Podcasts about as colin

Amazon announced its earnings last week - and saw its share price hit a record high. Announcing that they’d surpassed 200 million Prime members was just one of the milestones that the company was able to celebrate in a blowout performance. The company’s sales - no doubt helped by a captive audience trapped at home in a pandemic - rose by 44%, a growth clip that would seem impossibly high for a 17 year old firm if we hadn’t seen Apple’s revenue grow by 54% two days previously.The interesting difference between Amazon and many of the tech brands that we’re surrounded with is that much of their innovation comes from within. For sure we all use multiple products by Google, but the search company bought YouTube, bought Android, bought what became Google Maps, bought Waze, bought Nest, bought their self-driving cars business, bought DoubleClick ads, and also bought lots of things that are now sitting in the where are they now? file like Fitbit and Motorola. Sure we know that Facebook own Instagram (bought in 2012), Whatsapp (bought in 2014) and Oculus (bought in 2014) but their homeground products (remember Poke? Slingshot? Lasso? of course you don’t).The big question you might ask about these big tech cultures is ‘if they’re so special how come they don’t create any follow-on hits themselves?’ Tech versions of Pixar they are not, they’re the Maroon 5’s of invention, shipping in the clever ideas of other people to keep them bopping in the app charts. It’s not unfair to characterise these companies as bloated bureaucracies propped up by vastly cash generative ad businesses. The commercial real estate expert Dror Poleg commented last week that we sometimes look to the examples set by these big firms as a sign of what the smart brains are doing. Poleg was looking at JP Morgan just about agreeing to some degree of hybrid working. The truth of all of these firms is that, despite the external mystique, they are able to avoid decisions of scarcity by their high margins and often make terrible decisions along the way. I’m often emailed by people who work at big tech firms who tell me that their job is a slow-moving bureaucracy overwhelmed with rules and red-tape, in contrast when people from education or local government contact me they are apologetic for how slow their cultures are to evolve. Little do they know how big tech firms share a lot in common with them.So how do Amazon do it? This week’s podcast is a discussion with long-time Amazon exec Colin Bryar. Along the way we talk through Amazon’s Leadership Principles, how Amazon created products like Kindle and Prime, their recruitment process, and much more. But there was one thing that really stood out to me and that was the idea of ‘Separable, Single-Threaded Leadership’. As Colin told me Jeff Bezos made a comment one day, ‘The best way to fail at inventing something is by making it somebody’s part-time job’. Bezos realised that the worst part of people’s roles was having to keep dozens (hundreds!) of colleagues in the loop because of co-dependencies. The best way to make people feel empowered by their job was to genuinely empower them - to let them get on with them without having to tell everyone what they were doing all of the time. To that end Bezos decided ‘that if we wanted Amazon to be place where builders can build, we needed to eliminate communication, not encourage it’. Wow. Think about that. Someone recognising that the worst part of your job is endless video calls and emails stopping you actually doing your job. As Colin puts it, ‘In other words, Jeff’s vision was that we needed to focus on loosely coupled... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

#002 Colin Clapp and his partner, Elly, own a website and business called Parenting, Passports and Profits — it's all about helping parents and digital nomads live life by design. But it wasn't the first stab at business for Colin. In fact, years ago, Colin found himself at the helm of a business failure concerning fruit and vegetable delivery. It all started with a partnership with a stranger; he's here today to tell that story.In today's episode, host Karen Beattie chats one-on-one with Colin as he reveals the buildup to what he calls "the darkest day," its aftermath, and what he learned from the flop. As Colin himself says, failing in business doesn't "mark you" as a failure — it's part of the process. We're so thankful to Colin for being generous with his time and getting vulnerable for us behind the mic so that we can learn from his misadventure. Show notes and more at SmartPassiveIncome.com/flops.

Vanessa Schneider:  Hello and welcome to the Government Digital Service Podcast. My name is Vanessa Schneider and I am Senior Channels and Community Manager at GDS. Today we will be talking about GOV.UK Platform as a Service. GDS has a reputation for creating best in class digital products and services for government, and GOV.UK Platform as a Service - or GOV.UK PaaS for short - is one of them.    GOV.UK PaaS helps public sector organisations to secure and swiftly host their digital services without worrying about infrastructure. It’s currently used by 131 organisations, runs 1,652 applications and recently celebrated passing its live service assessment, providing a joined-up experience across channels.    Joining me are Clare Barnett and Mark Buckley. Thank you for being here. Would you mind introducing yourselves to the listeners?   Clare Barnett:  Yeah. Hi, everyone, I'm Clare. I'm a Senior Researcher on GOV.UK PaaS. And my role involves spending most of my time with users of GOV.UK PaaS, understanding what they need from our platform, understanding how current features work and what we can do to improve them, and also understanding how we might need to develop the product in the future to help meet needs that we're not currently catering for.    Vanessa Schneider:  Great, thanks, Clare. Mark?   Mark Buckley:  Hiya, I'm Mark Buckley, I'm Product Manager on GOV.UK PaaS. And that means that a lot of the user needs and things that Clare identifies and other folks on the team, I help to prioritise in order to iterate and hopefully make that product better.    Vanessa Schneider:  Great. So both of you mentioned GOV.UK PaaS and I also gave an introduction at the top of the episode but I’m sure [laughs] our listeners would value hearing from an expert what GOV.UK PaaS actually is.    Mark Buckley:  So GOV.UK Platform as a Service - or as we abbreviate it to PaaS as it's quite the mouthful - is a cloud hosting platform essentially, where service teams around government and public sector can use us to host their applications and digital services in the cloud. So whether that's a service living on GOV.UK like the Teaching Service or a simple informational website such as technical documentation or something like that, they can host their app, those applications on our platform.   The platform side of it, and is doing this sort of hard work of connecting and running the infrastructure that underpins the World Wide Web. So is akin to the plumbing in a house. So, yeah, we take care of that so the service teams don't have to.    Vanessa Schneider:  Great, thanks Mark.    Clare, as a user researcher, can you tell us why should people use PaaS? Does that come up maybe in your work?    Clare Barnett:  Yeah, it absolutely does. And, you know, I'm talking close all the time and I'm always hearing: one of the things that we hear is how we can improve the product. But we're always hearing the good stuff as well and why people use us. And I mean, essentially PaaS is there to help teams avoid unnecessary overheads.   So it means that they don't have to run the infrastructure themselves and they don't need to have Web Ops capability in-house, which means they can focus their time and budget on running their service. And what we hear from our users is that using GOV.UK PaaS, it means that they can avoid procurement blockers, it's much easier to-to use us than it is other commercial services because they don't have to go through long procurement processes.   We also offer a great developer experience, which we've spent a lot of time developing and improving over the years. And we're trusted - we hear from a lot of users that the fact that PaaS is developed by the public sector for the public sector is a really good thing for our users. It helps avoid lock-in with expensive suppliers and it feels much more collaborative as well. And overall, we're offering teams much better value for money than, than some of the commercial providers out there.   Vanessa Schneider:  Do you ever have people coming in thinking they know what PaaS is and you've got to clear up a couple of misconceptions?    Clare Barnett:  I mean, I think we have people who maybe think they can use PaaS in a slightly different way to the way that they, they do. But I mean, I would say some of the common misconceptions are that: it's only for developers. And actually that's not true at all. We do have a number of designers using GOV.UK PaaS to host their prototypes. So yes, we-we do have some misconceptions, but we're able to clear those up quite easily.    Mark Buckley: Yeah, I-I suppose more often than not, we get misconceptions the other way, as in they don't know what PaaS is or aren't clear on sort of the benefits or the purpose for us.   A lot of teams we hear from: 'oh, well, it's only for, available for central government. It's made for central government by central government'. But that's not the case. We've done a lot of work over the years in opening up those contracts and focussing on the-the needs of not just central government, but the wider public sector. So we have teams and services from the devolved administrations, Northern Ireland Assembly use like pretty extensively, local authorities use us, NHS use us, College of Policing use us there - so we have representation from right across the public sector.   And I suppose another kind of misconception   is that GOV.UK PaaS is only suitable for very simple services, such as, as I mentioned earlier, sort of a static website or something like that. But again, that's not true. We have quite we're a, we're a very flexible and powerful platform actually. And some of the services that folks might know: so the Document Checking Service is running on GOV.UK PaaS and GOV.UK Notify, which is, over, certainly over COVID, has become pretty much the UK's notification platform that also runs on GOV.UK PaaS. So we-we have the kind of full spectrum of services living quite happily and running reliably on GOV.UK PaaS.   Vanessa Schneider:  I imagine that listeners know maybe of the word cloud, cloud hosting - because we do have a sizeable audience in the Digital, Data and Technology space. I'm sure they also know that there's commercial providers in this instance. So what motivated government to create this tool rather than just relying on external providers?   Mark Buckley:  GOV.UK PaaS, yeah, is not the only Platform as a Service offering or cloud hosting offering that is available to public sector. Indeed, there is a somewhat confusing overlap with G-Cloud where you could procure different types of cloud hosting provider potentially. But we as a GOV.UK PaaS is a Platform as a Service which when it comes to cloud hosting and that type of thing, is different from Infrastructure as a Service, which is generally what private sector infrastructure providers would provide.    And if services or teams decide to use that, they will have to stitch together and do all of that kind of plumbing themselves because there's sort of more raw materials. And in-in doing that, will have to hire and recruit significant web operations capability. Because we are a platform, we've done all that, built it once with the needs of government at its heart. So to-to fit with the-the kind of M.O. of the rest of the government as a platform products. So GOV.UK Notify, GOV.UK Pay and our ourselves: we built it once so that it can be reused and across the public sector, so that there isn't that same duplication of effort. And cloud infrastructure and hosting is not a simple kind of area and takes a lot of investment. So it's, you know, the, that we've provided or invested a lot in that is beneficial hopefully to other service teams.   Vanessa Schneider:  Yeah, definitely build once, use many, it's a favourite phrase in-in our organisation.    Right. So obviously, you are working on the product itself. I was wondering if you maybe in user research, hear about the kind of challenges people have been able to overcome thanks to GOV.UK PaaS or whether you've got a particular case that you'd consider a success story.   Clare Barnett:  Yeah. So we-we hear a lot of the time that teams are able to move a lot faster when they are using GOV.UK PaaS. So they're able to deploy faster. Just generally it kind of helps their internal processes. We take away a lot of the work that otherwise they might have to do themselves.    So some research that we did recently around users evaluating PaaS for use. One user actually said to us: ‘largely all of the effort is offloaded onto ourselves’. So they see the value for money in that the-the service doesn't really feel like very expensive at all. You know we're taking away a lot of the work that-that users would actually have to do in their teams, that's being placed on us.   On top of that, the support that we offer is really comprehensive. So whereas if a team was using a commercial competitor of ours, they might be paying quite hefty sums to have a support model in place. With GOV.UK PaaS, they get all of that included and they get access to 24/7 support. So it-it really is-it's the speed at which people are able to operate and the fact that they can reduce their team size, they don't have to have web ops capability. And the fact that overall that these things combine to help them save money and get bet-better value for money in the long term.   Vanessa Schneider:  If someone is curious to find out more, maybe take their own time and to look at information, where can they go?   Clare Barnett: Yeah, so if you'd like to find out more about PaaS and how it works, then you can go to our website, which is cloud.service.gov.uk for more information. If you're already using PaaS, then you can contact our support channel, and again, if you go to cloud.service.gov.uk, you'll see a support thing in the top right hand corner of the page.    Vanessa Schneider:  So obviously we've heard brilliant things about PaaS now, but don’t just trust us seeing as we are the organisation [laughs] that developed GOV.UK PaaS. We’ve actually chatted with some tenants. So first off we will be hearing from Himal Mandalia.    [VOX POP STARTS] Himal Mandalia:  Hi I'm Himal. So I've joined GDS recently as Head of Technology for GOV.UK. I've been working around government digital for about the last 6 years. Working at the Ministry of Justice Digital and the Department of Education.   So I've just joined about a month ago, but over the last few months since last year, there's been some experimentation running, some trials around GOV.UK Accounts.   As part of the trial, the first step was to-to offer an account along with the Brexit Transition Checker. So as a user, as a citizen, you-you go through a journey, you get to some answers that you might want, but then you may want personalised notifications when some of that content changes and you may want a return journey, you may want to come back and, and see, see what you selected previously.   Now, that's not being hosted along with the sort of main GOV.UK stack. GOV.UK is quite a large, complex service made up of many, many applications which are hosted on an infrastructure platform that's fairly manually set up and we are shifting over to something that will meet our evolving and quite sophisticated needs.   But for the experiment particularly the-the Accounts prototype - GOV.UK PaaS was the obvious thing to use for that. You know, just get it in there. You can deploy to it easily. You can tear it down. You can spin up additional things. And, you know, in my role as Head of Technology, I'm quite comfortable with advocating PaaS for any additional things like that. And as we, as we, as we go about re-platforming a lot of those components for GOV.UK, I definitely want to keep PaaS on the table as an option for some of those services that are very modular, that can just be, be stood up and, and then run very easily.    Vanessa Schneider:  Do you mind sharing what you think the advantage is of hosting on GOV.UK PaaS versus other solutions?   Himal Mandalia:  What things don't you want to have to worry about? What things are just, you know, what's termed the undifferentiated heavy lifting. It's really the same for many of these use cases, and you just want it to happen magically. You don't want to have to think about it. You don't want anyone doing it. And a lot of that is that that site reliability engineering, the the infrastructure engineering required to create the environment in which your application lives. And you and this is where, this is where PaaS comes in because that's all set up for you. A developer can just issue a few commands and create an environment, and launch the app.    I was describing this to some non-technical stakeholders and leadership in DfE a year or 2 ago, there was some confusion around, you know, why would we want PaaS when we have a cloud platform already? And I said, well, it's like having access to a-a really, really high quality construction site. So you've got your space to-to build your roads and your houses and you've got these amazing construction tools, but you need a level of specialism. You need actual-actual architects. You need people that can lay, can lay the electricity, wires under the road. You need to do a lot of stuff to build a few houses, but you have complete control in how you set, in how you set that up.   PaaS is much more like moving into a, moving, moving into a flat that's just ready, and all you need to do is worry about the furnishings, what you're going to put in there. And that was a very sort of loose sort of metaphor that I kept sort of pushing the boundaries on, and it broke a few times. But it's, it's, it's pretty much that: it's that, it's that thing, your application just needs somewhere to live. You just want to take care of that furnishing layer of it, not have to worry about the wiring up the walls for any electrics.    You know, organisationally you need a range of options. You do need the very low level infrastructure offering for-for the things that are very differentiated. And you need to have a very customised infrastructure build. But you also need those things that remove all of that heavy lifting and just let teams put apps out there.   And I think I've encountered in some places a very one dimensional view of what cloud means. It's, it's, it's basically a case of a one size fits all solutions, which is, which is not really the nuanced view that's needed. A nuanced view is ensuring you have the capabilities across the spectrum to handle all of your use cases. And some will be very IaaS - Infrastructure as a Service. But PaaS should definitely be there. And I think the, I think, I think the zenith of something like that is fully self-serve PaaS, which is, which is where we are with GOV.UK PaaS. It's, it's, it's great. And we just need to keep iterating it, improving it.   [VOX POP ENDS]   Vanessa Schneider:  I was wondering if anything particular stuck out to you or maybe we can discuss what it is about people working with PaaS that you all go to building and construction metaphors [laughs]?   Mark Buckley:  Yeah, well, thanks to Himal for speaking so eloquently and positively about GOV.UK PaaS.   A couple of things sort of jumped out at me that it'd be really good to sort of reiterate. And one of those is: Himal mentioning it's not a, there's not a, it's, it's not a one-dimensional, one-size-fits-all when it comes to PaaS. There's absolutely no reason why services and departments can't use things in addition to PaaS, or as well as PaaS.   So Himal mentioned where there are those really sort of complex or specialised differentiated services. Then absolutely GOV.UK PaaS probably isn't the platform for-for them. But there are also vast swathes of services and applications across government that are quite typical, sort of 3-tier applications as they're kind of known in development terms. So there might be a presentation layer and a data layer and application layer all mixing together. They work really well on GOV.UK Paas, and that essentially is probably the majority of the services that run on GOV.UK, for instance, or not on GOV.UK but are part of that.   So if you're searching for a teacher vacancy as kind of said before or looking for your energy performance certificate at MHCLG [Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government], these are all services that run really well on GOV.UK PaaS and take that stress or drama away from Developers and Web Ops Engineers so they can concentrate on other things.   Clare Barnett:  I was just going to add to that - that's something that kind of stood out for me was when Himal talked about wanting to use GOV.UK PaaS for other applications that they're looking to standup on GOV.UK as well. Because we hear that from a lot of users of the platform that once they've used it once, quite often they become advocates for GOV.UK PaaS.   You know they are selling it within their own organisations and wanting to use GOV.UK PaaS for as many things as they can and as many services suitable for. And basically end up with a really strong community of users who are really good at sharing with each other and, and, and sharing the patterns that they use and the way that they do things with, with other users to help them understand how they might be able to use the platform for their specific needs, which is, which is really great. And yeah, and it's nice for us to know that, you know, once someone used us once, actually they want to use us again.    Vanessa Schneider:  Yeah, I'm, I'm really enjoying hearing all the positive news about it, and it must be really nice to have that sort of unintended consequence of people becoming these evangelists essentially and also supporting each other when it comes to the use of it.   So next we’ll be hearing from Colin Saliceti and his experience using GOV.UK PaaS at Department for Education.    [VOX POP STARTS]   Colin Saliceti:  Hi, my name is Colin Saliceti and I work for the Department for Education in the Teacher Services area. Teacher Services is a big area in the Department of Education [DfE], and our goal is to get excellent teachers for every child. My job title is actually Lead Infrastructure Engineer and me and my colleague, we take care of the cloud infrastructure for all the services that are developed in Teacher Services.    Vanessa Schneider:  So Colin, thanks for introducing yourself. You work in Teacher Services, I was wondering, how does that relate to PaaS?    Colin Saliceti:  In Teacher Services, we create and develop a number of services for, mainly for teachers and their careers. So we have a number of service teams which do a lot of development. So we need to provide them with the best tools to deploy their services and make it available for the, the public. And PaaS is a very good tool for that. We have different options. But we have experimented with one service which was teaching vacancies earlier, and this proved a massive success. And then next, we expanded to more and more services.    For example, Get Into Teaching, which is our main information website for teachers. That's where they can get information about the career, they can get in touch with an advisor, they can subscribe to events, and they can actually start the process to get them to-to become a teacher.   And it ties well with another service that's also on PaaS, called Find Teacher Training. So the future candidates can find a-a teacher training. So this is a very important website that the providers of training all across England advertise their courses and the candidates can apply for them through the website.   And we also have another one, which is Register Trainee Teacher - which is also on PaaS; it's not live yet, but it's almost there - where we can actually track all the, the trainees and see at which stage they are in-in their training and follow them in the beginning of their career. So there's quite a number of different services and it's just growing.     Vanessa Schneider:  So our next question is what the advantage is of hosting on PaaS versus other solutions, would you mind explaining what the benefit of it is?    Colin Saliceti:  The first thing is because it's easy compared to different platforms.    It's not easy because it's simple. It's easy because t-the platform packages a lot of features, but the way to use it, the interface to use it is, it's-it's quite easy for us. So we don't actually need a highly skilled specialist, at least in the beginning, to get on board with PaaS. So a Service Team with developers, they can manage themselves to deploy to-to PaaS without any assistance, at least in the first stages.   It's very important that it's a very flexible platform. And we can deploy the production website, but we can deploy many test websites if we need to, and we can deploy a new one for, to test something in particular, and then we can destroy it because we don't need it again and we don't need to pay for it again. So that, this flexibility is very important. And it also makes it very cost effective because we only pay for what we use and when we don't need it, we can scale down or just delete it.     Vanessa Schneider:  I was wondering if you have a user story that relates to the service that shows why it was a good idea to go with PaaS.    Colin Saliceti:  I got a very good example in the, actually, in the other part of the department.   After Teaching Vacancies, which was the-the first, it became obvious that PaaS was a good choice and some of other teams adopted it as well in, in DfE. So you may have heard of the laptops that we delivered to all the schools and for the disadvantaged kids who, to help them do the homeschooling. And so this was done thanks to a programme called Get Help with Tech. This was built very quickly and it was built on PaaS from day one. And PaaS proved that there was very important because we were able to build very quickly and iterate very quickly until we got the service right and we're able to deliver to all the schools in England.    Vanessa Schneider:  So I was wondering if I was a member of a different government department or a different team, how would you convince me to use GOV.UK PaaS?   Colin Saliceti:  First of all, the reasons I already explained: that it's easy to use and the, the learning curve is very easy. This flexibility is amazing as well, and that's really cost effective.   It's also very important that it's provided by government, it's not a separate commercial platform, it is actually provided by GDS. So all the security assurance has already been done and it's assured up to different levels of confidentiality. So you don't actually, in your department, you don't actually need to do that work again because it was already done by GDS.   And another thing is that because it's supported by GDS and we have an amazing relationship with them and we get an excellent support for them, from them, from the people who build and actually run the platform, and we have direct contact with them. And they're also here 24/7 in case of an issue. Which, so it's a great experience to run things on PaaS.    [VOX POP ENDS]   Vanessa Schneider:  So that was Colin. I also want to hasten to add, he was very concerned with appearing impartial because he did work at GDS previously on PaaS. Just wanted to make sure that he was completely representing DfE only.   Mark Buckley:  And that's the impartial version? Well, that's, that's good to hear. [chair squeaks]   Vanessa Schneider:  I think your chair just laughed.   Mark Buckley:  Yeah, potentially.    No, we've been working with DfE and Colin for, for a long time, but it's, it's great that Colin is still enjoying the benefits of our platform.   Vanessa Schneider:  Anything stand out otherwise? I was wondering, he mentioned, for instance, the really good support that you provide and I think, Clare, you mentioned that as well, coming out in your user research interviews.    Clare Barnett:  Yeah, that comes up a-alot when we talk to our users, because it's part of what makes PaaS so cost-effective for people, but it's also it-it means that people feel reassured that they're going to get the help and support. They get you know, responses. There's a really quick turnaround time for, for responses.   And we offer it not just through our support platform, called Zendesk, but we'll say through Slack. So there-there's multiple channels that people can use to get that support. And they will always be speaking to somebody from the team, as Colin said, who is well-versed in the platform, very experienced. And often the team will pair on them if they're trying to troubleshoot or problem-solve something and-and often help them fix problems that are not actually a PaaS problem. It might be that there's a problem with their, their code their end and quite often the PaaS team help identify that. So there's a lot of added value in that support package for our users.   Vanessa Schneider:  That seems to chime a lot as well with what Colin is talking about in terms of it being a really good test environment, in terms of being able to try things out, see if they work or not. Is that a common kind of use case across government?   Mark Buckley:  Yeah it's, but...we-we support services and applications running from everything from discoveries and alphas. As Colin was kind of mentioning, sort quick prototypes to check the viability. As Clare mentioned earlier, designers using it to test out and iterate sort of content and things like that. So you've got that at, at the start of the journey, but also all the way up to running mature products and services that teams do iterate on and improve those as well after going live, as it were.   It’s, in a sort of roundabout, roundabout way both Colin and Himal mentioned that things like Infrastructure as a Service, IaaS, and requiring real expertise and specialists. And quite often in government and early on in those services when they're getting up and running, will rely on suppliers and external parties to come in, maybe contractors, to come in and build things. And if they're built with incredibly specialist skills, then that becomes really difficult to maintain in the long term when the build team might have moved on to other projects for instance.   Having a platform like GOV.UK PaaS enables services to only need to recruit and employ Developers that they need and not the additional specialists and some, that kind of thing so that they can quickly iterate and test things out and not be at risk of not being able to support what they're doing over the long term. So, yeah, it's, what Colin said kind of brings a tear to the eye, right, in terms of being able to quickly build those things on a supported platform that can then enable support to folks in lockdown that really need help with education and homeschool.    Vanessa Schneider:  We always love it when our services have that direct impact, I think it's a lot more relatable to people to say I've got my kid a refurbished laptop, rather than saying that now you can get your document checked, because obviously Document Checking Service is much more a business-to-business kind of environment, isn't it?   So we've heard from some of the people who are using GOV.UK PaaS about why they like it, and about how your team develops it, but I think it's time now to share some GOV.UK PaaS fast facts with our listeners. As a starter for 10, can you tell me whether there's maybe a record for how fast a service was stood up via GOV.UK PaaS?   Mark Buckley:  You know, even though we are, from a development point of view, you can do a cf push and your application is running in minutes, in terms of actual real life bonafide services, the Shielded Vulnerable People Service as part of the support for people shielding and to get them support during coronavirus, the, there was a first kind of pull request on that service at 4pm on a Thursday, and the service itself went live when the Prime Minister a-announced it on, on the Monday.   So you know, within the space of 4 days, you've got something stood up and running on PaaS that, and the first care packages, or support packages, delivered to people within a week kind of thing. Which, yeah, at-at the beginning when, you know it seems like a long time ago now, was this was almost, almost almost a year ago, it was like indispensable to have GOV.UK PaaS and the other common platforms as well, GOV.UK Notify and GOV.UK Pay as ways to very quickly, cheaply and easily stand up new services. So 4 days to support the Vulnerable People Service was a really nice thing to do. I don't know if it's a record, but it's a good, good story.   Vanessa Schneider: If you want to hear more about how this service was stood up, you can listen to our February episode of the podcast.    Clearly GOV.UK PaaS has had an important part to play in the UK government response to coronavirus but what other services do you host that you think listeners might be surprised by?    Mark Buckley:  It's not only GOV.UK designed system services and things like that, as, as mentioned, NHS, local authorities, various kinds of things are hosted. I think the probably most unusual service that is hosted on GOV.UK PaaS is called Cosmic Bazaar - and not bizarre as in unusual, although it is unusual, Bazaar as is in markets or souk [laughs] I suppose - which is a forecasting platform for economists to hone their, yeah forecasting and evaluation skills as part of the Cabinet Office. So that was an unusual one to be posed with.    Vanessa Schneider:  Clare, I'm thinking that across all of these various services that are being set up on PaaS, the user research element of it is probably still going to remain consistent even as the applications vary across the 'bazaar' to the mundane. Is that right?   Clare Barnett:  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, yes, we have a really wide variety of services, but within that we have a kind of core set of different types of users - they fit into you know, a certain user type that we see. Which means that we can build the product around those user types rather than building and designing the product around very kind of specific niche services.    Vanessa Schneider:  So my final question is just about whether you've known about any other governments taking advantage of our research here. For instance Notify, we've been quite grateful and flattered where the Australian government, the Canadian government, the Department for Veteran Affairs in America, they've used the GitHub basically forked it and made their own variations of it. I was wondering, have you heard about that being the case maybe for PaaS?   Mark Buckley:  We actually have a bit of a kind of community ourselves with other, other 'PaaS's' from around the world. So our PaaS, GOV.UK PaaS, is built upon a technology called Cloud Foundry, which is the abstraction layer I suppose away from the raw infrastructure that Colin and others have talked about. And as well as ourselves, also the Australian government and the American government, Cloud.Gov, use Cloud Foundry as well. So there's been quite a lot of sharing between our teams. So 18F was the kind of equivalent of GDS in America. We have quite frequent contact with them. We have shared our repos, we've used some of their repos. So yeah, that's a lovely global community of Cloud Foundry and PaaS users.   Vanessa Schneider:  That’s so great. Like I know we do a lot of international work but it’s, it’s really quite heartening to see that what, you know that we’re collaborating internationally in something that’s so important. What a lovely note to end on right?   So yeah, thank you so much to all of our guests for coming on today. You can listen to all the episodes of the Government Digital Service Podcast on Apple Music, Spotify and all other major podcast platforms. The transcripts are available on PodBean.    Goodbye.    Mark Buckley:  Bye.    Clare Barnett:  Bye.

In this special 150th edition of The Interesting Health And Safety Podcast, Colin takes time to reflect upon the incredible highlights of the last six months. As Colin discusses, even though the world has been turned upside down, there have still been moments of opportunity, and valuable lessons learned from connections made.  KEY TAKEAWAYS Sometimes health and safety is a case of marketing. Perfecting the message is one thing, but marketing it effectively can help it spread. Willpower solidifies the mindset we need in order to make positive, lasting impact. We may not always succeed on the first attempt, but we must endeavour. As professionals we are always learning. The best way of learning is to talk, and especially with the people in the sharp end of the business, those who recognise the real safety needs. BEST MOMENTS 'We need to continually push new ways, new boundaries, and engage with people' 'Keep on the ball. Keep on pushing for what is right' 'Spend more time out in the workplace talking to the people who are doing the job'  VALUABLE RESOURCES The Interesting Health & Safety Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/vn/podcast/the-interesting-health-safety-podcast/id1467771449    ABOUT THE HOST Colin Nottage ‘Making health and safety as important as everything else we do.' This is the belief that Colin is passionate about and through his consultancy Influential Management Group (IMG) is able to spread into industry. Colin works at a strategic level with company owners and board members. He helps business leaders establish and achieve their health and safety ambitions. He has developed a number of leading competency improvement programmes that are delivered across industry and his strengths are his ability to take a practical approach to problem-solving and being able to liaise at all levels within an organisation. Colin also runs a company that vets contractors online and a network that develops and support H&S consultancies to become better businesses. Colin chairs the Construction Dust Partnership, an industry collaboration directly involving many organisations, including the Health and Safety Executive. He is a Post Graduate Tutor at Strathclyde University and a highly sought-after health and safety speaker and trainer. He has a Post Graduate Certificate in Safety and Risk management, an engineering degree and is a Chartered Member of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH).   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As Colin moves away from his coloured pencil work and back to pastel pencils. We talk about his return to the popular shadow pictures. With more ambitious ideas but still just 4 pencils, how will he cope trying to tackle more difficult subjects? Find out how he's getting on in this episode.

In today's episode, I brought on one of my past clients to talk shop about online marketing. Today turned out to be a stellar episode if I may say so myself. We got into a spectacular conversation about how to create an irresistible offer, and how spirituality helps marketing convert better, which is very counterintuitive. Our guest for today is Colin Scotland, a brilliant marketing coach out in the UK. Several years ago, he heard me speak on a virtual summit. He then reached out to me over on Twitter, and we had a powerful conversation, and he decided to coach with me. Today, you'll hear about how the coaching was life transformational for him, in his personal life and his business. He went from owing the bank, 500,000 pounds to having a six-figure online business that allows him to live his ideal lifestyle. He knows online marketing inside and out. He's on a mission to help people who are mission-driven entrepreneurs. And overall, he's just an incredible human being. What You'll Hear In This Episode How powerful can marketing be from the place of integrity? As Colin mentioned, marketing doesn't work without what? What is the most important thing in everything you do from the marketing perspective? What is an authentic marketing approach? How does it help your clients? What becomes the problem when you focus solely on what they do, the products they have, or the services they offer? In the marketing world, what is the process or the yardstick that measures client satisfaction? “The clarity of whom you serve goes hand in hand with your own purpose, your own “why”, and your own connectedness." What is the Japanese concept Ikigai about? How can you apply it to marketing? How are your ego and your mind be one of the biggest battles that you can ever face? Why ignoring your ego can be one of the biggest mistakes anybody can make? What was the biggest breakthrough in Colin's life, and how did it affect him? How did Colin compare our souls to the lake? What misconceptions mostly people make when they think or talk about consciousness and spirituality? How learning to be playful in certain situations in your life can be a door opener? What difference will it make? What wisdom would Colin give his younger self? Links Mentioned In This Episode ajamyx.com/book colinscotland.com @ajamyx @colinscotland

For the 42nd episode of the Healthcare IT Podcast, we’re asking the question, “Is Healthcare Social Media Dead?”  There’s certainly a lot of things that have been going on with social media and a lot of people complaining about what social media has become.  As Colin and I spend way too much time on social […]

For the 42nd episode of the Healthcare IT Podcast, we’re asking the question, “Is Healthcare Social Media Dead?”  There’s certainly a lot of things that have been going on with social media and a lot of people complaining about what social media has become.  As Colin and I spend way too much time on social […]

How the hell does a wee Scottish lad from a Labour/Nationalist factory town end up in Alice Springs, married to a conservative-leaning indigenous Australian? In an episode topical to the current political divide and racial discussion across the Western World, Colin explains to us how while he'd never judged someone on their skin colour, he now understands how our indigenous people have traditionally sorted by skin type. After an abusive upbringing and a toxic love affair with drugs and alcohol, Colin somehow wound up in the heart of Australia, sober, a proud husband and father, and an up-and-coming awarded musician with beautiful folk tones. In a chat that went for not nearly long enough, we discuss: - trying to be a good c#nt, - having a better half who doesn't take any crap, certainly not his, and the couple of influence he and Jacinta Price have stumbled into being, - competing on The Voice and the tough times artists are facing during Covid-19, - plus much, much more. Strap in – Colin is very intelligent, articulate and hilarious; but life is still tough, and this is a tough conversation. But aren't those the conversations worth having? As Colin says of the current situation, ‘Difficult conversations are important, it's only when we stop talking that we end up in trouble.'

“My mantra is: you're strong, you're capable.”Colin O'BradyIf you ask this week's guest what drives his success as a multiple world record breaking adventure athlete, his answer just might surprise you.It's not grit. It's not talent, perseverance or focus. Instead, it's infinite love.Returning for his fourth appearance on the podcast, Colin O'Brady is here to elaborate.Longtime listeners are well acquainted with Colin's story from burn victim to boundary eclipsing adventurer. Even if you're new to the podcast, chances are stumbled across his story by way of his appearances everywhere, from the Today show to the Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon.For the unfamiliar few, Colin is a former Yale swimmer turned professional triathlete enjoying a third act as an elite adventure athlete with 5 breathtaking world records to his name.Notable among his many palmarès, Colin is both the youngest and fastest human to complete The Explorers Grand Slam ⁠— a challenge of exceptional prestige that encompasses scaling the highest mountain on each of the seven continents and treks to both the North and South Poles. Not only did he demolish the previous record by an astonishing 53-day margin, along the way he simultaneously broke the 7 Summits world record by two days.Last year, Colin became the first person in history to cross the continent of Antarctica solo, unsupported and unaided. Under nothing but his own power, Colin pulled a 300-pound sled 932 miles in just 54 days across the coldest, windiest, most remote continent on earth from the Atlantic to the Pacific via the South Pole. It's a jaw-dropping feat of athletic prowess, stunning endurance and sheer human will that captivated millions and made headlines across the world.Then, just last month, Colin and five crewmates successfully completed the first and only human-powered ocean row across the Drake Passage ⁠— a treacherous 13-day, 600 nautical mile excursion from the southern tip of South America to the edge of Antarctica ⁠— aptly titled The Impossible Row -- chronicled in a mini-series produced by Discovery.Colin's latest accomplishment coincided with the release of his new book, The Impossible First. Dubbed by Kirkus a "brutally sublime tale of derring-do that transports as well as teaches”, it's a memoir that chronicles his incredible life and the many lessons learned about human potential, possibility, and the power of infinite love.If you missed our previous conversations (RRP#207, RRP#235 and RRP#439), they're an excavation of Colin's origin story growing up on a commune. How he survived an almost lethal burn accident that left him unlikely to walk again. His phoenix-like transformation into a professional ITU triathlete and Olympic hopeful. And how he morphed into a mountaineer with the audacity to attempt such incomprehensible feats of adventure athleticism is well worth the time invested.Today we pick up where our ongoing series last left off.Note: we recorded this conversation many months ago on January 18. My initial plan was to share this episode on February 9. However, on February 2, National Geographic published an article entitled The Problem With Colin O’Brady - a 7,000 word take down that accuses Colin of embellishing his accomplishments.It’s an upsetting piece that left me confused. I’ve known Colin for many years. I’ve spent quite a bit of time with him and his wife Jenna. I consider him a good friend. And myself a decent judge of character. However, in light of this development, it also felt tone deaf to release the podcast as scheduled. So I put a pin it.Two weeks later, Colin published a thorough, 16-page point-by-point refutation of the National Geographic article.I thought it only fair to provide Colin an opportunity to comment on the allegations. So, on March 8 (still pre-pandemic), we sat down again for a subsequent conversation to discuss the controversy particulars.Today I share both conversations. First, the original interview we conducted in January. It's an exploration the hows and whys behind The Impossible Row. The intention behind his new book and the process of birthing it. And a deep dive into human potential and the infinite love that fuels his.Immediately following this initial exchange is an additional 30-minute discourse specific to the National Geographic scuffle appended to the audio version of the podcast and viewable as a stand-alone piece here & below.The visually inclined can watch it all go down on YouTube -- where we separated the main podcast conversation and Colin’s thoughts in response to the article into two distinct videos. And as always, the audio version streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.As Colin and I are both fond of repeating, we all sit atop mountains of untapped potential. May this conversation help you tap yours.Peace + Plants,Listen, Watch & SubscribeApple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | Google PodcastsThanks to this week’s sponsorsAthletic Greens: 75 whole food sourced ingredients designed to optimize 5 key areas of health, Athletic Greens is the delicious daily habit that sets you up for a healthy future. I take the packets everywhere I go. So invest in your health without compromise! Go to: athleticgreens.com/richroll and claim your special offer today: 20 FREE travel packs valued at $79 with your first purchase.Theragun: There is no substitute for the Theragun Gen 4. With an OLED screen, personalized Theragun app, and the quiet and power you need, starting at only $199. Experience the deep muscle massager that’s unlike anything you’ve ever felt, risk-free for 30 days or your money back, at Theragun.com/RICHROLL.Birch Living: The best, most affordable, organic and sustainable mattresses on the market. All Birch mattresses come with a 25-year warranty, and you can even try it for 100 nights risk free. Plus, 1% of each purchase is donated to the National Forest Foundation and Birch purchases carbon offsets for each mattress sold. Right now, Birch is offering my listeners $200 off ALL mattress orders. Visit BirchLiving.com/RichRoll and get your game-changing mattress (the one I sleep on in my tent!) today.Note: One of the best ways to support the podcast is to support the sponsors. For a complete list of all RRP sponsors and their respective vanity url's and discount codes, visit my Resources page and click "Sponsors".SHOW NOTESConnect With Colin: Website | Facebook | Twitter | InstagramBook: The Impossible First*Outside: Colin O’Brady Wants to Tell You a StoryWSJ: An Antarctic Explorer’s Mental JourneyWSJ: ‘The Impossible First’ Review: The Great White SouthNY Times: He Crossed Antarctica Alone. Now He Plans to Row There.TODAY: Daredevil Colin O’Brady talks about crossing Antarctica and Drake PassageJimmy Fallon: Colin O'Brady on His Historic Solo Crossing of AntarcticaDiscovery: The Impossible RowNational Geographic: The Problem With Colin O'BradyColin's Response To NatGeo: Letter To Nat Geo Editor Susan GoldbergThe New Yorker: The Polar Explorer Colin O’Brady and the Problem with “Firsts”TIME: 6 Rowers Become First to Cross Infamous Drake Passage UnassistedBusiness Insider: A burn victim who was told he'd never walk normally is climbing Mount Everest with his wife after crossing Antarctica aloneNY Times: Crossing Antarctica: 7 Takeaways From the Solo and Unsupported JourneyNY Times: Racing Across Antarctica, One Freezing Day at a TimeNY Times: Colin O’Brady Completes Crossing of Antarctica With Final 32-Hour PushRelated Podcasts You Might Enjoy:RRP #439: Freeze Solo: Colin O'BradyRRP #235: Colin O’Brady Shatters The Explorers Grand Slam World RecordRRP #207: Colin O’Brady’s Attempt On The Explorers Grand SlamRRP #351: Alex Honnold: The Free Soul Of Free Solo Climbing RRP #417: Kílian Jornet Is The World’s Greatest Mountain RunnerThanks to Jason Camiolo for production, audio engineering and show notes; Margo Lubin and Blake Curtis for video, editing and graphics; portraits by Ali Rogers; and theme music by Ana Leimma.*Disclosure: Books and products denoted with an asterisk are hyperlinked to an affiliate program. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.for 1000s of delicious, customized plant-based recipes & so much more, check out our Plantpower Meal PlannerHOW CAN I SUPPORT THE PODCAST?Tell Your Friends & Share Online!Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher | Soundcloud | Google PodcastsDonate: Check out our Patreon accountSupport The Sponsors: One of the best ways to support the podcast is to support our sponsors. For a complete list of all RRP sponsors and their respective vanity url's and discount codes, visit my Resources page and click "Sponsors". See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On this week's sports show.....how are our local clubs doing in the present climate? We spoke to General Manager of Llanelli Town Wayne Stevens, Gary Taylor player and assistant coach at Pontardawe Town about how the crisis is affecting them. Rhys Fisher, Captain of Ammanford came on to tell us how they've been impacted but also to tell us about an online football tournament that they've joined. Robert Rees is a rugby writer, he was telling us about the difficulties he's facing while football reporter for the PA News Agency Phil Blanche gave us his thoughts on the season being extended and the Euros moving to next summer. Some real heartfelt stories too from the Chairman of Bonymaen Rugby Club Richard Scanell, Martyn Bate, Fixtures Secretary at Briton Ferry Rugby Club and Colin Kirkhouse Team Manager at Birchgrove RFC. As Colin passionately put it, these Grassroots clubs are a vital part of communities in South Wales. Let's hope the WRU offer all the help and support they can!

Part four began with Colin O’Hara and Charon travelling downstream on the river that separates the realm of death from Abaddon. As they travelled, the pair encountered turbulent and violent rapids and despite Charon’s best efforts, the boat was smashed to pieces and Colin tossed into the water. Colin was swept over a waterfall, many miles high, and washed up on a strange forested shore. When he left the water to move inland, his way was blocked, momentarily, by a white stag, an evil omen. As Colin moved through the woods he was fired upon and struck by arrows. Scrambling to escape he found his way to a large clearing. Across the clearing he could see the stag standing in front of shield wall of a Roman army, as well as several giants. The giants attacked Colin, but to his surprise, and theirs, they were unable to injure him. The stag then transformed into the harbinger of death, the Morrigan, and informed Colin that the immortals were planning to throw off the shackles of their servitude and destroy humanity. She told Colin that the immortals and the gods were also tricked by the Devil, and that their individual roles were actually more of a prison sentence. The Morrigan revealed that Colin was trapped, doomed to fight this battle, one that he could neither win nor lose, for eternity. She then turned into a flock of ravens and flew away as the army across the field began to advance.

Hosts, Colin Boyd & Sofi Aldinio launch their first podcast episode describing what rewilding parenthood means and why documenting inspiring stories of other families emboldens them on their current overlanding journey from Maine to Argentina as a family of four.Sofi and Colin had an adventurous lifestyle before settling in Portland, Maine. The pair lived in NewZealand for five years while also traveling and working independently overseas. As Colin was wrapping up his years competing on the Freeride World Tour, they moved to the US and their first child was on its way unexpectedly. As they quickly prepared for their new child, they felt their lives changing and over the course of four years, two houses, full time jobs, mortgages, airbnb's daycares, life insurance, etc... they lost themselves and each other as many other young parents do.Their current #overlanding journey from Maine to Argentina, Sofi's home, is a reclamation of the adventurous lives they seek to live and the experiences they want for their family. While they admit, vanlife has been more challenging than expected, they feel more connected now than in their traditional lives living the american dream and they hope to inspire others to pursue their passions.ABOUT THE PODCASTRewilding Parenthood is a podcast featuring families leading bold and courageous lifestyles. It is told in 5 episode thematic based seasons - the purpose being that we want families interested in a certain subject matter to get a holistic look at the lifestyle they seek to pursue and most importantly highlighting paths to achieving this life. Of the five episodes per season, four will be hosted by Colin Boyd, in English and the fifth in Spanish and hosted by Sofi Aldinio. So whether you are seeking a life on the road, on the water or just an alternative approach to the 9-5, join us to find inspiration and connection to many others leading the way.Rewilding Parenthood was produced by Afuera Vida and hosted by Colin Boyd & Sofi Aldinio. Follow the journey, and podcast highlights on instagram @afueravida.Sound Design & Editing by Mercedes RivaMusic by Thomas Tyrel

This week we chat with Colin Parent, Executive Director of Circulate San Diego, an advocacy organization that promotes public and active transportation in tandem with sustainable growth. Colin is also a city council member for the City of La Mesa. As Colin notes, much of the renewed interest and support for transit and transit-oriented development is being driven by one thing: the housing crisis. We learn how the mayor of San Diego is pushing more housing and less parking, and the long term benefits of advocacy.

"It starts out as this crazy hobby, spending thousands of dollars on new equipment." This week's guest is Colin McLean of Banded Peak Brewing Co. who shares a common story about how he got into the craft beer industry. As Colin tells it, Banded Peak is the marriage of the co-founders' passions: getting outdoors and drinking beer. Colin is a skiing fanatic who tries to spend 20-30 days every season on the slopes, even since he was 16 years old. He also has a reputation for helping Mark fix his flat ties, both on his bike and in his wife's minivan! When he's not on the slopes or in the brewery, Colin spends a lot of his time in Montana, or as he likes to call it: "Alberta's Tijuana" More than just an enthusiast for the outdoors and a cold one, Colin holds an urban planning degree, which he credits in making it possible to engage with City Hall and make Calgary's Barley Belt possible. When Banded Peak first opened the Manchester area of Calgary was just the place you'd go to pick up your car after being towed, but with a little of the Calgary craft beer scene's signature "collabatition" the area is now the go-to spot for visiting craft breweries and distilleries. letsmeetforabeer.com albertabeerfestivals.com Banded Peak Brewing Co.

Digital transformation is the implementation of technology. Partly true. But organizations can't get ready for better, smarter, different ways of working without putting time and effort into building a culture that's ready for digital transformation. Colin D. Ellis is in the business of cultural evolution. A project leadership expert, international speaker and best-selling author, Colin helps companies to define and evolve culture in order to transform business. As Colin defines it, culture is the sum of everyone's attitudes, beliefs, behaviors and traditions. And it's these same attitudes, beliefs, behaviors and traditions that can hold organizations back. To build the future, organizations need to put a shift in, and hold people accountable for change. Each of us has a personal responsibility to change the way we think and the way we act. Colin joins us to talk digital transformation, emotional intelligence, mistakes companies make and his go-to karaoke song.

Patrick Lafferty and Colin Thornley will be teaching together this week. As Colin alluded in his sermon last week, ask people what they believe it means to be free and most will respond with some general sense of being able to do as they wish--as the...

Patrick Lafferty and Colin Thornley will be teaching together this week. As Colin alluded in his sermon last week, ask people what they believe it means to be free and most will respond with some general sense of being able to do as they wish--as the...

Two-time mountaineering world record holder, Colin O’Brady, joins me in today’s episode to share his major lessons learned through hardship and adversity that served to inspire him to strive for both personal and professional excellence in his life. Not only was Colin a top level triathlete for seven years, he currently holds the world record for being the fastest mountaineer to climb the highest peak on each of the seven continents and journey to both the north and south poles (The Explorer’s Grand Slam challenge). Not only did he become the fastest person in history to do this, he accomplished this incredible feat in 139 days which was 60 days faster than anyone else had ever done. Despite being almost burned to death in a traumatic accident ten years ago in Ko Tao, Thailand and suffering serious burns to 25% of his body, Colin was able to overcome these injuries by setting small achievable goals and work toward these goals every day. In this episode, we dig into Colin’s work ethic and the specific strategies he has put into action that have allowed him to achieve excellence through his work. As well, Colin shares the work that he and his wife, Jenna, do with their non-profit organization, Beyond 7/2. As Colin states in this episode, the number one goal that they have for their organization is to inspire young people to lead healthy lives by being active and by believing in their own ability to accomplish anything that they set their mind to. Colin is wise beyond his years and his insight will surely inspire anyone listening to take more action in their own lives to be the very best that they can be. Colin’s Bio Colin O’Brady  was born in Olympia, Washington on March 16th, 1985. The son of an eagle scout, Colin spent his childhood exploring the wilderness of the pacific northwest with his family. He learned about healthy living from his father, an organic farmer and from his mother and step-father, co-founders of a local, natural foods grocery chain. Through passion, dedication, and hard work, Colin grew into a youth sports star. He won Oregon State Championships and received national honors in both swimming and soccer. Colin was recruited to swim at Yale University where he swam all four years. During his time in college, Colin took a leave of absence to pursue a semester-long course with the National Outdoors Leadership School, mountaineering and kayaking in remote Patagonia, Chile. Later, while studying African economic development in college, he traveled to Tanzania, where he caught a glimpse of Africa’s highest peak, Mount Kilimanjaro. That day, a dream was born: to climb the Seven Summits. In 2006, Colin graduated from Yale with a BA in economics. The day after graduation, he embarked on a 4000-mile cycling journey from Connecticut to Oregon, with the aim to raise money and awareness for Habitat for Humanity. Before beginning his career in finance, Colin left to explore the world on a backpacking trip. While in Thailand, Colin suffered a tragic accident and was severely burned in a fire. His injuries covered nearly 25% of his body, primarily damaging his legs and feet. Doctors warned him he might never walk again normally, but Colin was determined to beat the odds. He focused not only on walking again, but set himself a goal: to complete a triathlon following his recovery. A mere 18 months after his accident while working as a trader in Chicago, Colin amazed the racing world when he placed first overall amateur at the 2009 Chicago Triathlon. His victory in triathlon sparked a new path. Colin turned pro, and fulfilled his childhood dream of being a professional athlete. Over the last five years, he has represented the United States in triathlon competitions in 22 countries and on six continents. Meanwhile, the distant peaks still called to him: Colin finally summited Mount Kilimanjaro following a race in East Africa, and climbed Mount Fuji after racing in Japan.

Our Christmas episode comes but once a year, so pour yourself an eggnog, cozy up to the fire and listen to the I Have Some Notes crew pick apart your third or possibly fourth favourite Die Hard film, Die Hard 2. For Gregg and Erin this was a tough film to tackle because they actually quite like it. Scott, on the other hand, felt the movie didn't Die nearly Harder enough. As Colin is so fond of saying, conflict makes great radio, and arguing the merits of a decades old sequel is exactly the kind of thing we call fun. Enjoy filling your earholes with Die Hard, have a fun and safe holiday season, and we'll see you all again in the new year.

No. 76 packs a heck of a lot into the space of an hour, and it’s partially down to Colin’s tangent-led line of questioning, but mostly down to our guest this week - Berlin’s own Cory Andreen – and his lengthy cv. Originally from the specialty coffee nexus of a Murky-fied Washington DC, Cory’s been at the centre of the specialty coffee scene in his adopted home ever since he started Café CK in 2009 straight through to today, with his newest ventures, Brewbox (nitro coffee) and Motel (beer), and his role as the director of Berlin Coffee Festival. As Colin and Cory trace his moves across Berlin over the years, the cover everything from the city itself – and how filter coffee’s reputation has yo-yo’ed over the years – to the growth of the community and the consistent perceived dichotomy of quality vs. convenience. Cory is cool in the way few people are – fantastic dj, killer dancefloor moves, world champion cup taster – but he’s also sharp, down to earth, and highly insightful. Definitely an episode not to miss!

No. 76 packs a heck of a lot into the space of an hour, and it’s partially down to Colin’s tangent-led line of questioning, but mostly down to our guest this week - Berlin’s own Cory Andreen – and his lengthy cv. Originally from the specialty coffee nexus of a Murky-fied Washington DC, Cory’s been at the centre of the specialty coffee scene in his adopted home ever since he started Café CK in 2009 straight through to today, with his newest ventures, Brewbox (nitro coffee) and Motel (beer), and his role as the director of the Berlin Coffee Festival. As Colin and Cory trace his moves across Berlin over the years, the cover everything from the city itself – and how filter coffee’s reputation has yo-yo’ed over the years – to the growth of the community and the consistent perceived dichotomy of quality vs. convenience. Cory is cool in the way few people are – fantastic dj, killer dancefloor moves, world champion cup taster – but he’s also sharp, down to earth, and highly insightful. Definitely an episode not to miss!

Colin travels by himself through semi-arid terrain on his ostrich horse. With a gaunt appearance and an empty stomach, he suddenly stops at the smell of something; he looks over to find a man cooking a large piece of meat over an open flame. Colin puts a hand over his gurgling stomach and moves the hand to his sword hilt. However, upon seeing that the man is traveling with a pregnant woman, he continues on. Now more tired and dehydrated than ever, Colin is struggling to maintain his consciousness. His vision becomes blurred as he presses on and he closes his eyes. A woman walking down a dark hallway with a hood appears. Colin opens his eyes again, but keeps his head down. Colin and Lee approach a large farm full of several kinds of hybrid pigs, that oink loudly as the two approach the house. Lee casually remarks that the noise is good because no one can ever sneak up on them. As Colin and his mother walk back through a courtyard, young Princess Lexie is attempting a cartwheel, but falls to the ground with a thud. Behind her Maddie runs forward and performs the move with ease, topping it off with several somersaults. Jealous, Lexie pushes her over and laughs. A young Mai sits uninterested against a tree, watching them; she turns, sees Colin walking through the garden, and diverts her gaze again, now blushing and smiling to herself. Lexie takes notice of this and whispers to Maddie, "Watch this." Maddie giggles as Lexie runs up to her brother and mother, asking if Colin would come play with them, stating that it is important for siblings to spend time together. After a small argument between Colin and Lexie, their mother makes him go and play with the girls. Colin's mother informs him that she has received a letter from his uncle in DC. In the letter, Chris says that "if the city is as magnificent as its obstructionism, DC must be something to behold." Continuing, he hopes they can come and see it one day, if he does not burn it to the ground first, to which Colin and Lexie burst out in laughter. He has also sent gifts for his niece and nephew. For Colin, a pearl dagger that belonged to the general who surrendered when Chris broke through the Outer Wall. The inscription on the dagger reads Never give up without a fight. Lexie, instead, receives an Earth Kingdom doll, much to her displeasure. Lexie comments that if Chris did not make it back from the siege, her father would be next in line to be Fire Lord. Her mother scolds her for saying such a thing, as Colin asks her how she would feel if Chris's son, Duncan, wanted their dad to die. Lexie simply retorts that she thinks "[their] dad would make a much better Fire Lord than his royal beer-loving kookiness" and sets her new doll ablaze. Their mother enters the room and tells them their father has requested an audience with their grandfather, Fire Lord George. Lexie disrespectfully inquires why Suzanne does not just refer to Fire Lord George as "grandfather" as "he isn't exactly the powerful Fire Lord he used to be". When she continues saying that someone was probably going to take his place soon, Suzanne scolds her once again for her brazen and callous speech and wonders to herself what is wrong with her daughter. In the Fire Lord's throne room, Scott asks Colin and Lexie how their great-grandfather Garfield won the Battle of Han Tui. While Colin stammers for an answer, Lexie decisively answers correctly. Pleased with his daughter, Scott asks her to show her grandfather the new moves she demonstrated for him. Okay this synopsis is way longer than I thought it would be when I started c/ping, I'm in too deep and need to stop.

February 1, 2014   Episode 3 already! This is the last of the ‘old post’ episodes for a little while. As Colin mentioned in Epsiode 1, he wanted to test things out and get a little content on the line by going through some past posts and, with any luck, it would introduce some new readers to some archive content too.   This time around it was Colin's first 24 hour mountain bike race, the Relentless 24. As you’ll find out, it didn’t go quite as planned…   Related Show Links: Mountainbikesapart.com Read about the race here Colin on Twitter Email Colin Mountain Bikes Apart Facebook Page