It never rains, it pours

A short update as things seem to have picked-up steam. The strategic direction seems fairly well set now and we are committing this to a document that makes sense to people beyond Jonathan and me; this will involve some creative graphics and clever words...

We are also getting heavily into sourcing funding and helping Brett to rev-up his applications. This is manna from heaven for those of us who find themselves writing proposals for a living so we are trying hard to put ourselves in the shoes of a public sector body and address their needs and emotions rather than those we have. Jonathan and I are having some "creative differences" as we do this; there is an issue with putting two PwC partners in one place in that we both think we have licence to do it our way. My consultative working skills are coming on, slowly. After "creative differences" through to 9pm last night we resolved them by going out for dinner and then having a few more drinks when we got back to our cave. A slight aside... the flat is in a basement and the sitting room has no windows so is somewhat cave-like. We worked from there yesterday and were going a little mad by the end of the day.

Most interestingly, there is a very short notice opportunity to secure £200k of funding (dreamwall turns over £200k per annum currently so this is step-change stuff) to deliver just the sort of wider range of services from a new, Southampton based hub that our strategy envisages. This could be great, if only we can win it and then figure out how we deliver it. No problem there then.

Final anecdote is on communication and the use of language. At the office we talk IRRs, cash flow, ebitda, acquisitions and a lot of other impenetrable lingo. In my new world I have dropped all of that and can now string together fantastic new phrases with little meaning (what's new?) involving words like outcomes, partnerships, neighbourhood agenda, community asset transfers, cross-agency working, intervention and so on. Let me give you an example... "I think we can reduce the need for intervention and improve outcomes if we establish greater cross-agency partnerships and, by implementing some community asset transfers, we will nail the neighbourhood agenda". Brilliant. Two worlds, two languages and two quite different ways of working. Am loving this and learning lots, not just the facts, but the different influencing techniques and forming of coalitions.