Forty years on the water, thirty in technology
I've sailed and windsurfed for forty years, most of it around dinghy racing and the clubs that run it, and spent more than thirty years in technology and running businesses. Salloway, my technology consultancy for sailing clubs, is where the two meet.
Six years on the committee
I spent six years on the committee of my local sailing club in Northumberland, four of them as company secretary and two looking after the safety team. So I know what running a club looks like from the inside: the volunteers you can find and the ones you can't, the budget that never stretches, the list that never gets shorter, and the AGM where the website comes up for the third year running.
I also know what it's like to be the person the club relies on for something nobody else understands, and what happens when that person moves on.
Three decades of changing how organisations work
For more than thirty years I've used technology to change how organisations work, for clients ranging from the public sector to large international companies. For twelve years I ran Qrious, a digital transformation business, leading change programmes and building the systems and platforms that improve the customer experience and the way a business performs. Along the way I've started six businesses, and today I'm managing director of Aurelia, the technology company I co-founded, which builds Sail and Aura, an AI-driven platform that helps vineyards make better decisions.
What it taught me applies to any sailing club: the best technology decisions start with the experience of the people using them. When you design around your members and volunteers rather than a supplier's feature list, the answer is usually simpler and far more likely to stick.
The advice without the software
Building Sail, a club management platform for sailing clubs, has meant spending the last year talking to clubs about what they run on and where it lets them down. What I offer here is the advice without the software. Sometimes that advice is to use Sail, but more often it's to get more out of what you've already got, and either way you'll hear it straight.