As I slowly gain experience in the wonderful blogosphere, I’m learning about the strange cultural norms of this virtual world. I awoke to find I had been “tagged” in a ritual that demands (or at least pressures) that I reveal “8 things you don’t know about me” and that I tag 8 others. I’ve let this idea sit for most of the day now, pretty determined not to play this game of ‘chain blogging.’ However, given that I was tagged by Susan Scrupski - from ITSinsider, my trusted and valued blogging coach, and that my conscience has been building during the day, I’ve decided to give in, so here goes.

First, the ‘rules’ are that I post the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.

2. List EIGHT random facts about yourself.

3. Tag EIGHT people at the end of your post and list their names.

4. Let them know theyve been tagged.

Second, the 8 random facts about me:

1. I was born in London, England, grew up in North Kensington, 1 block from Portobello Road market - it was not particularly ‘cool’ then, but sure is now! My father had a large hairdressing salon in North Kensington - 4 floors, and about 40 hairdressing stations.
2. In my early teen years I worked at the salon on Saturdays doing shampoos and non-permanent color rinses for elderly ladies who wanted to cover up gray hair with blue rinse - not one of natures most natural effects! This provided a modest income to fund my hobbies - electronics and music.
3. I loved electronics, and made quite a bit of cash on the side repairing friends and neighbors radios and televisions. I also built electronic stuff - an oscilloscope (useful piece of test gear), 2-way radios, guitar amplifiers and so on. I also did a lot of car and motorcycle stuff, repairing cars and bikes (for money) and assisting a car racing team and motorcycle racing team (for love).
4. With computers entering my consciousness (around 1960), I decided that I would get an Electrical Engineering degree, and become a computer hardware design engineer. I graduated from Salford University (North of England, next to Manchester) in 1970, and began my career with ICL.
5. After a few months sitting behind a drawing board laying out logic diagrams, I decided that the job held none of the childhood charm I had known of glowing vacuum tubes and hot soldering irons, so I switched out of hardware into software, and fairly soon after that into systems engineering.
6. After about 3 years with ICL I left to join a software start-up business focused on productivity tools (application generators et al). This was the job that eventually brought me to the USA (Boston) in 1978.
7. I eventually grew frustrated that for all the good software we sold, most of our customers did not get value from our products due to resistance to change. It seemed like they just wanted to buy new tools every year - never use them or replace them. That drove me to move into consulting - I thoughtI could help clients improve their software development productivity by helping them manage organizational change.
8. I mentioned earlier my love of music - in fact, just before leaving for Salford University, I left my band and sold my guitar and amplifier, persuaded by my hairdresser father that a better career was to be found with a degree and a profession. So after a hiatus of about 35 years, I’ve got back into music - now have a collection of guitars, amps and accouterments. I discovered Rock ‘n Roll Fantasy Camp 3 years ago, provided some consulting to the camp’s producer, and as a result have now performed at BB King’s in New York, House of Blues in Hollywood and Las Vegas, and at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas. I’ve performed with Roger Daltrey (The Who), Dickie Betts (Allman Brothers), Jack Bruce (Cream), Jon Anderson (Yes), Joe Walsh (Eagles), Slash (Guns ‘n Roses) and many, manyothers. I know my dad pushed me the right direction - I love management consulting, and I still get to enjoy playing guitar, but I don’t have to depend on it for income!

Now, the people I’m tagging:

• Roy Youngman, colleague and author of “0-60 in 1.6 Gigaseconds“
• Frank Capek, colleague and author of “Customer Innovations“
• Esteban Herrera, colleague and author of “Your Flat World“
• George Danner, colleague and author of “The Industrial Science Blog“
• Espen Andersen, colleague and aothor of “Applied Abstractions“
• Tony Gonzales, I follow his blog “About Web and Enterprise 2.0“
• Jonathan Frye, I follow his blog “LeadershipJot“
• Kate Tierney, colleague and author of “Confessions of a Recruiting Newbie“