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A lovely video remembering Richard Burns, the rally driver who died of brain cancer 6 years ago. They have a t-shirt to buy to support his charity.

If I were to write about the hardest thing I am finding about building a software start-up, it would say what this article is saying, almost verbetum.

What I would add, is that not only are the talented people required tucked up in safe corporate jobs or already branched out running their own software consultancy’s, for them to be really useful, they need to “get” what you’re doing and believe it will be successful when, in fairness to them, there are very few pointers to say it will.

For a curious but cautious bunch, this is a problem. Therefore acquiring or hiring the people you need is easier said than done – probably no doubt because these guys have been there, done it, and seen the issues, either personally or through good friends.

It is a tough one and an issue with no ready solution as far as I can see. That in itself is the foundation for a business perhaps …

Frustrated.

Our sport makes you numb sometimes. Like few other sports, death is so close.

Again this weekend we morn the loss of a talented person in motorsports – top level MotoGP motorbike rider, Marco Simoncelli.

He died yesterday when he was hit by fellow riders and friends, Colin Edwards and Valentino Rossi, after appearing to lose control on the exit of a fast right hand corner.

Here is a good autosport write-up from someone who knew him well.

Dan Wheldon died yesterday challenging for a $5m prize. The two time Indy 500 winner, and former champion, was without a drive this season. He put a deal together for one race, the famous Indy 500, earlier this year and promptly won it when rookie JR Hildebrand slid into the wall on the final corner. On the back of this success and the failure of the series promoter to line up an all-star driver line-up for his $5m Las Vegas prize pot, Wheldon was given the challenge. Starting from the back, if Wheldon won then he would get the prize and split half of it with one lucky fan. Unfortunately it seems he was an innocent party in the second part of a multi-car pile-up during lap 12 of the race. A Brit abroad, he was popular throughout the paddock and leaves a wife and two young children.

A fitting post is here for those interested to know more about his life.

Indy canceled the race and conduced this 5 lap salute to their former champion.

Here is a great article on big data. That, this and the recent Autonomy sale, inspired me to share my big data thoughts with you on the blog; especially the notion of augmenting that big data to create meaning.

Essentially big data presents a challenge an opportunity. The challenge is what to do with it. There are so many ways of measuring and cheaply storing data that there is a lot of “big data” around.

The opportunity with this big data idea, in my opinion, is to make and develop systems that can take meaning from the big data stores, to help people make better decisions.

What interests me most is in this transition from decision making by intuition to decision making complimented by meaningful, big data backed, guidance, recommendation and information.

Unlike some, I don’t see joy in automating the whole process. The satisfaction for me is building systems to codify repetitive or expert analysis techniques, apply them and speed them up, so they become a real-time solution, compliment them with context related meaning and present them with beautifully designed results and conclusions, such that they empower non-specialists and non-experts to make decisions.

Simple …

I should would on a simple way of explaining my big data ideas but for now, that’s it.

Thoughts welcome

Here is another view:

This is a good article in Entrepreneur magazine. It gives Richard Branson’s thoughts on how a small business should develop their organisational culture. He makes two good points I think;

• focus on the customer,
• involve everyone with a good idea in the decision-making process, no matter what level they are in the business.

The following extract really stands out to me and is a theme that resonates again and again, from my research on high performing teams; the bit about being empowered to make decisions and tolerant of mistakes is what Formula 1 teams do so well.

If I think back to what we did right, it was in our planning process, when we made sure we were having fun working together and that everyone who had a good idea was included in our decision-making process.

We had accidentally stumbled on the core elements of a culture dedicated to delivering great customer service! It turned out that people who work in a friendly environment that is tolerant of mistakes, and who are empowered to make decisions about how they do their jobs, arrive at the best possible solutions for serving customers.

Having a bit of a push to get more fans on the Prat Perch facebook page.

Please take a minute to like our page.

Many thanks.

UPDATE: Thanks to your support we now have the address https://www.facebook.com/pratperch

The great racing driver Fangio would have celebrated his 100th birthday last week. Mercedes Grand Prix team released this video celebrating his life. Enjoy.

Here is an article I posted on the Prat Perch blog about how to drive a racing car fast(er).

Here is a link to my latest blog post on Prat Perch. It’s been an exciting few weeks so just sharing an update.