Out with the old and all that

So it's January 2nd and I'm back at my desk though I can't say I'm really working. My three kids are much in evidence around the place today and most of my clients are still off so it's a chance over the next couple of hours to clear the mountain of 'pending' that piled up during a very busy December before the pressure to entertain my offspring means work has to take a second place to Christmas holiday activities.

Christmas and New Year passed off pretty well here and this this very short lull before the grindstone gets turning again has given me a bit of time to reflect on the good and bad parts of 2007.

The pluses

Leapfrog has been busier than in the two previous years with a good variety of work mixing b2b publication work with change projects and tactical internal comms projects. I spent a lot of time with one particular client, but for once managed to keep my other work going in parallel without any client work suffering.

I've had some of my history writing published in BBC History Magazine and am working on a commission for a publication detailing the secret role of one of the UK's stately homes during WW2.

I've embarked on an MA in International Relations at Brunel University , and while it's tougher than anything I do in work, and has taken just about every spare hour I have in the week just to keep up with the reading, it really has given me a new spark. After probably five years of feeling in a bit of a rut about work, I'm finally seeing real possibilities to expand into new areas - and perhaps take a slightly different direction once the course is complete.

On the margins

My TV wannabe-ness got me onto the BBC's Mastermind. It was a fabulous experience and I felt great just to get through the selection process and into the famous black leather chair. But once there, nerves and a slightly daft selection of specialist subject combined. While I was never going to win the heat, I didn't do as well as I could or should, so left the studios in Manchester a little disappointed with my own performance.

Minuses

One downside of being a microbusiness has been having to turn down work. For the first time in three years I've been approached for projects I simply didn't have the capacity to fulfil. some I was able to pass on to associates, but I simply had to knock back a few other opportunities. 2007 was certainly the year when a couple of clones would have been very useful.

Another downside of being stretched workwise and by the MA was having to give up my CiB involvement for the time being. The final straw for this was the huge apathy within the organisation for making the changes necessary for it to remain relevant to the communications industry. There are a few people who do a great job to keep CiB going - but it's all too few. For a year, I was part of a membership group that delivered very little. Partly this was the perennial problem of a volunteer organisation: too little time and little money to back plans. But more so it was down to a much wider apathy. Initiatives got little support and most members simply wanted to get everything spoon-fed without making any effort to put anything back in. Around 70 people out of over 1100 could be bothered to vote in council elections, and when just 62 participated in a CiB-sponsored communications survey in the Autumn I really felt I was wasting my time. I had little enough of that time available anyway, so putting CiB on the back burner wasn't hard.

Finally, 2007 saw the usual tale of projects that started but got pulled; late payments and mounting costs. I'll need to review my rates early this year, since they haven't really changed for rather too long now, while all of my costs have spiralled. The present government has made it harder and more expensive to run a business, and too much of my time is spent on bureaucracy when I should be earning money. We may well face a consumer recession this year, and I'm genuinely apprehensive about how the credit crunch will affect this distant link on the business food chain.

However, I'm going into 2008 with a good pipeline, strong contacts and enough nous to get me through any potential tough times.

Anyway, I hear the call of squabbling kids....

I could have been a contender

So the realities of combining a busy work period with MA studies well and truly kicked in yesterday - alongside the slightly strange diversion of finally having my Mastermind show aired. I could have been a contender, in fact I was, but the chance for glory withered quickly as I rather mucked up my specialist subject: SP Koralev.

For the millions who didn't see it, if they had been handing out medals, I just missed bronze......sounds good 'til you realise each heat is a four horse race! Actually, if I'd have been on the heat shown last week, I would have finished second. But this time round, the standard was higher; I messed up two pronunciations on my specialist subject, and missed a couple of gifts on the general knowledge round. But that's what the pressure of sitting in the black chair under the spotlight does: realistically, I should have scored 21. My final score was 17. It was academic anyway as the lady who won romped home with 26 points. Still, my mum was proud, and rang me after last night's show to say I looked nice on the telly!

I only just made it home to see the show. My morning had been spent trying to advance projects on three fronts, while I attended my first lecture as an MA student as my globalisation module kicked in.

Work was frustrating. I'm about to hand my main summer project back in house - the original 15 days consultancy has been 23 so far but progress has been painful. We've made strides in some parts of the project, but mere shuffles in others. Too many meetings and not enough action, but this phase is finally coming to a close. It has the potential to be successful - but not if the client continues to rely on external consultants to deliver the outcomes. That won't happen: it has to be owned in-house.

While I've just finished one of my regular publications, the other is proving very slow this time round. It's not the client's highest priority, so isn't getting the push yet from in-house. It will - but occasions like yesterday when I had a telecon booked and interviewees from within the client didn't call are the bane of a small business' life. I was more narked about the fact that hanging around for the call that never came almost made me late for uni - and I was certainly too late to pick up my car parking permit, so I had to park miles away.

My first session at Brunel was an eye-opener. My course mates on this module come from Saudi Arabia, China, the US, Pakistan, the Ukraine, Russia, Japan, Poland, Nigeria, Ghana and Sheffield. It's fantastic to have such a global mix, though it's clear that there may be some difficulties in language and ways of working. How ironic that in starting to study globalisation together, we're not on a level playing field - though I suspect the intellectual high ground in our class may not reside in the G8.

My own concern is just how theoretical the course will be. I've spent 20 years in the applied world, and just getting my head around the language of theory is challenging.

Anyway, a busy day all round and I slept soundly last night. Too much work to do today to stop and think, before an evening flight to Dublin for the first of two trips this week....I suspect I'll be reading a lot about globalisation in the airport lounge....!

I blame it all on Anne Robinson

This week marks the start of a new way of working for me. More than 22 years after graduating, I'm starting on an MA in International Relations at Brunel University.

On Monday, I spent several hours with my tutor and some of my new colleagues. Those I've met so far are from China, the US, Iraq and the Caribbean - a suitably international mix in a very ethnically diverse university. Yesterday, the pro vice chancellor informed us that the university's 15,000-strong student body encompassed 112 nationalities.

As I worked my way through a seemingly endless round of queues to enrol as a student and get all my necessary permissions and paraphernalia yesterday, I talked to students from Iran, Turkey, China, Nigeria, Ghana, the US and Finland. Barring about three others spotted on the horizon, all had something in common - they're so young.

The majority of people enrolling yesterday were post-grads, but most had come straight from completing their undergraduate studies - so were mid-20s at the oldest. And there was a fair sprinkling of fresh-faced late teens embarking on their undergraduate careers - something I did a generation ago back in 1982......it's simply so last century.

So there's me: 43 years old and 22 years out of academic rigour. It's going to be a tough transition from my normal world of corporate comms and journalism to the gilded plateau where theory outweighs application.

So why am I doing it? Blame Anne Robinson, blame the BBC - I might even blame my kids.

I've always thought I was reasonably bright, but a woolly thinker. However, I've always had a head for facts and a pragmatic means of linking information. This led to me shouting a lot at TV quiz shows and ultimately to appearing on and indeed winning Anne Robinson's BBC quiz - the Weakest Link.

And that's where I peaked...and that's probably where I should have left things. But I didn't. Three drivers marked my next moves: first, to write seriously about stuff I enjoy; second, to indulge my TV-wannabeness and third, to find an outlet for my schoolboyesque fascination with the Space Race.

One and three started to come together - but it took two to provide a temporary purpose. I decided to start researching historical narrative pieces on some of the key anniversaries of the space programme, with the view of getting some pieces published and earning a little bit of money. I've had some small successes but not enough to put all the corporate comms stuff on hold. But this time last year, driver number two took over.

I applied for Mastermind and was selected as a contender for the 2007 series. That meant structuring my research on a particular topic - SP Koralev in my case, for two minutes in the famous black leather chair. The result of my labours will be on TV next week and, I'm sure, mark the end of my life on TV.

The show was recorded in March and its conclusion meant I no longer had compelling reason to read and study the history and politics of the cold war that had so absorbed me for the previous few months.

But it got me thinking that maybe I could expand my very narrow focus and put what little knowledge I have and the lot of interest behind it to good use. So, I came along to a Brunel open day, spent three hours chatting to tutors about everything from Khruschev's drinking habits to the Baltimore Orioles. That led to submitting an application form which, to my surprise, led to an offer.

Now, that offer is real, and I spent the early part of this morning reading an introduction to the competing theories of International Relations. It's a long time since I've dealt in theories, and it's really going to be a stretch this term to absorb what's a new field for me and to structure my own thoughts coherently around it. And, unlike most of my colleagues on the course, I'm doing it part time, while still attempting to work for up to 30 hours a week.

The new way of working - at least 'til Christmas - sees me in college on a Monday and Friday with most work squeezed into Tues-Thurs. It also sees a reading hour in the morning and evening every day - discipline that doesn't come naturally.

I have to say I'm daunted but excited too. Where it will lead to...well, I'm leaving that open. But I still reckon Anne Robinson has a lot to answer for.

Eight days, and counting

In eight days time I'll be facing John Humphrys across a darkened Mastermind studio and spouting my knowledge - or lack of it - about Soviet rocket engineer Sergei Pavlovich Korolev.

It's getting close now and the gaps in my knowledge appear to be widening not shrinking.

I operate best as a storyteller and can spin the yarn of the Chief Designer's life and achievements until the cows have probably circled the earth many more times than Yuri Gagarin (...well ok, he only went round once, and didn't actually complete a full orbit). Where it all goes hazy is on two fronts: dates and science...a bit of a handicap methinks.

If I'm asked questions about the key facts and personalities around SP's life, about Sputnik, Vostok, the R7, Voskhod and the N1, fine. If it's stuff around the chemical formula in the mix of Gluschko's rocket engines, or the precise apogee of Sputnik 5, there'll be a fair few passes.

I'm under no illusions about my Mastermind appearance: my delight (and slight terror) is just making it to the show. When I did the Weakest Link, I felt I could win and most certainly wanted to. I will be VERY VERY fortunate to get beyond my Mastermind heat, and could very easily finish a distant fourth.