Datafication of HR and the Need for Wisdom Artists - #EBLive2014

Here are my notes from my keynote presentation from Employe Benefits Live last week:

Introduction

Datafication - a horrible word (not my choice for the session - and I blame Josh Bersin) but an important idea.  However I interpret the concept differently to Josh and don't see a need to 'datafy' HR.  To me datafication simply recognises the HR has been 'datafied' and seeks to respond appropriately to this new environment.

Key issue is big data - volume, velocity and variety.  Despite criticisms and questions on whether big data exists within HR this is a big deal, and it does exist - maybe not in the strict sense of the volume of data (although SuccessFactors calculate their average system contains 5.5 bn data points which is pretty big) but certainly in terms of variety etc.

That's not to say that small data isn't important but big data requires particular attention.

The big shift is from causation to correlation.  Big data says we don't need to worry about ensuring something is causal anymore, correlation is enough.  So it's not really about the 3 V's at all, it's simply about a different way of treating data (and OK, I know many HR people have never been that worried about distinguishing correlation and causation but let's let that pass for now.)

But big data is only one part of the big picture.  The most critical point is that the more important something is within HR generally the harder it is to measure.   It's why I'm so against quotes like 'I believe we should be able to calculate the ROI on everything we do and if we can't calculate it, we shouldn't do it' are so dangerous - they send us in completely the wrong direction.

This leads to three very different zones for measurement and analysis:

• The main focus is adding value - traditional HR.  In this zone our focus needs to continue to be predictive analytics - trying to understand causal links between items of the HR system
• At the most important levels in HR, we often can't measure what's important, at least not in quantitative terms and this leads us to qualitative analysis.  Analytics need to be qualitative as well as quantitative.
• But at the lowest level of value where there's lots of data we can start doing analytics in new ways where we don't care about causation, we simply look for correlation, that's enough.  This is the result of the datafication of HR.

What's Been Happening?

What's been happening is the datafication of business.  We can look at this to understand what's currently driving change within HR.

The first driver has been social media - every tweet is a data point.  The same applies within businesses as more organisations start to use enterprise social networks.

The second driver in business has been the internet of things - so it's not just people who are communicating together, it's our fridges and other devices as well (help, my fridge is full of spam!)

It's why big data is such an important issue in business - and why McKinsey's suggestion that we're so short of data scientists is such a big issue - obviously for HR as well.

What's Happening Now?

HR is now responding to its own datafication - but slowly.  The fact that CEOs rate HR's analytical capabilities so low is a problem.  It's not all our own fault however - we've had decades of rubbish technology and it's only in the last five years that this area has been sufficiently invested.  But until more organisations have good HR systems in place it's actually very hard for us to respond to HR datafication.  But we do need to respond.

The same issues which have driven change in the rest of business and transforming HR as well.  Social recruiting generates the same level of data points and these are being used to provide new insights by systems like Talentbin, Entelo and Gild, plus in the US, Glassdoor Job Explorer (Mervyn Dinnen had spoken about social recruiting in the morning session of the conference but had actually talked about ieTalent rather than these.)

A bit nearer to the employee benefits space you've got the same thing happening in social recognition - giving thanks, kudos, badges (a Josh Bersin slide) and rewards.

Another key need for HR is to integrate with data outside of HR.  Finance, external vendors (particularly for employee benefits) and others eg Glassdoor's new benefits comparison functionality - using the power of big data to help people make decisions about prospective employers based upon the benefits they provide.  (It's early days and I couldn't find any information for EBLive case studies up there - eg Maersk, Sheffield University Juice etc - but it will come.)

The internet of things isn't a big driver for change within HR, but it's near relative, human augmentation certainly is.  Augmented reality devices such as Google Glass are going to substantially expand the amount of data we're generating and using.  And augmented performance - I was wearing my FitBit and it's interesting to see how quickly it and particularly Nike's Fuelband have moved out of the most innovative into the nearly defunct category with new devices, particularly the Apple watch.  

But these are all producing and enabling analysis of data.

And all of this is providing benefits.  The best case study I'm aware of in employee benefits is Caesar's Casinos.  They've tracked thousands of variables about how tehir 65,000 employees use health insurance medical services, such as their choice of cheap or expensive medical facilities and whether they choose a generic or brand-name drug. Eg they found that at Harrah's in Philadelphia only about 11% of emergencies were being treated at cheaper facilities, versus 34% across all of Caesars. Taking action upon this they reduced this to 17% and between 2009 and 2013 made savings of $4.5 million.  I like the case study because it's not a complicated analysis of data, but does provide a high financial value (if low strategic value) benefit.

So basically, HR's experiencing the same enablers, the same requirements, the same potential benefits.  We've been datafied and we need to learn how to use the opportunity this provides us.

What's Next

What's next is HR getting on top of this new environment.  However, we need to be careful not to be led astray by all the hype.  Business has been through peak big data hype but HR is following on behind and we're still climbing up to the top.

We're not afraid of big data as a recent CIPD report suggests, we're just cautious about over investing in an area that is still developing and in which our technologies are still not that mature.

But we do need to develop our capabilities in this area so that we know what we don't know.  Eg all HR people should be able to use R (and all the other technology that supports data analysis.)

The good news is that there's a MOOC for that! (actually, there's quite a lot of them.)

But this isn't our only data challenge.  PwC's report points out the high proportion of decisions that are still made by gut and we need to influence these decisions too.  And just because a decision has been made using data doesn't automatically mean it's going to be a good decision.

The same applies in HR as well eg see UCL research in the proportion of selection decisions which are made by gut.

So yes, we need HR science but we need art and a dollop of magic too.

See this article and the Art of HR feature in October's HR magazine.

We may need HR data scientists in our teams but this isn't the future of our profession - what we need more than this is wisdom artists - people who can extract meaning from data and other information  - including the sort of fuzzy information provided to us by our intuition, and develop great, innovative, tailored strategies that drive our organisations forward.

people who can extract meaning from data and information – including the sort of fuzzy information provided to us by our intuition, and develop great, innovative, tailored strategies that drive our organisations forward. - See more at: http://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/hro/news/1145749/business-school-launches-survey-hr-artistry#sthash.ZAxKFcwU.dpuf

people who can extract meaning from data and information – including the sort of fuzzy information provided to us by our intuition, and develop great, innovative, tailored strategies that drive our organisations forward. - See more at: http://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/hro/news/1145749/business-school-launches-survey-hr-artistry#sthash.ZAxKFcwU.dpuf

people who can extract meaning from data and information – including the sort of fuzzy information provided to us by our intuition, and develop great, innovative, tailored strategies that drive our organisations forward. - See more at: http://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/hro/news/1145749/business-school-launches-survey-hr-artistry#sthash.ZAxKFcwU.dpuf

people who can extract meaning from data and information – including the sort of fuzzy information provided to us by our intuition, and develop great, innovative, tailored strategies that drive our organisations forward. - See more at: http://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/hro/news/1145749/business-school-launches-survey-hr-artistry#sthash.ZAxKFcwU.dpuf

Actually all data scientists need to be wisdom artists - the value is always in the questions and the story telling, not in the quantitative analysis itself.  But this is much more true within Employee Benefits and the rest of HR as big data correlation only provides one piece in what we need to do - we need to be able to combine in gut hunch and qualitative analysis as well.  And all of this needs to be integrated together.  It's not as if we'll be able to improve one process just by correlation and another just by semantic analysis - or at least it's much likely that both approaches will be necessary for both processes.

Therefore you may want to have a couple of data scientists on your team, depending on its size, or of course you could just borrow these quants from the rest of your business.  But if I was you, I'd want your whole team to be wisdom artists.

So maybe wisdomification would be a better (if even more horrible) word to use?

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HR: Science, Art and Magic

You've probably seen some of my posts on the Art of HR.  In all of these posts I've noted that I'm not trying to get HR replaced by science but just to be seen as a complement to it.

I think my campaign was triggered mainly by Peter Cheese and the CIPD's new HR framework emphasising science without any nod to art.  (I know from chatting with Peter that he believes there is a duality to HR but I don't think this is enough - it needs to be shown  on the framework as well.)

It's also largely a response to John Boudreau's focus on HR decision science over the last couple of decades.  A decision science  is an agreed upon and rigorous set of methods that:

"Provides a logical, reliable and consistent – but flexible – framework that enhances decisions about a key resource, wherever those decisions are made. A decision science does not rigidly prescribe what to do, but rather provides a logical system to identify and analyse key decision issues."

This definition and approach has never worked for me - see these posts made during a five year period over the last seven years:

• Boudreau explains that the consequence of not having a decision science is that ‘talent decision will be made using non-logical decision frameworks’ for example by following politics, fads and fashions. Although I agree about the dangers inherent in following fashions in management theories, I disagree that logic is the sole basis for creating a new strategic role for HR. Given the degree of complexity in business, I believe ‘non-logical decision frameworks’ like creativity provide the key to HCM.

• “Talent management is not an imprecise art form.  Rather, it is a rigorous science based on solid numbers.”  It’s complete nonsense of course, and I don’t understand how Boudreau gets away with it.

• Boudreau has been encouraging us to think more like scientists – to get between the ears of our leaders.  We need to ask are we using the evidence that exists in our organisations, in the scientific world ie evidence that already exists, and how do we look beyond the evidence to influence decision making.

So it's great to see Boudreau suggesting that he now sees HR as art, with a little dollop of magic.  And if HR's not going to be taken over by Finance then it needs to be an art, not just a science.

Well... exactly!  (the first time I"ve ever agreed with John Boudreau.)

I'd like to claim some credit for this reversal but I suspect it's probably just a consequence of working with Ed Lawler at USC who I think is one of our most progressive academics even if he did get it completely wrong on performance management in the Talent Management book we both contributed to (see 1,2,3,4).

Anyway, whatever the basis, it's good to have Boudreau in the Art of HR camp.  And I do appreciate the suggestions around Magic - I think that may have to be a theme for next year.

By the way, quite coincidentally, I've been reminding myself about the work of Roger Martin on validity and reliability.

See this quote I included in my Strategic HCM book:

'Companies don’t realize that when they make their systems more reliable, they render them less valid or meaningful.  In other words, the processes produce consistent outcomes, but the results may be neither accurate nor desirable.  That’s because, to make their processes more reliable, companies have to reduce the number of variables and standardize measurements.  To achieve high validity, however, systems must take into account a large number of variables and use subjective measurements.  Adding squishy variables and using gut feel allows for outcomes that are more accurate, even though the processes may not be able to deliver accurate results consistently...  For instance, CEOs should go out and talk in person to customers, even if the sample size isn’t statistically significant, rather than sit in their offices and make decisions based on statistically significant market research.' 

Martin notes that reliability thinking cannot make the leap from mystery to heuristic but has produced masters of the algorithm. 

Instead we need to identify mysteries, develop into heuristics (an aid to problem solving) and create algorithms (a recipe).  For example 3D drawing began as a mystery, evident in early paintings that lack depth.  Artists then observed foreshortening and began incorporating it into their drawing as a rule-of-thumb that objects could appear to recede into the distance by drawing them increasingly smaller. This evolved into formulaic methods such as the vanishing point and other  for creating the illusion of depth in a 2D plane.

I think this is what Boudreau is referring to by magic (mystery), art (heuristic) and science (algorithm) as well.  And Martin's point stands too - we can't create innovative HR functions or practices by focusing on reliability or algorithms -  ie science.

Hence the need for the art of HR.

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Art of HR survey

I'd like to invite you to take part in a survey on the Art of HR.

The survey focuses on HR artistry - an important role complementing HR science and which is focused on provoking, inspiring, and helping create new meaning. HR artistry will also be examined during the global Art of HR conference this November in Dubrovnik, with Dave Ulrich as key speaker.

The survey is based on three sections, so that we can identify which personal and organisational attributes and which activities lead to positive people and business results:

• Contextual, personal and organisational factors
• Demonstrating artistry
• Delivering results

The survey will serve as basis for further research exploring this relatively rare perspective on HR. Our aim is to present the key findings from the survey at the Art of HR conference and use this event to enhance our insights about HR artistry.  We will then publish the conclusions of the full research study, together with other inputs on HR artistry, in an Art of HR book which we would like to bestow on all of you who share our passion for leading and developing people in organisations worldwide.

Please participate in the survey here.
 

Thank you for sharing your insights with us and we look forward to communicating our conclusions back to you!
 

-   Jon Ingham, Strategic HCM together with COTRUGLI Business School - organisers of the Art of HR global conference, and in partnership with HR Magazine.

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Love - for and from HR

I've just published this post on Linkedin - why I love HR people (who love people).

If you liked my previous post about Venus vs Mars, you'll hopefully understand.

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Finance are from Mars, HR are from Venus

At the end of last week I was following the tweets from Eversheds HR Summer School which I spoke at last year and spotted this tweet, relating, I think to a presentation from the CIPD's Peter Cheese: "Finance are from Mars, HR are from Venus."

Despite the fact that the tweeter also suggested this doesn't apply to her - she loves her FD - and Peter Cheese's response with #HRlovesFDs (a hashtag which - you might be surprised - hasn't quite managed to go viral) I do think there was something in the phrase.

In fact it was something I was thinking about anyway as I'd been reading a few other things about CFOs including Management Today's suggestion that CFOs are developing into change agents.

Then there was this - a fairly offensive rant from Ram Charan suggesting we split HR in half because the function is so completely rubbish and that in future we should continue just doing administration.  The strategic part of what we do would then be led by high potentials from Finance.  That really annoyed me...

Firstly, although we're all used to 'I hate HR' articles, writers normally make a point of acknowledging the lots of good people who work within the function - few such allowances from Charan (only really where they're Finance people already running HR).

I thought this was particularly cutting as we've always given a lot of respect to Charan.  Even when he turned up clearly worse for wear to present at Singapore's Human Capital Summit in 2011 we muttered quietly to each other but didn't challenge him about it.  (You might not be surprised that attendees in SE Asia responded so politely but I also chose not to tweet or blog on the session.)  Well no such respect was shown to us from him.  Perhaps if we'd challenged him then he'd have respected us more - so I'm trying to make up for the earlier omission with a robust challenge now.

Secondly, I think Charan's reading of the situation is absolutely and completely wrong.  He suggests HR (the strategic bit) needs to be led by the business, which is why he wants Finance to run it.  I think that business needs to led by HR.  Business is about people and needs to be a lot more people shaped than it is now.  HR understands how we can do this.

Charan wants HR to be able to deal with real business challenges, being more like the rest of the business.  I see little point in being more like the rest of the business whilst business is in such a mess.  Business needs new thinking and new ways of operating which HR people with a different - not the same - perspective to CFOs can bring to it

This may mean that HR can be seen as a little bit different to other functions - and that's a good thing.  Let's celebrate our difference, not obscure it.  And let's not worry about criticism from people like Charan who clearly represents the past rather than the future.  Because if there's one function which is going to be split in half in the future it'll be Finance not HR (or as I recently suggested we could just outsource it.*)

* = I know some great Finance people, though I've worked with some nasty examples of inhumanity from within that function too.   But this article isn't written to disrespect them, Charan-style, but simply to argue that their function isn't as important or as strategic as our own (or if it is now, that this is just a hang over from the past, and the situation is already changing.


In fact the above changes are already taking place - many HR Directors are already acting as 'the consiglieri of the C-suite' (this article by Saatchi & Saatchi's Richard Hytner is much more sensible then Charan's diatribe.)

Therefore I do think Peter Cheese has lost the plot a bit when he suggests that HR needs to use data, engage with other departments (Finance) and get fluent in finance speak in order to be taken more seriously.  We do, but prioritising this is just a recipe for continued irrelevancy.

So I'm not suggesting we shouldn't engage Finance - of course we should.  But let's do so from a position of strength.  It's HR which interfaces with the people in the business and despite MT's suggestion, has the best ideas and experience around engagement, performance and change agency.  So let's talk to Finance, but change the agenda that Peter has suggested to how we can help them become more talent centred, using emotions and developing fluency in people speak.

We need to change other peoples' attitudes to people, not our own to business.  And to do so withought needing to get them all to run HR! (like Infosys' Mohan Pai for example.)

And if we do need to get together on one planet, let's help Finance to come to Venus rather than having us moving off to Mars.  This isn't intransigence - it's just that it's Venus, not Mars, which today provides the best environment for the future of our businesses.

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Keynoting on Datafication at Employee Benefits Live

I've got quite a few conferences coming up after the Summer, and in particular will be giving this keynote at Employee Benefits Live in London in September:

The Datafication of HR - What Next?

• How is data-driven HR displaying results for early adopters?
• What are the new roles and skill sets HR needs for a top-notch analytics team?
• What impact will HR analytics have on talent management?

I don't like the term datafication (Josh Bersin's fault!) but there's no doubt that the quantitative analysis of information relating to HR and especially reward and benefits is providing a growing challenge and opportunity to practitioners.  So it'll be an interesting session.

Hope to see you there.

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Glassdoor UK Employment Confidence Survey Q2 2014

Along with all of the data on Glassdoor's own jobs and careers community, the firm runs a quarterly survey of employee confidence, conducted by Harris Interactive.  The second quarter UK results are out today and contain some important messages for all businesses employing people here.

In particular, a lot of the general commentary about the UK’s economy and the high cost of living at the moment suggests that many people are not yet seeing the benefits of an improving economy.  The findings from this research supports those general conclusions:

• One in three (32%) employees believe their company’s business outlook will improve in the next six months, although this has dropped two percentage points
• 37% of employees expect to receive a pay rise in the next 12 months, up from 34% in Q1
• More than a quarter of employees (29%) are concerned that they may be made redundant, up significantly from 21% in Q1 this year
• People looking for a job are more confident – almost one in three (30%) of those unemployed but looking for work report optimism that they could find a job matched to their experience and current compensation levels in the next six months. This is an increase of five percentage points.

It is certainly good news that more employed people are finally expecting pay increases however it’s a big worry that so many employees feel so uncertain about keeping their existing jobs, particularly as most also still feel uncertain about their ability to find another position if they do get laid off.

This is particularly important since if people are worrying about their jobs it’s going to make it harder for them to do their best work.  Indeed it may move them into a ‘threat state’ in which peoples’ concern about their jobs can close down their ability to think clearly and behave optimally, particularly in displaying the sort of discretionary behaviours which are so critical in many jobs today, for example in providing great customer service and developing new ideas to improve work activities.  This may be one reason why UK productivity is remaining so low as well.

The findings also reinforce what we already know about the impact of pay being quite limited.  So although employees are seeing positive developments in their salaries, incentives and monetary benefits and their confidence about future pay rises is increasing too, at the same time they are feeling less secure about retaining their current employment.  Future salary increases are unlikely to have much impact on job security either and so in addition to whatever they can do to increase pay levels, employers need to confront job insecurity head on.

The main reason that people are worrying about their jobs may well be the increasing amount of restructuring that employees are seeing together with a continuing high level of redundancies taking place.  Employers may therefore want to look at ways in which restructuring can be conducted without large scale redundancies - perhaps trading off a certain amount of potential efficiency savings later on in order to provide greater effectiveness and higher productivity today.

In addition, I suspect the general tone of the debate about the UK’s economy is leading employees to feel less secure, and employers will benefit from communicating openly about the specific circumstances of their own businesses, involving employees where there are issues and problems, and communicating confidently where there are already positive changes underway or there are signs of new opportunities for the future.

Finally, it’s also good news that we’re starting to see the confidence of those who are currently unemployed increase.  This might suggest that the job market is actually improving and it is just the commentary about employment and the economy which has not yet caught up.  As the commentary becomes more positive, this could help to reduce employees’ current uncertainty as well.

By the way, I'm acting as Glassdoor UK's HR expert, helping to promote the findings of this research so look out for more comments from me in the press!

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Walter Mitty and HR Transformation

I've recently had this post published on the ASTD / ATD's gloabl HRD blog - HR Artistry on a Global Canvas - again supporting this November's Art of HR Conference.

As well as describing the 'canvas' which enables HR to be more artful, consisting of ambition, bravery and creativity, I take Walter Mitty's similar A, B, C and suggest that I often like to think of the creation of a new, artful HR as a bit like the transformation from Walter, the office worker, into Walter, the adventurous, brave, and creative skateboarding global traveler / astronaut!

This isn't about being more strategic or having a seat at the table etc, it's just about grabbing opportunity with both hands and not letting go.

And if you want to Walterise your HR function, come along to the Art of HR taking place in Dubrovnik in November.  Or you can join in the conversation about artistry in our Linkedin group.

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Anthony Hilton as HR's Most Influential?

I met up yesterday with Arvind Hickman, Editor of HR Magazine, to talk about the Art of HR conference I’m organising, and will be chairing, and at which he’ll be  speaking at as well.  Arvind mentioned he was keen for further promotion of this year’s HR Most Influential (HRMI) programme which sets out to identify influential thinkers and I’m happy to support!

In fact I’ve already made my suggestion for Anthony Hilton’s City Column at the Evening Standard.

I should explain that this year Arvind is looking for suggestions of written work which supports a thinker’s thought leadership.  Now I often challenge the magazine’s methodology and will do so again now - most HR people aren’t influenced via written work but by face to face, small group and one-on-one conversation.  (That’s why I’m not blogging here so heavily anymore but am putting much more time into running training sessions and getting in front of people at small group events.)

You may disagree with me, and of course, you are reading this here.  But you’re the exception.  Certainly in my experience most senior HR people don’t read books, magazines or blogs (perhaps just mine), don’t go to conferences (perhaps just Art of HR hopefully!) and in fact vastly underinvest in their own capability development.  I shared this view with a group of suppliers in a panel for the Learning and Performance Institute (LPI)'s Learning Directors Network meeting yesterday afternoon and most people there seemed to have had similar experience of practitioners in Learning & Development at least.

I think it’s a problem.  As was suggested yesterday afternoon, we’ve got to a situation where many in the workforce - business leaders and line managers in particular - are putting more effort into their own learning than HR people whereas it ought to be the other way around.  But for as long as this remains a situation, influential HR thinkers need to find different ways to communicate their ideas.  (Of course this isn’t going to stop places like Ashridge writing books assuming that HRDs will read them, or even from developing research on influence, like the HMRI survey, around written thought leadership, even if this isn’t really how influence takes place.)

However this year’s methodology is what it is and that’s why I’ve nominated Anthony Hilton.  This is down to two or perhaps three things.  First up is that although Hilton isn't an HR journalist, he writes what I think is some great work on HR topics, amongst other things (and which I tend to agree with.)

My second reason for suggesting Hilton is about the place where he publishes his writing.  If HRDs don’t read blogs or HR publications (I would have written ‘HR Magazine excepted’ but actually even they didn’t come off that well in the LPI research we looked at in the afternoon) then we need to take HR thought leadership to HRDs, and the Standard is about the best place you’re going to find many of them.  I suspect that because of this Hilton has more influence than just about anyone else I could think of (Lucy Kellaway came to mind briefly but most I don't think most HRDs read the FT either.)
 

Then finally is that, although I do like to read the Standard, I'm not a fan of the paper’s London-centric, Boris Johnsonite agenda as I think this panders too much to residents of the city and forgets about the views of those of us who are regular but temporary visitors (and who probably get to spend longer reading the newspaper.)  So I’m particularly impressed that even within this editorial context, Hilton makes such well articulated, highly appropriate and important challenges to poorly designed elements of reward and other aspects of employment which are generally found most commonly within the City (excessive bankers’ bonuses and CEOs’ pay awards etc.)

In conclusion, I hope I've influenced you to read of some of Hilton’s posts.  And if you don’t get a chance to pick up a copy of the Standard, or if you worry like me about the environmental damage all of these freebie newspapers are having, then you can read them here as well.

And I do hope you will have a think about who you personally find influential.  What book, article or piece of academic work has influenced you this year?  And once you’ve thought of something, do let HR Magazine know.
 

Finally, if you didn’t find it easy to think of several influential thought leaders then you’re not opening yourself to enough new ideas.  I suggest you need to change this right now.  HR is racing along into a completely new way of operating (S curve) and we need to question ourselves and learn new things faster than we’ve ever done before.  We all need to be identifying the influential thought leaders and then following their work - which is why, despite my reservations, I do think HRMI is a useful piece of research.

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New strategic HR website / blog

As some of you will know, I've been blogging here for seven years this month, and am firmly committed to continuing to do so, if not quite to the same rate I did in the past.

However, I also recognise that although I think there is some great content on here, not all of it is easily accessible, for example a lot of it is hidden in blog posts connected to an event or something else which was going on that appeared interesting at the time, but isn't that relevant for today.

I'm therefore starting up a new site, at joningham.com, and am republishing, slightly edited, some of what I think is my best blogging work, in a more ordered sequence, and without all of the other extraneous information.

You can see this blog / 'advice column' at http://www.joningham.com/advice and can subscribe to the feed at http://www.joningham.com/1/feed.

I'll be posting daily for at least the next six months and then we'll see where that, and this blog, go.

PS I know the site still needs a bit of tidying up and that'll be done soon too.

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