building seemed tense with excitement, with great change expected after eight years of Ken in charge. The 800 staff were preparing for an all-staff meeting at 3pm that day to hear the thoughts of their new boss Boris.

As it turned out Boris has been active and created several new roles as well as replacing many of Ken’s lieutenants.

He has also banned alchohol from all London tubes and buses from next month in a bid to crack down on anti-social behaviour. As might be expected the London Evening Standard is following developments closely.

It will be interesting to see what Boris changes and what remains the same in the next four years for London.

One thing I can say for sure is that he will have one of the best views of London from his office.

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Facebook in Reality

I still haven’t quite made my mind up about Facebook.

Our Facebook get together in March was a great success, but I’m still not sure how many serious applications the service has.

I have also stopped ‘friending’ everyone I come across and started removing ‘friends’ who I don’t actually know.

It would be better if there were categories such as family, friend, acquaintance, colleague (or is that just the librarian in me wanting to categorise everything)?

To give you a sense of how ridiculous some aspects of Facebook are, idiotsofants.com have produced a video called Facebook in Reality. It is currently running at 460,000 views and comes up first when you type Facebook into YouTube.

Enjoy.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrlSkU0TFLs&hl=en]

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Farewell to the wit and wisdom of Alastair Ross Goobey

Today I attended the Service of Thanksgiving for the life and work of Alastair Ross Goobey at St Mary’s Church in Islington. The entire church was packed out with friends, family and colleagues who wanted be present to mark the untimely passing of such a great and good man.

In keeping with his ability to connect to just about anyone he met, the audience ranged from the most senior City financiers (evidenced by the queue of limousines outside), including two former Chancellors of the Exchequer, to junior clerical staff from companies he had managed.

In my previous blog posting I mentioned how he had made a point of getting to know everyone within Hermes and regularly ate in the staff restaurant. What I learnt today was his ability to completely separate his work responsibilities as the CEO of Hermes, and his incredibly rich personal life. As well as devoting time to his wife, two children and close friends, he held many roles within the arts world. For instance he was on the Management Board of the National Opera Studio, was Governor of the Royal Academy of Music and a Director of the Almeida Theatre, to name but a few. He was also a regular panellist on the BBC Radio 4 Board Game quiz show.

Many of the speakers at the service recognised Alastair’s significance in the financial world as being the person who did the most to raise awareness of corporate governance in Europe. But the words that seemed to capture he uniqueness were wit, kindness and modesty. These are not terms often associated with those who achieve great success in the worlds of business and finance. As an illustration of his modesty, Sarah his widow told me that for many years his family thought his job was something akin to a bank manager in the City, and her father had a vision of him handing out money to customers from behind a wire grill. The reality she eventually discovered was his role as head of a £50bn pension fund management firm with significant influence over the investment and corporate worlds, as well as government.

I will leave the final word with his successor at Hermes, Tony Watson, ‘Anyone who ever encountered Alastair Ross Goobey will recall his wisdom and experience. But the quality for which he will be most remembered by former colleagues is his humanity. He was a kind man, able to make everyone feel good about themselves.’