Learning from Dogs

Clicking on each author’s name will take you to the archive of their Posts.

Paul Handover is a child of the post-war era in Great Britain having been born in London a few months before the end of WWII.  After a rather shaky attempt at being educated, including 2 years studying for a Diploma in Electrical Engineering, Paul’s first job was as a commercial apprentice at the British Aircraft Corporation.He then joined the sales desk of British Visqueen, a polythene film and products manufacturer and part of ICI Plastics.  From there he joined ICI Inorganic Chemicals in Sydney, Australia, again on the sales desk.

Returning later to the UK, Paul joined IBM UK Office Products division as a field salesman and spent 8 very happy years with them.  But the lure of starting a business was too strong and he left IBM to start his own company, Dataview Ltd.  Dataview became the 8th Commodore PC dealer in the UK and later the 8th IBM PC dealer.  The company also became famous for producing and globally distributing a British made word processing program, Wordcraft.

During this exciting period Paul became much more aware of the importance of marketing strategy and the raft of competencies that deliver entrepreneurial success.  After Dataview was sold, he used these experiences to act successfully as a sales and marketing consultant for small and large organisations.  Paul has also been a visiting teacher at both an English and French business school and continues to provide coaching and mentoring to entrepreneurs both sides of the ‘pond’  He lives in North America.  Hobbies include flying and trying to stay healthy! Fuller bio on Linked-In.

Dr Sherry L Jarrell has MBA and Ph.D. degrees in finance and economics from the University of Chicago.   She is an award-winning teacher who enjoys interacting with students from all levels, including undergraduates, MBAs, and executives.  She taught at Southern Methodist, Indiana, Columbia, Emory, and Georgia State Universities before joining Wake Forest in 1998.  She recently won an international research award and is the co-author of “Driving Shareholder Value: Value-Building Techniques for Creating Shareholder Wealth” published by McGraw Hill.  Her most important, enjoyable, and fulfilling undertaking, however, has been as mom to Audrey (15) and Anna (13).

Dr. Jarrell’s expertise is in valuing enterprises and strategies. She is an accomplished public speaker and frequent commentator on issues relating to law, business, economics, and finance on television and radio.  These and other interests are the subject of her blogs.

Jon Lavin has been working with people and organisations for over 18 years as a manager, coach, mentor and personal development specialist. He is the founder of The People Workshop, which specialises in developing customised, one to one and group interventions in the area of professional and personal development for people and businesses.

The secret of Jon’s success is his understanding of people and how they are in relationship with each other. This requires that people are able to self-reflect and be willing to examine behaviours that are no longer fit for purpose. Many life problems originate from the difficulties we create through our own behaviours and then inflict them onto other people.

By bringing this realisation into our everyday lives, it becomes possible to create desired change which has the potential to have a huge impact. With this change can come a freedom from old patterns and a choice to be how we want to be. This clearly can have a powerful and positive influence on business performance where managers and teams actively participate in this type of personal development. In the current business climate, the importance of this has become even more apparent as companies cut staff and expect more from fewer people.

Jon uses a wide range of interpersonal skills derived from Transactional Analysis, Core Process Psychotherapy and Neuro-Linguistic Programming, which he combines with his very down-to-earth, fun approach and passion for working with people. He delights in seeing people reach their full potential.

Jon is happily married with three sons, which take up most of his spare time, and when he’s not with his family, he enjoys playing the guitar, music generally, walking and working on a garden – small holding.

Jon is always interested to hear from people and organizations who might benefit from his involvement. To tell Jon about your interests or to ask him for his suggestions, you can contact him by email at jon.lavin@peopleworkshop.co.uk or by telephone at his office on +44 (0) 1803 844 133 or by mobile phone on +44 (0) 7711 882859.

Dr John W Lewis helps organizations to apply software technologies to their businesses; his services are available from holosoft. As a trainer, author, mentor and facilitator, he has provided training and consulting services in software specification, design and implementation to organizations in the finance, telecoms, airline, energy and other sectors.

His interest in understanding models of requirements and the design of matching software models developed during his time as a physicist with both applied and mathematical leanings.

Currently, based on his experience in research and development and in training, he is increasingly interested in innovation.

John has a B.Sc. in Applied Physics from Bath University, and a D.Phil. in Engineering Science from Oxford University, and has held an Atlas Research Fellowship at Brasenose College, Oxford.

After graduating, he spent about 12 years in technical research, alternating between commercial and academic organisations. The most common subject was “optics”, among other topics. In retrospect, the theme during this period was “modelling”, involving the development of mental models which were, more often than not, translated into mathematical models and then into computer models for the purposes of simulation.

Since then, he has spent about 18 years in commercial software training, one of the multitude of corners of the multi-dimensional IT industry which seem to be out of sight of many of the other corners. Facilitated by the advent of object-oriented approaches to software systems, he found another opportunity to model the world using computers and spent many thousands of hours training many hundreds of professional software engineers to do the same.

His current interest is in playing a broader role in the facilitation of the adoption and diffusion of innovations, especially in software, by modelling, simulating and implementing the processes by which innovations are adopted.

Commercially, he has worked for: EMI Ltd., Hayes, Middlesex, UK; General Instrument GmbH, Munich, Germany; PA Technology, Cambridge, UK; the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Harwell, UK; and, his own company, Holosoft Ltd..

His pastimes include, at various times: skiing, sailing, golf and flying.

Personal observations on a range of topics are published on this personal blog. Professional offerings are taking shape at holosoft. John is also to be found on Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Facebook (John W Lewis) and email.

Bob Derham is a commercial pilot of many years experience but much more than that a family man with a sixteen year old daughter from a 25 relationship. Now married to a younger wife and with two more children, a girl of eight and a boy of four.

Home is a thatched cottage in the New Forest in Southern England. We have two collie crossed springer dogs, who are with us all the time. My commercial flying comes with additional work as a type rating instructor on Airbus aircraft.

Life has been made up of lots of things, living and working in different countries. Trying my hand at various additional businesses. I have a very real interest in Classic cars, and am open to new ideas and opportunities.

I tend to work outside the box, and am not too happy with the modern world, so will often revert to ideas based on how things used to be!

Chris Snuggs is British language teacher, specialising in English as a Foreign Language (EFL). He has over 40 years teaching and management experience in different types of school both private and state in the UK, Germany, France and Africa.

The archetypal European; my second wife is German, our nine-year-old son was born in France but is British and tri-lingual in English, French and German – my first wife was Spanish and we had three daughters, one of whom works in Sydney, another in Madrid and the third in London.

Very interested in politics, particularly in the extent to which politicians talk rubbish – I detest lies, venality, corruption, soggy thinking, cowardice, spin, nationalism and demagogery, of which there is almost everywhere far too much. I would like to further international understanding and the Human Spirit.

All opinions expressed here are those of the authors alone, and not necessarily those of the organizations with which they are affiliated or any other organization or person.