I was privileged to meet Aaron briefly last year when he brought his Tall Tales From a Big Man tour to Manchester; it was one of the best talks I’ve seen.

Aaron recently presented at a Creative Morning event in Portland Oregon. Take 50 minutes to watch the video, you won’t regret it.

If you have some more time then watch Why America Is Fucked, and for America insert pretty much any country in the Western world.

Oh, and conference organisers – stop booking the usual suspects and book Aaron Draplin.

I was struck by this comment:

thousands of people… working long hard hours, at jobs they hate, to buy things they don’t need, to impress people they don’t like

OK so this is perhaps a little overly dramatic, but it’s not that far from the truth for many people I think.

There’s go to be a better way. Right?

mybarclaycard is Barclaycard’s new online card account management site which launched late last year. I led the User Experience and User Interface design and development*, and believe we created a unique and revolutionary site years ahead of Barclaycard’s competitors.

And so it is nice to see mybarclaycard being recognised, and winning awards in both the financial services and wider design communities.

mybarclaycard won Best Online Initiative at the Card Awards. My favourite comment from the judges was “What everyone else ought to be doing”. Download their full summary.

And mybarclaycard has been commended by Design Week; with Barclaycard the only financial services company nominated.

It is only now I’ve had some space from the project and from the business, and seen the challenges prevalent in other large corporate bodies that I can appreciate just how bold and brave a project mybarclaycard was; especially for a bank.

I’m proud to have been part of the creation of mybarclaycard, and hope that Barclaycard continue to enhance and develop it. I can’t help but think about how awesome a mybarclaycard iPad app could be.

* Flash was not my choice – I was overruled.

Minsk was not what I expected; it felt more like old Europe than old Russia or at least what I imagine old Russia to be like. I’m due to return in April but frankly the fights back were so bad I’m unlikely to; check out the last photo – my knees still hurt.

I should really be getting to bed but thought I’d post this first.

What I hadn’t allowed for when I signed up was starting a new job which I did just before Christmas. I’m once again commuting to London, which I have in the past mused about being a muse, but this time my days are longer and my job more demanding. Sadly London Midland now use cattle trucks rather than carriages so there is no opportunity to write on the train, and for the first time in recent memory I have no interest in sitting in front of my computer when I get home.

Sadly I fear that I may be falling at the first hurdle for Project52 which for me might just be Project1.

The end.

Sorry, but I’m pleased to say there is little to report. It is working well for both me and my wife who is enjoying the flexibility it has given her in starting her new job. My HR contact has been very helpful in answering a few questions not least how do I calculate holiday.

I had been told I needed to deduct 1.25 days from my holiday for each day I took which didn’t seem 100% fair to me. The official process is slightly more elaborate but much fairer: you add your holiday allowance to the bank holidays and then multiply by 7 to get an hour based allowance. I then take 8.75 hours for each day I take as holiday. This means I’m not penalised by bank holidays and also gives me more flexibility should I want to take a few hours here and there during the year.

When I worked at Vodafone they introduced hour based holiday; it initially seems more complex but I’m now all in favour of it for the flexibility and fairness it brings.

I won’t keep blogging about the following weeks unless something extraordinary occurs.

If you have the opportunity to adopt a flexible working pattern I strongly recommend it. Employers I recommend you consider offering flexible working to your employees; I believe that they will be happier and more productive.

To give her the greatest possible flexibility I said that I would request to adopt a flexible working pattern which I am entitled to under UK law. Sadly my manager initially refused my request, but following a successful appeal I started my flexible working last week.

I now work “five days in four”; working all of my contracted hours in four days as opposed to five. I  work from 8.15 to 18.00 Monday to Thursday and don’t work on Fridays. This has allowed my wife to take the great opportunity presented to her and to start training right away.

Having talked about other companies that have adopted a similar pattern wholesale I thought it might be interesting for others to document my experiences working a four day week in a five day week company.

Last week was my first four day week and it looks like this work pattern will work out well for me and my family and have no negative impact for my employers.

Not being a morning person I will admit to being concerned about actually making it in on time and being effective. Perhaps the biggest and most pleasant surprise of week one was early rising. I’ve found that I’ve had no problem actually getting up and that I feel more awake and alert through the day as a result. I wonder if it’s anything to do with seeing more daylight.

Having said that I also think that my increased alertness may be due to a greater focus and awareness of time I now have. I want this arrangement to be a success for me, for my family, for my employer and also for others that may want to work this way in the future. To this end I have found I have a much greater sense of engagement and focus.

So all very good so far.

Week two may be more of a test as I have a day in London on Thursday giving me have just three days in the office, but such days are a fact of business life so I don’t expect big problems.

Psion launched the Psion netBook (also badged a Series 7) in 1999. The netBook was a sub-notebook running Psion’s EPOC operating system and discontinued in 2003.

I remember playing with a pre-production netBook giving my feedback as to how I felt the EPOC OS should be adapted to work on the bigger screen and thinking we had a very cool device here. Psion used external design consultants Therefore for their hardware design, and the netBook was another triumph of industrial design.

As with the Series 3 and 5 PDAs that preceded it the netBook had a clever hinge that made the device seem to grow as you opened it revealing a keyboard that seemed larger than it should be. The hinge itself was wrapped in leather so it felt like carrying a leather book or Filofax. As well as an almost full size keyboard the netBook had a touch screen and solid state internals. Writing this now I realise that the Psion netBook really was ahead of it’s time.

A few years ago I bumped into an old colleague who showed me a netBook running Linux pre-dating the Eee PC and co. by some years. Sadly Psion didn’t release this version in yet another moment of corporate short-sightedness and cowardice.

Palm chickened out of the two hottest personal technology markets despite having a massive head start on the competition. I was fortunate to see the designs and concepts for a range of smartphones Psion were working on but ultimately didn’t develop. Then of course Psion pulled out of the PDA market saying they couldn’t beat Palm.

Psion are now a pale imitation of the once great innovators they were; based in Canada Psion Teklogix now produce rugged industrial handheld computers. So their decision to claim the netbook trademark and to threaten websites, resellers and IT manufacturers with legal action felt like the last dieing actions of once great brand.

Shame on you Psion.

But well done Dell for challenging this ridiculous claim; it looks like game over for Psion before they’ve even started.

Update: Dell have accused Psion of “fraudulently” claiming the trademark netbook was still in use.

Note: I was also amazed to see that design of the Psion Teklogix site is largely the same as the one I left behind when I left Psion in 2000 and it was out of date then.