So what’s the deal? #
Well, it’s been a very long time (over 10 years) since I had a blog up online. Life takes over (Partner), you get into new tech (Cloud), get a new job (Cardiff Uni) and you make the decision to drop something because your time is spent elsewhere. A number of things were dropped at the time, and my blog was one of them.
What have I been doing? #
In 2014 I joined Cardiff University as a Microsoft 365 Engineer, helping to finish up the migration from Lotus Notes to Exchange Online, and quickly became engrossed in the technology and the job. During my time there I learned a lot from my colleagues and mentors, and not just on the technical side; I learned a great deal about the softer side of my role; service management, customer management/engagement and what is now called User Centred Design. I’ll touch more on UCD in a blog post.
I would have to say that the most important takeaway from my time with the University is a deep passion, a calling, if you will, to help others achieve their goals through the use of technology, such as providing services to students to help them study, give them the means to make earning their degrees that little bit easier. And it was not just the students of course; providing help through technology to staff and academics so that they could in turn do the work they needed to do.
After heading up the Cloud Services team at the Uni for the 3 years leading up to 2022 I felt it was time to progress my career, and to do so I had to move on. I took a Microsoft Solutions Lead role with a private company at the start of 2022, but I quickly realised that working in the private sector was not for me. My time at the University had changed me, and I was no longer comfortable with the pursuit of improvements/productivity just to make the company more profitable; I needed to help people.
In the summer of 2022 I saw the M365 Lead Solutions Architect role become available at the NHS, and I knew it was the role for me, I had to have it. The technology and the chance to help others fit perfectly with my skills and ethos! I was ecstatic to be offered the role after a gruelling interview process and I started in September of 2022.
The learning has not eased up, in fact it’s gone through the roof! Learning a whole new sector from scratch is always a big task, and NHS Wales is not a small entity. I am definitely loving the challenge, and I am really getting stuck in and trying to design technological solutiuons for the team and the wider NHS to make everyones lives easier.
Work/Life Balance #
Since my recent ADHD diagnosis, I am beginning to understand my drives, quirks and how these can affect my personal life. So, in an attempt to ensure I have a work/life balance, especially with my health (which you can read about here), I am trying to get back to working on my own little projects, spending time with friends and family and generally having those “I’m not in work” moments of life.
One of those little tasks is to get a blog back up online and start turning all the years worth of notes and scribbles into somethign a little more coherent. So here we are.
