My Fave Iron Maiden Songs

I need to list my Top 10 Iron Maiden songs, in order at some time.

The list is likely to include:

• The Trooper 
• Number of the Beast
• Hallowed Be Thy Name
• Iron Maiden
• Rime of the Ancient Mariner
• Phantom of the Opera
• Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
• Man on the Edge
• Transylvania (might come as a surprise to many)

I have noticed that this only goes up to the mid 90s, gonna have to listen to some of their later stuff as there are some good tunes in there.

Ooo. Wicker Man, Hell on Earth, The Writing on the Wall.

But I will listen to albums from the last 20 years before I make my final decision.

Up The Irons

Careful, Not Germaphobic

I don’t think I’m a germaphobe, but I do like to have hand sanitiser close by. I did long before the Covid pandemic too, a trait my daughter Emily seems to have inherited. Sorry, Em.

I’m not frightened of germs, but I am very aware of them. There are certain family homes where I struggle to eat because I’m never completely confident about the cleanliness. That seems fairly logical to me. I don’t particularly want to spend the following day ill because somebody picked their nose, handled food without washing their hands, or skipped the handwashing after going to the toilet. Disgusting.

I’m wary of homemade food from some friends and neighbours too, particularly when children have been heavily involved in making it. I know that probably sounds harsh, but children aren’t exactly famous for excellent kitchen hygiene.

I’m not a germaphobe. I’m just careful about germs, as we probably all should be.

Why I Like Working in a Small Business

I currently work in a small business, and there are a few reasons why I really enjoy it.

Firstly, the role is varied. I work in marketing, but because we’re a small business, everyone sometimes has to pitch in. On any given day, I could also find myself helping with IT, sales, customer service, product data or something else entirely. It keeps the job interesting, and you tend to learn far more than you would if you stayed inside a narrow job description.

Secondly, there’s the level of involvement. A small tweak to what you do, how you do it or, in my case, how you promote a product, can make a real and sometimes immediate difference to sales and profit. You can often see the effect of your work quite quickly, which makes it feel more worthwhile.

Finally, innovation is welcomed. Good ideas don’t always have to pass through endless layers of management, meetings and approval. If something looks worth trying, there’s often a genuine opportunity to test it, learn from it and put it into practice.

I Dominated Google for 13 years!

I’ve just revisited an old post I wrote about bad SEO promises, and discovered that it’s now 13 years old.

The post used a completely invented word, fuzzyalarmzip, to show how easy it can be to rank number one on Google for a keyword nobody actually searches for.

Thirteen years later, I’m still number one.

So there we are: 13 years of dominating Google, absolutely no competition, and almost certainly no useful traffic whatsoever. Get me, I'm great at this SEO stuff :-)

It may be an extreme example, but the point still stands. A number-one ranking means very little if nobody is searching for the phrase, or if the traffic it brings has no value.

Possibly the most successful useless SEO campaign of all time.

Proud of Them

I’m sure my kids already know this, but it still feels right to write it down.

I’m totally and utterly proud of the way they’ve both turned out, Emily and Rebecca. We’ve had our ups and downs, and sometimes we don’t talk for a while, but they have their own lives to live, and they’re getting on with living them.

Yeah, I’m really pleased with how they’ve turned out.

200 Posts In

Actually, this makes it 203, but who’s counting?

I’ve reached a 200-post milestone that didn’t even exist when I started putting this Digital Garden, or personal wiki, together. I had no idea how many posts I would end up creating, but here we are, so I thought I’d write this little retrospective.

When I started, I thought I might find the whole process difficult. Thinking of things to write about, turning those thoughts into something readable, then finding the confidence to publish them. Instead, the freedom of having a Digital Garden has made it surprisingly easy.

Ideas for posts and notes come from all over the place. It might be bringing together research I already had about my great-grandfather, Herbert Henry Scaife, or looking into a long-gone brewery near where I now live.

Sometimes it’s about the strange sayings and television quotes that have worked their way into our everyday lives, such as The Lines That Stuck. Sometimes it’s documenting a journey, whether that’s our possible move to Spain or keeping a record of my Pinter brewing times.

Then there are the silly little notes about things I don’t want to forget.

The content has come from lots of different places, and I love the variety of things that pass through our minds every day. I’m just happy that I’ve now got somewhere to capture some of them.

I used to keep many of my notes in Google Keep, but putting them here feels much more liberating. They’re no longer hidden away in a private list that I’ll probably never look at again. They’ve become part of something bigger, connected to other thoughts and memories, and the act of writing them down properly has possibly helped me remember them a little better too.

The garden has also slowly taught me that not everything has to be perfect.

In my professional life, I don’t publish anything until I’m 110% happy with it. Every word, fact and detail has to be checked, tweaked and checked again. That approach has its place, particularly at work, but it can also stop you from putting anything out at all.

This Digital Garden has reminded me that sometimes it’s better to just put something live. A small idea can begin as a seed, develop into a sprout, then eventually become a flower: a fully formed post that probably doesn’t need much more tweaking.

Or perhaps it never grows beyond being a seed. That’s fine too.

I also think this Digital Garden could become one of the most important things I leave behind. My children aren’t particularly interested in it right now, and I don’t blame them, but perhaps one day, when I’m long gone, they’ll start wondering what I did, what I cared about and what went through my head.

Well, kids, it’s all here.

I think that idea of leaving something behind has become one of the main reasons I want to keep writing. So, 203 posts in, there’s plenty more still to come.

Why I’ve Fallen in Love With Data

At work, I’ve fallen in love with data.

That might sound strange because I’ve dealt with data throughout my marketing career. I’ve been responsible for collecting it, managing it, presenting it and using it, so why the sudden love-in?

I think there are a couple of reasons. Firstly, over the past few years I’ve come to realise just how important accurate product data is to us, our customers and the construction industry as a whole.

Years ago, I attended a marketing summit where a small part of the discussion covered compliance. One thought from that session has always stayed with me: when people don’t know exactly what products they’re specifying, buying or using, the consequences can be far more serious than an incorrect description on a website.

I think I now fully embrace that idea. I want the way we describe, represent and present our products to be as accurate as possible. I question things, challenge information and sometimes examine the smallest details with what might be described as slightly irritating persistence.

That tenacity has helped stop us launching a couple of products that could potentially have been dangerous, though, so I can live with occasionally annoying my colleagues.

It also means that every product requiring a Safety Data Sheet should have one that is accurate, up to date and written to current, and where possible future, standards. Virtually every product should also have a Technical Data Sheet explaining clearly how it should be used safely and correctly.

So yes, right now I’m having a deep and unapologetic love affair with data.

AI: Not Just For Search

 AI isn’t just a different way of doing a Google search.

In a commercial setting, the real value is in using it to do business better. It’s about looking at those tedious, repetitive tasks and asking whether AI could take some of the weight off us.

Sometimes it’s worth thinking a little wider and asking, “Could AI do this for us?” Because quite often it either can do what you need, or it can become a big enabler for doing important business tasks better, faster, or with less friction.