It seems, I am on a journey - goodness only knows where to, but the ride is good fun!
Winding all the way back to university, where I was infected by the 'geek' bug (which is incurable as I've found), I studied Computing for Artificial Intelligence. If there's ever a degree title that's going to start a conversation, that's it!
I've always been a freelancer - starting with small websites for small businesses, charities, individuals...just to learn, absorb and to try new things. After university I joined "Internet Geeks" after replying to an ad saying "Be a Geek...". Although quite junior I grew a technical team, alongside my designer counterpart, built a CMS (called Anthea...of course) and some amazing websites such as Channel 4's River Cottage, and a conceptualised, design and developed a system called Service Tick (which is now it's own business).
After a few years we moved to Cambridge where I worked with a company on WiFi tracking of *things* and my last full-time job as "Browser based user interface expert" for a materials information company working for some brilliant customers.
But I had an itch...working for other people was good fun, but ultimately limiting. So I took an incredibly challenging decision and became a full-time freelancer as "Intelligent Penguin".
Over a few years, Intelligent Penguin actually grew from just me, incorporated as a company and I was eventually managing a team of 13 people. We had great fun and worked on some brilliant projects. I built internal marketing systems, an auto-enrollment/pension management system called Nurture (which is still doing well) as well as lots of great projects for clients. Unfortunately, early in 2015 Intelligent Penguin hit a crises point after a series of disasterous external influences, and came to an end.
I'm not one to stay down for long - and started the complex challenge of coming back. Starting again is not the hard part - coming up with a new name when you've already had "Intelligent Penguin"...now that's hard! A clean slate is a good challenge though - what am I going to be this time? It's always been code, I enjoy it, it's in my bones...so, keeping it simple, I became "The Code Guy".
In the first year I won the IPSE Freelancer of the Year Award, built some great pieces of software and drank a lot of tea. After a successful start, a team is starting to form, ideas are growing and The Code Guy has a plan...
Ding ding, it's round 3...