let the wise listen and add to their learning,
Proverbs 1:5 NIV
and let the discerning get guidance
There have been times in my working life, where a seemingly chance event, represents a major new trajectory in my career. The bid to Merseyside TEC in the early 1990s was one such moment.
Merseyside TEC (or Training and Enterprise Council) was responsible for youth training in its region and it had invited tenders for a new system to administer the way it paid for training young school leavers. The idea was that each student would be issued with a “smart card” which contained a personal training budget (credit), which could be spent at approved training providers on training that had been approved for that individual..
These cards were an early version of the type of cards we now use everyday to pay for purchases using a “chip and pin” machine. However, back then, these things were new and innovative; the idea of having a chip embedded in a plastic card was really exciting.
The bid itself was complex and challenging. We had to provide the cards, card readers, networking between the TEC and training provider and most difficult of all, we had to write a completely new application program to manage the whole system. It was by far the most complex thing I had ever done and getting the whole thing approved was very stressful.
To my immense surprise, we ended up winning that bid and doing so opened up a completely new market, providing systems to TECs around the country. TECs were also forming partnerships with other local organisations to create things called “Business Link Partnerships” to provide advice services to small businesses in the area. These new organisations needed completely new office systems and this was another great new outlet for our services.
The Bunesss Links were completely new organisations without the baggage of older IT systems so we could build new, ultra-modern office systems for them, using the latest ICL software (called TeamWare Office), which used Microsoft Windows and used mice, pointers, icons and everything like that. Our own office systems that we used in ICL were still based on the “old” OfficePower software which used keyboards and function keys. These were text only and there wasn’t a mouse to be seen. This represented a transition between the old character based systems of the 70s and 80s, with the new graphical user interfaces which came to dominate.
The TECs and Business Links kept us busy for years and it was fun too. I also got a lot of personal kudos for initiating this whole new market and it was the high point of my career so far.
However, as they say, “all good things must come to an end” and this operation really did come crashing down in a most spectacular way.
Richard Mann 