The end of the road

Friday brought about my final day with Stef, which being my third placement as the Apprentice, also marked my final day as the 2007 Graduate Apprentice.  Its been a long year, but a truly fantastic one, which has completely gone beyond all of my initial expectations.

I had two fantastic placements with Deloitte and LMM, and now can look back on what was another brilliant experience.  During the sixteen weeks with Stef, I worked on a huge range of projects, getting involved in the Big City Plan, working on Digital Media events as well as working with clients of 3Form.  However, the main project was Stef’s new idea, Odadeo.  Odadeo is all about Dads, its social network with a difference. Highly interactive and highly useful, I have been working with the beta testing Dads for the last few weeks, finding out what they want from the site, how they use it, and then turning it into development points for Stef to work on.  I’ve been writing legal documents, been coming up with ideas for our pitch, and recently, making video walkthroughs of various features, so that new users can see what the site is all about.

I’m very sad to be leaving Odadeo, I truly do think that its a fantastic idea, which will take off.  I hope to look back at the project in a few months and say that I was a part of it.  It could be the next big thing on the web.

But more than that, I have worked from Stef’s home over the last four months, and I’m thankful that Emily, Imogen and Stef allowed me into their home.  I have learnt so much, much more than I could have imagined that I would.  At times the work has been varied and difficult, but at all times its been the challenge and experience that I expected as the Graduate Apprentice.  Stef is a unique individual, creating ideas from nothing, and it was great to be part of that process.  I am sure that I am a more creative individual because of it.

I now head back to Deloitte, to being my life as a International Tax Associate.  I worked in the same department as the Apprentice, which is why I am sure that there will be people around to help me settle back in.  

Looking back on my year as the Graduate Apprentice is tough to do, I still haven’t quite come to terms with the fact that its no longer my role but I can say this.  As a new Graduate last June, I was lost, unsure of a career path and lacking direction.  I assumed that something would come up… well it did.  The Apprentice has given me a diverse range of business experience, its shown me career paths I never knew existed and taught me how to go about achieving what I want from life.  But more than that, I have had a year working with absolutely fantastic people, both directly and indirectly.  I have met people who are going to be key in the city for many years to come, and my hope is that I can also play my role in the years to come.  To my employers, Deloitte, LMM, and Odadeo, thank you.  There are too many individuals to mention, but I will be taking the time to individually email them all. 

So here’s to looking forward, and a new daily motto, Challenge Yourself… something I aim to do every day.

Introducing Mayur

Sitting on the balcony on a summer’s evening is a great way to contemplate how far things have progressed this year.  I began my role as the Graduate Apprentice 2007 back on the 17th September of last year, and almost 11 months later, its time to begin thinking about handing on the role.  With that, I have been thinking a lot about the time that I have had, the things I’ve learnt this year, and importantly, the fantastic people that have helped me to embed myself within this fantastic city.  There will be a further blog post later on, once I’ve had time to evaluate everything that has happened, and to thank each individual concerned.

But right now, its time to introduce the next Apprentice, Mayur Murali.  Mayur was selected back in June, after an extremely tough interview process.  He instantly accepted the role, and I have every confidence that he is going to take this fantastic opportunity to even greater heights. I wish him the very best of luck in what I know will be a truly amazing year.

So below please meet the team for the Graduate Apprentice 2008.  Mayur will be undertaking placements with Deloitte, in the same team that I will be re-joining as a full time Graduate.  He will then move on to work with Giles and the team at LMM, where there are some more challenging projects lined up for him.  Finally, Mayur will work with the new placement, VC Consulting, who we are thrilled to have as part of the set up.  Much like me, there are three very seperate challenges, where I know he will be given a fantastic insight into the professional services world.  Pictured below (left to right) are: Shihab Hossain, VC Consulting Director, Rachel Hewson of Deloitte, Giles Horwitch-Smith, CEO of LMM and Mayur himself.

Mayur will be continuing the trend of blogging his experience as the Graduate Apprentice, but right now, you can read a little more about how he reacted to being offered the role.  

For me, with about five weeks left, its time to begin thinking about what next… who am I, what is my next challenge…

Talking Apprentice

As is probably quite clear to everyone reading the blog, the Apprentice programme is something that I am passionate about.  The opportunity it has given me is unrivaled and has put me in an incredible position to go on and achieve a lot within this great city.

As my time as the Apprentice draws to an end, its time to start reflecting on the fantastic year that I’ve had, and to start talking about the programme.  I had one such opportunity with Biz TV recently, part of the Aston University set-up.  They were kind enough to interview about how I got the role, my three placements and my plans going forward.  Please take a look at the link below to hear me talk about my time.

Jason Norris as the Graduate Apprentice

Looking Forward…

This week should be a good one, and I am really looking forward to it.  I will be starting stage two of my training for LEJOG, which basically means I will be running in the morning before heading to work… I just hope that the weather holds! Stef will be in New York on Webby related business until Thursday, and I am going to be spending the week testing the new site making sure we are ready for the up-comming launch!  I’m also going to be taking some time to talk to our Alpha testers to see how things are going!

However, this week I will also be part of the interview panel for the 2008 Graduate Apprentice, or my replacement!  Its come around so quickly I can hardly believe, but I have had a truly fantastic year, and I look forward to passing onto the challenge to the next candidate!  The interviews take place on Friday, so good luck to all of those involved!

Laura also finishes her LPC exams on Wednesday, which will be brilliant and means we can both begin to enjoy the summer.  I will be heading up to Durham on Saturday for Durham Regatta to take part in an alumni race and to catch up with some old friends! There is also the Big Digital Debate on Monday, and I will be meeting up with Giles at LMM to catch up… so in all, there is a lot going on this week, and a lot to look forward to!

So Far With Stef…

I’m just a little over two weeks into my final placement as the Apprentice, working with Stefan of 3Form, but I’m actually involved with a number of projects with Stef, some of which fall outside the scope of 3Form.  So far, the best way to describe my time is that of a roller-coaster ride.  What was obvious from day one is that Stef is a very unique guy, and by that I mean both the way in which he works and the passion that he has for what he does.  When we first met, we ran up a long list of the potential projects that I could be involved with, from the creative design work of 3Form, project managing the various clients that are using Stef’s design skills to create a new image for their company to the not-for-profit initiatives that he works on.  I’ve met some fantastic people from Creative Republic, met some high profile clients (and helped to pitch to them!) as well as helping to book tickets to New York for Stef to pick up his Webby.

But that says nothing about the biggest project we have been working on.  Stef is right in the middle of a new start-up, the culmination of an idea that came to him about 18 months ago.  I’m lucky to be involved at the stage where this idea is just about ready to be launched.  Its still a little hush-hush, but its the kind of thing that once is out there, will be something that we are always talking about.  My role is to help Stef to get this off the ground, getting the right people involved at the right time, and to offer a fresh perspective to the ideas that Stef has.  So far its been going really well, we have had some really productive days, and we are just about on target for our anticiptated launch date.  The whole project will actually be launched by Stef in New York, as part of Internet Week.  I wont be there unfortunately, my role will be back in Birmingham!  

The idea of my year as the Apprentice was to learn as much as possible about three very different types of business. So far, Deloitte have given me a fantastic insight into the world of International Tax, given me some real thinking points about how I work and shown me the reality of working for a global company.  LMM was a unique and great experience of how a medium sized SME company works within a developing market, how decisions are made in a small firm, and taught me huge amounts about a market which was completely new to me.  Now, with Stef, I am part of a new company start up, seeing how an idea becomes a business proposition, as well as using my project management skills to help ensure that a variety of different projects are delivered on time, on budget and to the objectives defined by the client.

Its the best graduate job I could have dreamed of, I am completely confident of that, and I would doubt if any graduate of 2007 has had half of the experience that I have been lucky enough to have gained to date.  I’ve only got 14 weeks or so left as the Apprentice, and I have a lot more to learn from Stef, but I’m delighted to know that whatever happens in September, I will have made a real difference to my future career.  The truth is that I am lucky that all of this is happening in my new adopted home, Birmingham, a place where I will be for a long time with opportunities like this.

So how do I work?

While at LMM, I was lucky enough to take part in a psychometric test, to find out exactly how I work, what my strengths were, and importantly for me, where I could work on my skill set to make me more employable in the future.  The truth is that I have never really got on with these tests… I did a few while applying for Graduate roles, and while I am ok on the maths and reasoning side of it, the personality questions usually show an ‘exaggerated’ or ‘false’ response.  I always try and answer them with total honestly, but obviously deep down I am thinking about what the job would require, rather than what I actually believe, so that is tip number one… Always go with your first response! At least that way you are assured of the most accurate results.

So, I went into this particular test, the People Clues Assessment  with a very open mind… I had an idea about what sort of person I was, about how I work, and about where I needed to improve, but I was very interested to see what the test thought about me.  The test took about 40 minutes to complete and consisted of a numerical test (30 questions in seven minutes), a rating exercise where I rated a response as either most or least like me, and a numerical reasoning exercise.  It was pretty tough, and where possible, I tried not to think about my answer, but choose the option which was the most obvious to me.

The results were worrying similar to my personal perceptions about myself, which I guess means that it works!  I came out as a very organised, adaptable, friendly team player.  I find it relatively simple to take on new information and solve problems with my own initiative.  However, when making decisions, I some times try to please everyone, and I tend to try and avoid conflict before it becomes an issue.  Thats what the report says… and in terms of my typical behavior, I think its pretty close.

So now I have some good points to work on… I need to make decisions with less information, need to try and work in non-threatening environments which encourage me to speak my opinion and to attempt to work more on my own.  I have always worked in teams (apart from my paper-round), so I guess this is something that will come as the Apprentice takes on more responsibility.  However, in all, I was pretty pleased with the results… and it restored my faith in this form of testing.  While I may have not appreciated it while a Graduate applying for every role under the sun, it has a vital role in understanding what decisions an individual will make when under pressure, and ultimately how they would cope within a particular situation.  That information is key in employment situations, and now that I am armed with some tips on how I make sure that my ‘development factors’ can be achieved, I aim to make myself a very employable candidate by the end of my time as the Graduate Apprentice. 

The test was run by Davo Ruthven-Stuart, a consulting partner at Personal Consultancy Solutions, and I want to thank him for his time in explaining my results.  I am sure that it will have a significant impact on my future career… where-ever that may be.

Leaving LMM…

As the Graduate Apprentice, I always know that each placement will only last 16 weeks, so you think it would be easier to leave… You see there are many many many advantages to being in the role… the variety, the opportunity, the challenge to name but a few.  The 16 weeks are always a challenge, as there is ultimately a limited amount of time to complete the set projects.  I’m quite proud, and I would not feel good about any placement without finishing what I had promised.  However, the 16 weeks also mean that this is the second time in less than 8 months where I have had to leave some great people behind, people who were not only fantastic work colleagues, but fantastic people to know.

During my time at LMM, I was involved in a number of projects.  Perhaps the most substantial was the launch of the new brand, CityQuarters.  In a nutshell, this is the aim of LMM to create a network of Serviced Apartments across the UK.  For those not familiar with Serviced Apartments, its basically having your own space while away from home.  Serviced Apartments are regularly being seen as the flexible alternative to hotels, and because of the extra space, the separate living areas and the flexibility of being able to come and go as you please, it is easy to see why.  However, it is very difficult to ensure a standard level of service with the apartments, with an accreditation, similar to the hotel starring system, only just being introduced.  Giles, the CEO at LMM, and the person I reported to directly as the Apprentice, wants to create a standard, consistent, quality serviced apartment network, so that if you need to stay in a key business city in the UK, you can be sure that staying with CityQuarters provides the same excellent service from city to city. 

The second major project involved testing of a piece of software which linked the Accounting and Apartment Management software used by the company… given my organised nature, and my eye for detail, it was deemed that I would be the right person to complete all the testing and update the accounting system with all the information for the previous financial year.  This built a whole new range of skills, including patience at times, but I am pleased to say that I left the company with this project completed… Now we wait for the auditors to check my work and say they are happy with the import link! My role also involved selling the serviced offices, another side of the proposition from LMM, meaning I was responsible for following up leads, ensuring that current clients had all they required to keep them happy, and for ensuring that expiring leases were renewed.

The challenge however, was not the best thing about working with the company, it was again made up by the team of people that I worked with.  In a small office, relationships can sometimes be difficult, but each and every individual brought something very different to the office while I was there.  All very excellent at the role they fill, and always able to offer advice and support to me as someone who was completely new to it all.  Even though I asked lots of questions, and bored them all with stories of LEJOG, they welcomed me into their team, and I was privileged to have spent time with them all.

In all, LMM was about multi-tasking, about proving that I could work on a number of projects at the same time and still ensure that each one was delivered with maximum efficiency.  I hope that throughout my time I have been able to do that, and that I have upheld the reputation of the Graduate Apprentice.  My successor will also be taking on a placement with LMM, and I am sure that if they have half of the experience I have had, they will come out a much wiser, much more commercially aware and able Graduate.  Like me, they will also have made some fantastic friends, who again like me, they will be sure to keep in touch with.

Food & Wine, LMM Style

Friday evening saw the first LMM social event to take place while I have been with the company.  I had heard various stories of random evenings or Go-Karting, which all sounded like fun, but I had yet to be part of the infamous evenings!

The plan was to head for a quick drink at Bluu… a trendy new bar just off Summer Row, and then head to Pizza Express at Brindleyplace for some food.  After that, the evening was less planned… but in-fact, we might as well have made no plans at all! Bluu was really nice, nothing too fancy, but kind of understated and impressive at the same time (I do realise that makes no sense, but take a visit and see what I mean) and full of young professionals all doing what they do best on a Friday night.  Those who know me well know that I only drink on very special occasions, but that didn’t stop me admiring the impressive range of spirits behind the bar.  The bartender knew he stuff, made a cosmopolitan in a new but interesting way, and the atmosphere made it easy to sit back and contemplate a long week.

This was the point where it started to go a little wrong… the half past six reservation at Pizza Express soon became seven, then seven thirty, and then it was cancelled.  The menu at Bluu (not to mention the two bottles of wine needing drinking) meant that we moved to the restaurant for food.  Again, the staff were excellent, and added to a fantastic evening.  The food was great, again in keeping with the understated simplicity of the venue.  The steaks looked like a steak should, with plenty of garnish and giant real potato chips on the side.  Each was cooked exactly as ordered, and all the food arrived at the same time, which at a table of 13, can be a challenge.

More wine, sambucca, cocktails and in places water followed the food, all complemented by waiting staff always willing to take a few minutes to see how we were and to have a chat.  As the evening drew to a close (for some not all) I made my excuses and headed off home. 

Turning up on Monday morning there were still a few sore heads from a weekend spent recovering, and some great stories relating to various journeys home.  In all, my first social with LMM was a great one, and I hope its not my last.  Being the Apprentice does mean that I have to move on every sixteen weeks, and while that provides the exact challenge that I need to bring out my best, it also means that I leave some great colleagues behind at each employer. 

In all the evening was made by a great venue, great staff, great food and fantastic colleagues… cant get much better than that.

Being Selected as the Graduate Apprentice 2007

The day that I received a phone call in August to say that I had been selected to take on the role of Graduate Apprentice 2007 is one of those moments that I can say has actually changed my life. I was selected as only the second person to fill this role, taking over from Darvinder Kang who had a hugely successful year! I was delighted to know that I would be attempting to fill his shoes, and without hesitation I accepted.

The next few days were pretty hectic, arranging accommodation, signing contracts, working out what would actually make the trip from Devon to Birmingham, and most of all, shouting about my fantastic new opportunity to anyone who would listen!

The Graduate Apprentice is a unique and fantastic opportunity, and that is what attracted me to the role. While I had only come across the role via Laura’s Birmingham University Career’s Website, I had managed to fight off the competition and would now complete three 16 week placements at three very different firms. Deloitte would show me what working for a global giant was really like, LMM would give me the chance to work in a new and emerging market as part of a family run business, and 3Form would see me working with perhaps one of the most creative people you would ever meet. The whole experience would see me working heavily within Birmingham’s business community, and would allow me to develop my own network which would one day enable me to be part of the city’s success.

Back in August, I had no idea of the incredible roller coster ride that awaited me, and I could not be more excited about the chance I would have to make my mark on a fantastic city. My first role would be with Deloitte, in the International Tax Department… so my first job was to find out exactly what International Tax was all about…