Bringing The Internet Into The Real World

Censorship Or Protecting Society?
(Image © Andréia Bohner)

A couple of weeks ago, the government announced that it wanted to bring in changes to access to online porn. Last week, there has been media coverage of 'trolling', where twitter users have threatened female politicians, celebrities and campaigners with rape, assault and even death. And then this week, the case of a young teenager who took her life after abuse on a social media site.

As the technological age continues, as the Internet and online access runs our lives more and more, something needs to be done. When the Internet was developed, core to it was a belief that freedom of information was imperative. That it should be above censorship and would enable knowledge, information to be passed across the world. This concept though has led to an out of control beast - one though which runs our lives and we cannot avoid. We are still applying laws, views and principles that seemed laudable in the eighties and even nineties to something which has developed at an exponential rate and is now so integrated into our culture and life styles that it  has a whole different function to that which was envisaged.

To be clear, the Internet, online access and the ability to share information is a great thing. It has, and will do more dramatically in future, transformed the way in which we work, play and interact with each other. It is vital though that is has some measure of control though. At least in the areas that we can manage.

I am entirely in favour of reducing censorship. Countries where news is filtered, edited even, to aid the control of populations and the abuse of human rights should be targeted at international level in order to allow for freedom of information and the exchange of knowledge. This however feels very different to the management of the Internet which is what the current crisis needs. It's a shame that at times like this, the dissenters always argue at the extreme of the discussion, on one side a belief that all restrictions amount to censorship and that to bow to restrictions makes the UK no better than North Korea or the Yeman. On the other side of the debate, the Daily Mails "stance of close this site now" requests censorship rather than control.

Those who argue that censorship of the Internet is wrong should perhaps look at what has (or indeed hasn't )changed in society over the past twenty to thirty years. When I was at school, a teenager, full of curiosity and hormones, the only access to porn that we had was learning that Mike in year four had his brothers mag and was willing to sell, or (rather worryingly now) rent it out! Access was rare, restricted and was to controlled top shelf images. That was because in those days, the regular channel of access to porn was that an adult needed to buy a magazine from a shop. The law stated that one had to be over 18 to buy one and therefore access was restricted. In essence censorship was in place. With the development of the Internet, all that has changed. To access porn now, all one needs is access to the Internet, a phone, tablet or pic and you are there. So, just because the the ability to access porn has changed, why should we have relaxed our view that only those over 18 should be allowed to purchase (or indeed access) it? Have we really changed our attitudes to porn that much in twenty years that we now think it is a child's right to access it? I am thinking not. And this is where the change in supply, the change in channels of access have become confused with the original ethical argument. Whilst there are always going to be debates around the edges around the images that are classed as pornographic, the images that are extreme, surely our fundamental principle that porn should not be viewed by kids is still valid and held by the majority? I'm assuming so. Indeed the governments approach to this in my mind doesn't go far enough. I think the government, the ISPs and parents should be doing far more to ensure that access to porn is limited.

The argument that introducing restrictions to the accessing of pornographic material is a slippery slope toward government censorship is a naive one. It ignores the fact that there are already restrictions in place. Thankfully it would be an extremely small group that condoned child porn images being accessible. The vast majority would agree that severe penalties should be in place for those making, distributing or accessing such content. But that's a restriction. That's censorship. Possibly to a lesser extent (although not much) most of us will have a threshold around which extreme images should be accessible (and to who). Again, as soon as one sets a threshold, that's censorship.

Similarly with trolling. One is not allowed to make threats to kill, rape or harm when in a pub, the street or anywhere else. This applies to verbal and written threats. So this should apply to the Internet as well. If someone makes a threat to harm another, they should be dealt with in the same way as if they did it face to face. I would argue that the effect on the victim is the same and that is the key. ISPs, governmental organisations and the big social network organisations need to do more to ensure that anonymity is no more a cloak online as it is in the 'real world'. If I received an anonymous threat in the post, I would expect the police to follow it up. My view is that twitter, Facebook and google should not be the police in this, they should be able to work with the police and provide evidence of threats, details of ip addresses, ISPs etc.In fact, ISPs and social network sites should have it in their terms and conditions that they will pass your details on in the event of a police investigation. The policing of this though should remain where it is in the 'real world'  and we need to be aware that that will require extra resources. Indeed the faster that we accept the the Internet is part of the 'real world' and not something to control or police differently we take a significant step forward in the understanding of this problem.

A government  sets restrictions on what we can and cannot see. They set restrictions on what we can and cannot do. The great thing about the democracy that we live in is that we have the power to change those levels of restrictions through our vote. That's not the same as censoring the media or the Internet. That's just common sense to create the right level of restrictions to enable society to function in a just and fair way.

My argument here then is really that censorship of supply is nothing new. Laws which have been in place for years to protect principles around porn, slander, threats to harm were not seen as censorship then. And they shouldn't be now. It's only because the channel of communication has changed that they are being viewed as such. When one examines the reasons behind restrictions being in place twenty years ago and the reasons now, I would argue that little has changed. The reasons remain the same.

There is a desperate need for a privacy debate in this country. A need for a debate about whetehr principles have really changed that much from twenty years ago. A need to understand how much we control where we are going. The technology could drive us or we could drive it. My vote is with the latter.

The Politics of Greed

I note a number of stories about politicians again in the media over the past few weeks. The first was based around whether it was right that they were given a 10 per cent pay rise, the other notable one was the headlines about our Prime Minister being off on his 'jollies'.

The debate over the pay rise quickly moved away from the point. The difficulty in granting such a pay rise at a period when public sector pay rises have been largely frozen should have been the main discussion point. However, the talk quickly descended into an argument about MPs being lazy, greedy and corrupt. A theme the media love to take up even though the evidence is barely there to support it. A it's simplest level, the vast majority of MPs could hold down senior executive roles in FTSE companies. The latest pay rise will put them roughly  at the bottom of this pay range. In short there are easier ways for talented people to make money.

Is Cameron no longer allowed on holiday?
(Image © BisGovUK 2013)

To take the laziness argument first. MPs work hard. I would love to know what the man in the street who states otherwise is comparing it to. Long hours, extreme constant scrutiny and high stress doesn't strike me as an easy life. Attending Westminster and working for the party alongside the constituency business means seriously long hours accompanied by the logistical difficulties of high degree of travel. A Hansard study of new MPs conducted in 2011 highlighted the disparity between needing to spend the majority of time on constituency business with the fact that around 65 per cent of time is spent in Westminster. The study picked up on an average 69 hour working week. This compares for instance to an average of 57 for a secondary school Head-teacher  The reality though for both these roles is that one is permanently working. Always on call, always available. What any of the detractors fail to grasp, sitting in their 9 to 5 roles is that there is no turn off point. One hears comments on long holidays (from Westminster) which ignore the point that that is generally focused constituency time rather than time spent in the sun. 

The holiday comment is also worth pursuing in more detail. Pictures of David Cameron covered  the tabloid press last week. The Mail reported that he "relaxed in a restaurant" and quoted a Labour MP who said "Britain Deserved More". Meaning what? They deserve someone who doesn't take a holiday? Is that now the view of the opposition? That we are more effective without holidays? That's moving quite a long way from protecting workers. I'm guessing that that isn't really the view of Labour, guessing in fact it's not really the view of the media either and that holidays are still allowed for the 'hard working family' and guessing that its just an easy bandwagon topic to roll out in the quiet summer months. It also ignores the fact that people who operate at this sort of level don't really get holidays as the rest of us know them. Yes, they get away to the sun, even spend time having a meal in a restaurant, being romantically  photographed by paparazzi. But they don't stop, always on call or in Cameron's case, constantly being briefed and updated on the latest situations. Different location doesn't mean he stops working.

Then the corrupt piece. There is an argument that says that the MP should be beyond reproach. That they should be perfect in every aspect of their professional and personal lives. This doesn't merely even apply to the time they serve in parliament but to anything they may have done in their youth. Of course a criticism of MPs is that they are distant from reality, that they don't reflect the lives of their constituents. These, I am guessing, are people who never make mistakes, never have affairs and are similarly beyond reproach? You really can't have it both ways. In the Hansard study, the vast majority of canvassed MPs said the role was having a detrimental effect on their private lives. Worth noting that any role that has such a significant effect on private lives, especially combined with late hours and working away from home is likely to create am environment where MPs form extra marital relationships to help them cope or to escape.  One of the areas most frowned on (and sensationally reported on) of course by our impeccably well behaved media. 

The recent expenses crisis of course highlighted some of the worst practices of the MPs. Although interestingly the reality was that only very few actually broke rules. It highlighted antiquated rules, established practices and quite rightly prompted a remodelling of the expenses procedures. Those that did have been rightfully prosecuted and most have stepped down. They represent a tiny proportion of the whole. Probably one that is in line with (or even less than) a comparable sample of expense fraud in any corporate.  

But it created a view that the tabloid media have been keen to further. The view that politicians do it for the easy life, that they do it for the money. Neither bears out in reality. Long hours, always on duty.  The constant threat of exposure in the media for the slightest mistake all with low comparative renumeration. That's not an easy life, it's certainly not the way to make the most money.

Most MPs enter politics with the aim to make things better. To fight for principles that they firmly believe in. To make their country a better place. In my dealings with politicians, that never changes. Like anyone in any organisation, corporate or public, they get weighed down by the internal politics, the bureaucracy and the sheer effort involved in actually achieving what should be small tasks. But my experience is that that desire to do ones best always remains. 

It's a tough job, one I would certainly never want to do. It isn't by any means an easy life, there are better ways of making money. It also has a unique characteristic in that in theory, if you find enough people who think you would do a better job, you could do it. Mind you, that's quite a lot of effort. Maybe it's easier to go on holiday.


Sources: 
BBC report on Hansard study
Guardian comparison between teachers and MPs working hours 
Best Paid Jobs League Table  

I Have The Hardest Job In The World And I Love It...

Becoming a father was probably the biggest single event of my life. It was also the one that I was most unprepared for. And it definitely ranks up there as one of the hardest things I have ever done. Coming up to the event there was no shortage of people telling me that my life is going to change, people try to explain it to you but you just shrug it off. Yeah, I know I won't go out as much, won't be able to just think of myself. I saw all these warnings in a self centred  selfish manner. The changes I was expecting were based on sacrificing, time, leisure interests, money, my wife. All things to do with me - all things that were hard in one sort of way but kind of missing the point. 

"The Most Difficult Job In The World"

So why is it so hard? What could be worse than those warnings about losing your life as you know it? Its tough to explain but the change arises from the constant self doubt. The constant self examination and focus on how good a parent you are being. Every decision I make now has an impact on two other people. Two other people who still look to me with a kind of trusting awe. A confidence that I know what I am doing, that it is a given that I understand parenting - I am of course 'The Daddy'. Nothing can be further from the truth. Every decision (well most at least) carry the nagging doubt of whether you are doing this right. Will a decision now reoccur in their minds in thirty years time? Am I  really making the best decisions for them all the time.

Of course you can only do your best. And actually, your best is always good enough. But you want to be perfect. You start to remember every telling off, every comment that your dad made to you - however small. You stop remembering the rest  - the background of love and guidance that create what you are now. Tiny events come back to me every day now, when I was told off for something, when my mum or dad made a flippant comment to me. I know my kids will get to the same and it's odd to know that the tiniest comments or decisions may come back to stick in their minds in the future. 

Having said that, I love it. It's the best job in the world. (Yes even better than Project Management - although there are similarities!) It drives my thoughts and my emotions pretty much all the time. Good times with the kids leaves you on a high. The tough times really hit you. But to see them grow up and start to form their own personalities, knowing that they are (hopefully not too much but) partially shaped by you and the way that you have approached the role is amazing.

To see things you value reflected through their eyes - with their own individual take on life matching their experiences to your core values is great to watch. Finding that narrow path between gentle guidance and letting them find their own way is taxing but the rewards are massive. Seeing your children develop and start to get a sense of humour, an individual personality and even the 'attitude' makes you realise how difficult it is to shape themselves in the modern world. All you can do is set an example, relate to them and understand that to develop we all need to make mistakes. To make a mistake and change your behaviour because of it creates the ultimate learning experience.

Your kids, more than anyone else provide an unconditional two way love. They 'arrive' with that trust built in or in my case looking to trust someone who would offer them love in return. They assume that you understand what you are doing. They are confused when you admit that you've made a mistake, that you don't have the answers all the time. But through thick and thin, through the tantrums, the good times and the tough ones, at the base level their is always that bond between you. One that ultimately can never really be broken

It's hard but the rewards are amazing. It has changed my life in a way that is impossible to explain. It goes so fast and throughout all the self doubt, throughout all the tough bits, through the sacrifices that we must make to succeed,  I need to remember to savour the memories and remember that overall to do the best you can is always the only way forward.

"You Are Not Like A Project Manager, You Have Common Sense."

I recently overheard a senior manager saying to one of the new project managers "I like you. You are not like a project manager, you have common sense." I have long thought that the key differentiator between a standard project manager and a great project manager is just that. Being confident about when to call something, when to use one of the tools and techniques and when, dare I say it, to take a short cut.

Project Management is really 
just about common sense
(Image © Scott Marshall www.lumaxart.com/)

When I started contracting, I was determined not to just fall straight back into one of the clients that I had had in my consultancy days. I was confident that those relationships would always be there to fall back on but that I needed to prove myself as being able to source new clients first. A tough few weeks followed where I learnt a great deal about the way that agents seek to find and place clients and the dramatic difference between that process and delivering what the client needed.

One of the most telling things though was the obsession with qualifications. To a certain extent, that in itself didn't worry me. It was the focus on qualifications that ensured that you understood a process rather than understood project or indeed programme management. At that point, I had a thorough grounding in various in house corporate methodologies, was PMP trained (in the era when passing the PMP qualification was backed by an audit of experience rather than the more diluted version that exists now) but didn't have the Prince 2 qualification.

I had worked on P2 projects, indeed had two elapsed years experience of this gathered over eight years. However I didn't have the qualification itself. £1000 pounds lighter after a four day course, I was the proud owner of a Prince 2 practitioner certificate and just four days later  landed my first freelance role with full responsibility for managing a multiple million pound public sector project.

I was aware even then that that qualification had got me the role. Or at the very least had got me the interview. My problem with this is that I had obtained the certificate in four days, could probably have gained it in one and it didn't make me a better project manager. Indeed as the trainer repeatedly said, the easiest way to pass the exam was to park all your knowledge and experience at the door, learn the process and the products and recite it parrot fashion in the exam.  Nothing then that made me, or demonstrated that I was a better project manager than the next cv. In fact entirely the opposite.

My difficulty with this approach is that it creates robots. It creates project managers that merely follow process. Of more concern is that it creates project managers who cannot cope with any situation which falls outside if this process. Any decision that may need to be made quickly to avoid massive potential cost impact for instance gets shoe horned into the best available model. If the robot follows the model, they won't get into trouble. Chances are they won't get the project delivered either of course. Organisations are desperately keen to jump on the bandwagon of the process based approach. It enables them to create low cost project managers who can follow an easily assured, easily monitored process. It also kills dynamism, kills and tenacity or desire to drive projects through aggressively and above all it kills common sense.

I am not advocating that we aim to deliver projects without process. The project management products that Prince, PMP and the internal corporate methodologies are built around are the backbone of good project management. The stages of projects by which organisations manage their programmes and projects are powerful from a decision making point of view, an assurance ability and for communication. Every project needs a project plan, every project should be driven by risks and issue registers. Every project needs clear success criteria and scope.

However these are merely the toolkit to project management. Every project manager should have this toolkit to deliver their projects. There are too many project managers, too many organisations that believe that that toolset provides the ability to make decisions, to prioritise, to judge and manage the risks and issues and to ultimately deliver the project. One wouldn't employ a carpenter to craft a high end piece by merely looking into his van, noting his tools and assuming he was good. Yet this is how many companies choose their project managers. A graduate entrant is sent on a Prince course and is given the in house tailoring of that methodologies and is then a Project Manager.

The real skill of successful project management is knowing how light or deep to go into the processes. Knowing which particular tool to use and to what degree in any given circumstance. It's in using that common sense for every issue, thinking outside the box, outside the regimented discipline of the methodologies in order to get things delivered that the true skills lie. Too often I find 'project managers' who are keen to hide behind the process, indeed feel safe in not looking for the quick way to work through an issue because they are protected by the internal process.

The Influx Of Project Managers Into Project Management

With the current economic climate which has resulted in high level professionals suddenly finding themselves unemployed, it's not surprising that the number of 'project managers' offering themselves for work on a contract basis has gone through the roof. I differentiate here between IT/ Business Project Managers and Project Management within the construction sector which I see as a very different role - and one that I don't think has suffered the same dramatic increase in supply. The increase in supply has led to a decrease in average project management rates but also a decrease in quality delivered to clients. Ironically, as I will expand on later, this has led to an increase in the rate card for those at the top end of the spectrum.

Taking the courses won't make you a Project Manager
(Image © Anne Davis Flickr)

So why the decrease in quality? To enter the contract world, the majority of professionals are fairly confident of their ability to deliver and are probably joining the lifestyle from a position of some seniority. I have indeed come across several who have been former clients, formerly managing groups of contractors on behalf of their organisation. So these are often senior management calibre. They enter the contract market and pick on the rather generic title of project manager as it seems like a pseudonym for someone who just gets stuff done. How difficult can it be? Find the end objective and work out how to get there. Simple. 

There are two main reasons why this type of contractor finds it tricky to succeed. The first is the corporate model, the second is that project management isn't merely another term for senior manager. It takes a certain type of person and takes a certain group of skills which cannot be learnt by taking the standard Project Management courses of PRINCE2 and PMP. 

I strongly believe that project managers within organisations need to be contractors. As soon as one gets to any senior level within an organisation, the corporate mentality takes over. Each individual is incentivised by their career prospects (either in that company or their next step). As a result, almost every move they make, every decision that they take has to be run through a decision tree which says how will this affect my career. How will this affect the corporate relationships that I need to develop to progress my career? For that reason, the decision making process is immediately flawed. A good project manager will be focussed on delivering the scope agreed to the cost agreed in the required timescale. Simple as that. The corporate manager knows too much. At every turn, their are opportunities to flex the scope, decisions which need to be taken in the projects best interests but are taken as a way of advancing the career. Or worse - not taken at all. The contractor doesn't have these ties. He or she is purely incentivised on the delivery of a single (or a group of) projects. They are measured on their ability to control and deliver to the original project constraints (Scope, time, cost). The ex corporate manager would be much better suited to a portfolio management role where they are tasked with balancing the delivery of project with the wider corporate objectives. Two things stop the recently redundant manager doing this though. Firstly, there are few contract roles of this type and to achieve a contract role as a Portfolio manager, ironically the client will generally look for proven experience of delivery as a contractor. Secondly, the very reason that that role suits them is because it should be a corporate role. Therefore they are rarely on the contractor market. Vicious circle.

The best end up establishing themselves in the interim sector of the market, that is performing permanent corporate roles on a temporary basis. The rest try mistakenly to rebrand themselves as project managers, pitch at low rates and then come unstuck once it becomes clear that the difference between the corporate mindset and the contractor mindset is marked.  

Let me be clear here. I am in no way playing down the skill sets of  corporate professionals. To operate for years in the same global corporation, to manage the relationships, the politics to create strategic direction is a much sought after skill set. All I am saying is that it is not one necessarily suited to project management which is where many are repositioning themselves

The flip side of  the massive increase in supply into the project management sphere is the increase in the reliance of clients on recommendation and previous contact. Agencies are swamped by CVs, are targeted by procurement departments to deliver low cost resource but Client Delivery Managers are aware that this low cost approach does not necessarily deliver results. This results in the route to contract changing - agents are now administrative billing functions rather than recruiters but also in the rewards increasing as clients target individuals rather than generic skillsets.

Organisation Is Everything

I am a list person. I'm also a minimalist. Clutter gets me down, whether it's physical clutter at home or on my desk in the office,  e clutter in my inbox, my phone or my tablet or mental clutter. Stuff that messes with my head. It's important that I therefore have an organisation strategy particularly at work. For me that means focussing on the minimalist in me and making sure that everything that comes in goes into it's own place. That 'place' then gets referenced to a task and I know that only when I am on that task do I need to open the particular bucket.

Organisation and Workflow is Key to Success
(Image © Ross Burton. Flickr)

At the centre of everything is my to do list. Until recently, this was a macro driven Excel file but I wanted to move to a cross platform solution. The reason for that is that the best time to organise my to do list, to re-prioritise it or to allocate new tasks was those times when I wasn't at my laptop. Being able to do it on the iPhone or iPad was favourable. For that reason I am using OmniFocus. It's expensive for a simple task list but it does the best job that I have found. I tried outlook but the Mac version is lacking a lot of the viewing capability that the PC version has so that was a no starter. 

As soon as a task pops into my head I will note it in Omnifocus - either on my Mac or one of my devices. I'm not worried at this stage about setting detail just getting it down. At that stage it just goes loose in the Omnifocus inbox.  I should mention that I try not to have my email inbox open all the time. If I am working on a task, I will shut it down although as part of my regular hourly break from any task, I will take 5 minutes out to scan it. Again, any email that cannot be actioned immediately (less than 30 seconds) gets a task assigned to it and either filed in its final destination or filed in my action folder. (The task then associates delivery with an email in that folder). Incidentally, I have a rule which is based on a flag which automatically moves it to the action folder. 

I regularly take time out to review tasks in Omnifocus. At least twice a day - first and last half hour and ensure that they have completed elements for due dates, completion, project and context. I find context particularly useful for meetings with people. Flagging an action as Simon for instance means that as I head off to meet Simon, I can easily identify all the issues that I need to talk to him about. I find allocating to people more effective than the way that Omnifocus advises which is to allocate by location (work, at mac etc)

I take meeting notes using Evernote. Again, this allows me to be cross platform so that I only require my iPad in meetings rather than always lugging my laptop around with me. My Evernote has notebook stacks for each client as well as notebook stacks for personal and corporate entries. Each client stack is broken down into the individual projects that I own. I am quite sparing with tags but use them for anything I am likely to search on in future. The exception to that is any action noted in a meeting is marked as #A so that I know to pick it up as an action.  I have recently become much more disciplined at setting aside a period of time after each meeting to rewrite the notes taken in the meeting and to allocate any actions straight into Omnifocus. If I subsequently want to identify which meeting an action was from I can search on #A (slightly long winded but a rare occurrence) 

In summary then, my process is to put everything immediately in it's place. Have one tool for each part of the process. (I no longer use paper to take notes in meetings for instance). Finally, having the discipline to review the task list at least twice a day and to write up meetings after they have finished. 

Milton Keynes: A City With Heart

Milton Keynes – a city full of roundabouts, a concrete jungle, a stolen football team. The city with no history and no character. That’s the feedback I get when I say I live in Milton Keynes. And yet I love it. I moved here resignedly 12  years ago because it was a hub – it was somewhere where I could work across much of England with little time spent away.

Communications has become one of it’s main attractions, only 40 minutes from London but without the house prices. The ability to move around a large city (sic) easily due to the grid network means that services and attractions are never more than 15 minutes away.

Milton Keynes: Not Just
 Concrete and Roundabouts
(Image © John Laverick, TattyDon)

The bit that most people don’t get about Milton Keynes is the countryside. The city is built around parkland to the extent that you can cycle from one side to the other without crossing a main road.  I’m 40 minutes from London, in a major town and yet am two minutes away from open countryside, from deer, foxes and unlimited walking.

Each residential area of the city is created with parkland and is under the main road grid of the city. This means that each one has a village spirit with a local centre a school and generally a pub. The beauty of this is that you are living in a city but with the community feel of a village where you know everyone, there are support networks and it’s safe for the kids.

The football team, although hated by some because of the manner of it’s creation is great obliquely because of that very fact. The club identified early on that it needed to engage with families due to it not inheriting much of a ‘normal’ football supporter base. The result is a community oriented club that provides a safe, family focused environment and is built on a sustainable base.

Milton Keynes has only been around for forty years, which for a city is a very short time. It is still undergoing huge development and the continuing housing expansion means focus on increased service provision, new schools and new leisure facilities. For these reasons its easy to get involved in the city. It’s easy through local interaction, council posts, school governor posts to get involved and make a difference. The newness of the city means that you can really feel like you are making a difference to the future of the town. A motivating and inspirational thought.

Of all the new towns, Milton Keynes has been the most successful. It works in comparison to Telford for instance because of it’s location, it’s focus on creating a city center (and a corresponding leisure area – the theater district. The town planners have never lost sight of the principles on which it was created: Green space, mixed housing and the ability to walk and ride around the city easily and safely.

Milton Keynes, a town built for the car but offering better cycling and walking opportunities than most traditional cities.

MK Dons and Stagnancy

As the Dons prepare for a sixth consecutive season in league one, you'd be right to wonder where has it all gone wrong. The MK Dons, born in 2004, had a five year plan to be competitive in the championship. Successive years of narrowly missing out on promotion through the play offs has now been replaced by a mid table finish in league one. 

Empty Seats Equals Wasted Revenue
(Image ©Liam Daly: Flickr)

In terms of infrastructure, the club is on track. The stadium is capable of seating 22000 fans and should move to 32000 by the start of next season. The surrounding retail complex moves from strength to strength and has generated  the capital required to move the stadium development forward. The only infrastructure downside is the non completion of the indoor arena. The board and management team look stable and the early commercial naivety seems to have been replaced by a well run club. 

And therein lies the problem. The initial full on challenge  of creating a club from nothing, of creating branding, merchandise, commercial opportunities was clearly a massive task. The club aggressively targeted schools and youngsters in an effort to get kids to drag parents along. They worked hard to create a core set of fans presenting an average attendance of just above 10000 in the 2009/10 season but then no increase. Indeed that average attendance for fallen to c. 8500 for the last three seasons. It feels like the MK Dons Wider Management Team hit a plateau and rather than learning from and improving on the incredible work to produce 10000 regular supporters from (almost) nothing, the club has allowed itself to plateau. 

So where has it gone wrong? To my mind, it's not actually on the pitch. It's down to the level of support or more accurately down to the clubs approach to developing that level of support. MK Dons have consistently been around the 5th most supported club in league one – and have consistently finished in the play off spots i.e. around fifth. One of the dreams of Pete Winkleman was to tap into a 'city' with a population of 250k and without a professional football club. Now I am aware that there is not a direct correlation between support and success but at this level, where money is tight, it makes a massive difference. And it makes even bigger difference if you have the infrastructure already there to support it. The Dons have the seats, the parking, the access routes already there. Each seat filled is (almost) straight profit for the club. 

The MK Dons are odd. We know that. Created from a team which separately created another team meant that there was little support from the start. The concept of a 250k population without a football team to support is slightly flawed. Milton Keynes is a city based on the principle of commuting. From ease of commuting across the city to the strong motorway and train links. The adult football loving element of that  population already had football teams to support and was happy to commute to watch them. They were season ticket holders at Tottenham, Arsenal and Villa amongst others. That left two options to the Dons. Wait a generation of two for MK residents to grow up with a club in their midst and follow it or actively target schools and youth football clubs with the intention that kids would drag parents along and would 'convert' them into season ticket holders. Initially, the dons addressed the second option with gusto and players were regularly seen in schools and involved in the local community events. It worked. 

Since the club developed though – in fact pretty much since the club relocated to Stadium MK, things started to change. A level of arrogance has crept in which now separates the club from its city. It feels to me that the club has gone from actively working to integrate itself into the community to almost moving to a position where MK owes the club a living. The club integrates with youth football and schools through the MK Dons SET scheme and actually does this quite well. Since this was set up though, the gulf between players and schools and youth football teams has actually widened. It is almost as if before SET was running smoothly, the club acknowledged they would have to do some work too. Now it is effective it's like they feel above all that sort of work.

Two things happened recently to support my view. The first was the 'lap of appreciation'. This was the same for the past two years. The players went out on the pitch looking like they would like to be anywhere but there. They completed a lap of half the pitch, rarely venturing closer than 30 yards to the fans. Kids lined the walls at the front, autograph books, shirts and pens at the ready only to be disappointed. Both this year and last, only a couple of players signed any autographs and both times were called in quickly by their teammates. I know they didn't really want to be there. I know it was a disappointing end to the season for them. Wasn't a great end of the season for the fans either that stayed behind. Wasn't a great end to the season for the kids who waited to see their heroes lap of appreciation. The second incident was again a repeat of last year. Last year, after promising a player to attend the presentation day for my local youth football club, noone turned up on the day. Big disappointment for the kids. This year, it proved impossible to get MK Dons to send anyone along to attend (from any level). 

These might seem small events but MK Dons are competing in a market where there is huge peer pressure to support Chelsea, Arsenal or Manchester United. What the Dons have as a massive advantage is the ability to get players in front of children and create a strong link to the club. Whilst it's clear from the arrogance displayed at the 'lap of appreciation' that the players consider themselves to be of Chelsea mystique, sadly they are not. They are playing at the third tier of English football and need to work to ensure that the club retains support. Until the club recognises that the route to future attendances is in it's marketable assets, the players, getting more involved and helping to ensure that kids (and then their parents)  come along, the team won't develop, the seats won't get sold and the players who have got used to the relative luxury of Stadium MK will realise that the third tier will be as far as they can go. 

The Soulmate

The Prologue To My Novel

In life there are a large number of people out there that we can each settle down with and marry. We can live a happy life with that person and remain loyal and caring whilst raising a family. There are also a small number of people out there who have the potential to be your soulmate. 

Everyone has a soulmate
(Image © Esther Simpson)

Your soulmate is someone you immediately 'click' with. Someone who you understand and who understands you. You 'get' their emotions before they need to tell you and know exactly what drives them, what incentivises them in any given situation. By knowing this you can anticipate the pain and the pleasure that they will feel and can positively influence those emotions throughout your life together. 

Sub consciously and through the open conversation that you can only have with that person, you know everything about each other. You fast become each others best friends, someone to rant to, to support and most importantly to listen to. You think about this person when they are not there. The first thing you think of in the morning or if you wake at night. You can't control it. It becomes embedded.

The level of attraction from this decisive click is hugely enhanced. Where physical attraction between two people in the original 'settling down' bracket fades over time as you get used to each other, even take each other for granted, the attraction between soul mates doesn't fade. It's increased by the mental ability to tune in. The fact that someone gets you is immensely attractive and only gets deeper and deeper the longer you spend with that person.

If you ever find one fight really hard to keep them

Kicking Out At Referees

So once again the topic of conversation is not the football match (and thanks goodness for that because there wasn’t a lot to discuss) but is an off the ball, off the pitch incident. Firstly, before anyone gets the wrong end of the stick, Hazard was wrong to kick out and should have been sent off.

The point I want to make is more about perception and reality. I have struggled for a while with how two people can watch an incident on a football field and see it so very differently. To my eye (as a neutral) the ballboy, after tweeting be

The Separation Between Perception
 and Reality Means the Referees
 Role Is Almost Impossible
(Image © Scott Ableman) 

fore the match that he felt it his duty to waste time, lay on the ball to prevent the Chelsea player from getting it. Indeed the same ball boy had previously hugged the ball to his chest at the start of the half and had a similar tussle with a Chelsea player. Hazard then tried to pull the ball off him and frustratedly (and stupidly) kicked at the ball possibly making contact with the ball boy.

Radio five this morning interviewed a Swansea fan who had by her own admission an excellent view of the incident. She told how the poor lad chased after the ball, slipped and landed on top of it whereupon Mr. Hazard proceeded to give him a bit of a kicking.

Clearly two very different views of the incident. I have no evidence but I would think that had the incident been the other way around (with a Swansea player rather than a Chelsea player) she would have seen it very differently.

What  hope does a referee have? A fairly cut and dried incident is seen by a subjective supporter completely differently than by the neutral. I see this at the Dons too. The amount of times I’ve been in a conversation where someone says “Did you see what happened to Lewington?”,with a horrified expression. Generally, this completely misses the fact that our captain has a habit of leaving his foot in or kicking out after a challenge thereby encouraging the reactions that he so often gets. My point is that fans see what they want to see. Which means that referees are seen as having a bad game when they don’t...week in and week out. This happens at all levels. I referee under 10s football. I referee to the best of my ability. If I lean any way at all it would be to favour the opposition rather than my sons team. However, the comments and shouts from parents clearly don’t assume that. Football at all levels works because of referees. Spectators at all levels need to back away a little from the blinding allegiance to their side (even at u10 level) and start looking at incidents with a more objective eye...

Probably slightly more chance of the ball boy making a miraculous recovery...