This section of the website contains a series of musings across a range of topics from business to humour, some of which originate back to September 29th 2010:
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What’s your greatest achievement?
One of my new colleagues recently asked me what my greatest achievement had been through my career. It was a very simple question, and with a tech career spanning more than 30 years, you’d expect it should have been easy to answer, but I have to admit that I found it quite difficult. I could
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The Global Interview
Thrilled to join a group of fellow business leaders asked by The Global Interview to share a few of my professional and personal experiences. https://theglobalinterview.com/interviews-season-5/2020/3/2/stuart-lynn-non-executive-director-visiting-professor-founder-and-managing-director-of-stuart-lynn-consulting
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Ten tips for scaling businesses
Over the past twenty years I’ve worked with numerous scale-up businesses and regardless of sector, there are some common things that successful scale-ups do really well, and as you might expect there are some common challenges that most if not all scale-ups have had to overcome.
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Unbelievably it’s almost two and a half years since I started my own business.
I have to say creating and running my own business has been somewhat different to what I thought it would be. It’s been a very interesting journey, I’ve worked with some great companies, I’ve met some great people, I’ve experienced the unpredictability rollercoaster, but most importantly I’ve continued to learn a lot from those I’ve
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“I would like to look back and see how North East businesses have continued to grow, prosper and create jobs for our young people”
Five years ago today I featured in the North East Times magazine when I worked as the Chief Technology and Information Officer at Sage. I rediscovered this article yesterday when I was cleaning up my PC and spent a little time reflecting on some of the comments:
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Dynamites 2018
One of my favourite days of the year … tonight I’ll be joining a gathering of the good and the great of North East England’s tech industry to celebrate another year of awesome regional success. @dynamonortheast #dynamites18 #technortheast http://www.dynamonortheast.co.uk/events/dynamites18/
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Northern Powerhouse … is it working?
At yesterday’s Great Exibition of the North #NPHSummit a member of the press asked me how the Northern Powerhouse is impacting the North East? In my opinion the NPH, whilst being a good initiative in principle, is yet to have any real tangible impact to businesses across the region. I don’t want to be over
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Wipro vs National Grid billion dollar lawsuit what went wrong?
I picked up this story from UpperEdge on social media today about the billion dollar law suit between WIPRO and National Grid over a failed SAP implementation, which is well worth taking a few minutes to read. There was one sentence that jumped off the page for me : “Shortly after the start of the project,
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Sadness for Campus North but the future is very bright for the North East tech and digital sector
Like many across the region it comes as a shock and a hint of sadness to hear news of the closure of Newcastle’s Campus North co-working space. However, I also feel it’s a time for celebration of the achievements of Campus North and what it has done for Newcastle start-ups and for the region. In
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Cybersecurity whose accountability is it anyway?
Today we live in a world with exponential growth in connected devices, in part driven by the sheer size of the population using online services and in part by the proliferation of devices used per individual as a byproduct of the likes of IoT (Internet of Things) The ability to reliably connect and issues around
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Highly effective execution is a team sport and culture is the key ingredient.
An excellent article from Marcel Schwantes on the 6 Things Bad Bosses Always Fear (but Great Leaders Always Do) which I completely agree with and I’d summarise as “Highly effective execution is a team sport and culture is the key ingredient.” Peter Drucker famously said: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” The quote was actually attributed
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SCALE DON’T FAIL
For almost two decades, until retiring recently from corporate life, I worked for Sage Group where I held the position of Chief Product & Delivery Officer. You will all have heard of Sage. Three million customers across 27 countries, 13,000 employees, and a FTSE100 Tech Company with its spiritual home in Newcastle upon Tyne. Also,
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Newcastle Scale-up Summit – my takeaways
I took the opportunity to attend the Newcastle Scale-up Summit recently and apart from being a fantastic networking event I found it highly informative and energising. Having worked with hundreds of start-up and scale-up businesses for many years I love hearing the stories of their success, and I’m intrigued to discover what makes some businesses
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A definition of Altruism
I’m attending a Dynamo North East board meeting at Newcastle College. Due to work and travel commitments, it’s the first board meeting I could attend for a while. The Dynamo board meeting is very rare blend of around 20 professionals from public sector organisations, professionals from the education sector, business owners, and professionals from many
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IphoneX
Who would have thought that one day we would talk about how nice a phone felt to hold … I’ve always thought #apple excelled at ergonomic design and build quality (which was copied by many) and the iPhoneX is no exception … if not a wee bit on the pricey side.
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Why the Tyne, Wear and Tees region should be the Silicon Valley(s) of the UK.
It’s a bold statement to make, but what would have to happen to make this a reality? To answer the question its worth looking back to understand how ‘the other’ Silicon Valley came to be. The majority of the world’s top technology companies didn’t just happen to find themselves in Silicon Valley by chance, and
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Why “why” is the most important question every business should ask themselves!
Why “why” is the most important question every business should ask themselves! If you have 20mins grab a coffee and watch this excellent TED talk.
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I Love Agile
A month or so ago someone told me that they wanted to introduce Agile development but they had heard that I didn’t like Agile. I have to say that I was shocked by this as it isn’t true, I love Agile. I love Agile for its flexibility, I love Agile as it brings the customer
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You need to hire for Innovation
Originally posted on Stuart Lynn – Masters Athlete: Innovation is a topic very close to my heart and a few weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending an excellent workshop delivered by Dr Anne Stevens the VP of Design at Kone elevators. The session was hugely insightful and very educational… and whilst I’m not…
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The World’s Favorite Airline – Not Today!
I’ve travelled with British Airways a lot with business and pleasure over the years and I have to say my experience has generally been positive … until yesterday! I’m off to New York on a short break with the family and my story begins upon receipt of the email from BA that check in is
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Global technology company supporting the North East technology revolution
This is a copy of a great article that one of my guys had published today. Sage, the only FTSE 100 technology company is now 32 years old, and with over six million customers is the third largest business software company worldwide. In 1981 it was just another North East tech start-up with a feverish ambition to
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A bad tradesman always blames his tools…
How many times have you heard that? I’d rather think of it as a good tradesman always uses the best tools, or at least looks after his tools. Reading the title of this post you’d be excused for thinking it’s about DIY when in fact it’s about golf. A few years ago I was proud
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How difficult should it be to buy a car?
More difficult than you might think. Earlier this week Liz and I went to look for a replacement for her Ford S Max. The S Max has been a good car but it’s time for a change and Liz had in mind the Audi Q5. So off we went to the local Audi garage to
Stuart Lynn - Masters Athlete 