At age 21, I started working as a contract Trainer traveling around the UK, teaching people courses such as “How to use the Internet“, “Office VBA Programming“, “Lotus SmartSuite Scripting“, “Domino Administration“, the original “MCSD” and “MCSE” 5-day classes, as well as good old “Netware Administration and Setup“. Oh, the days of building COAX networks!!!

I enjoyed doing it, traveling was the boring sometimes, but I got to travel the length and breadth of the UK, and then multiple countries in Europe. Standing in a class and teaching made the travel not so bad. Since then I have moved through various roles and positions, but in reality looking back nearly 20 years later I have only ever worked for a couple of companies. I worked at “Lynx IT Training” as a trainer for three years, then moved into the corporate parent “Lynx Technology” which was then acquired and became part of “British Telecom.” This change meant I was on the road for about five years straight, leaving on most Sunday evenings and coming back on Friday evenings after being away all week. Those were the days of being under the Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS) Umbrella as an Orange Badge. Great times, big and complicated projects, great things for my career but not so good for the family though. I stayed in this role for almost ten years, then made the big decision to move to the US, to be part of “SusQtech,” which was later acquired by “Protiviti.”

I have only worked at a few places as I enjoyed my time working with the teams and clients. Over the past few months, things have changed I have been wondering what is next for me. I enjoy “Protiviti” and the work I have been able to do with them (and previously SusQtech) over the past almost ten years, but the time has come for a change. I started my work career working for myself, then enjoyed the benefits of being employed, and now it is time to go it alone again and work for myself. I have thought about it many times over the last few years but never made the decision. I realized that I would probably be annoyed with myself in another 5 or 10 years if I did not try it and see how it goes.

So officially today is my first day of working for myself. I am now the proud owner of SharePlicity. The idea behind the name comes from “Sharing” and “Simple“. Too often finding the right information or expertise is overly complicated, my goal was to make that easy and simple. I also decided that as part of this, I wanted to not only do normal work to pay my bills but also give back where possible. That is the goal of “SharePlicity Technology Education“, which will focus on teaching kids STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) skills. I am going to start small by doing an after-school club for Elementary age kids and then see where it can go from there. (no websites yet)

 

And there we have it, it has been a stressful time getting things ready, and I am still nervous about the unknown but excited that I get to be at home more which is the goal of making these changes. I will again be doing some of the same work I have in the past, also still doing the Online Video Training (Pluralsight & Opsgility), which I enjoy, as well as content writing and general consulting. I will also be speaking at some conferences still, so you can’t get rid of me yet 🙂

Anyway if you are reading this, then you probably already know me and know what I can do, so if you need anything, let me know. If you want to work together with me, I would love the chance, if not no worries; we can still be friends. I am excited, nervous, worried but optimistic that it will work better for me and my family.