The final dash to Christmas

So guys, we are in the final week leading to Christmas and whilst this is supposed to be a slower period than most, it certainly doesn't feel like it at the moment.

The new job is going well with Charles Taylor's, Insuretech division with me leading the charge and change in the Knowledge Centre practice, I have started to introduce Agile principles, backlog generation and we start sprinting on the 4th Jan, the team are keen as mustard to move to this way of working, giving them great agility and a more structured approach to project delivery.

Kagazz work is keeping me busy in the evening and weekends. The new app and portal have continued to be developed and tested by the team and look fantastic, we have stepped up our marketing strategy and I am rewriting our user guides and support pages. Further to all that we have started to talk to some seriously interested potential clients, looking for expense management tools to help in their business and with their clients. we have also put a great deal of time and effort as a team in to the generation of our crowd funding application.

We are at the point with the business where capital investment will move us along in what we can do with the product and how we can take ourselves to the next level as a business and in our day to day operation. It is truly exciting times in Kagazz HQ at the moment and there is a wonderful buzz of energy among the team every time we talk or test the new functionality with our CEO Sharjil pushing hard but very happy with the results that he is seeing.

And of course in all that we have had the preparations for Christmas and new year to deal with...

Present buying, visit arranging, house decorating and card writing (and a daughters birthday weekend thrown in there too for good measure) all takes time and energy, I am not sure that I have ever been so busy at this time of year, but also I don't think I have ever been so excited about it either. A lot of people I know have found 2016 to have been a challenge and I can see that and empathise with them, however I feel very differently and believe that 2016 has been a great year for me and my family. There have been many years where I could happily have wished I hadn't bothered or felt defeated, but I now understand that this was the wrong attitude to have and these challenging years or times have been part of the journey that has got me to where I am today and looking back at this I am grateful for the challenges set and overcome.

Over the Christmas period I will be taking a few days to spend some dedicated time with my family and friends, enjoying the day itself and taking some wintry walks to get over the excesses of the season, enjoying New Years Eve with some of my closest friends and generally recharging for what I hope to be the most fantastic year possible.

I wish you all a totally awesome Christmas and New Year, and I wish all those that had a "not so good" 2016 a much better 2017, and all those that had a great 2016 more of the same next year.

I am not a millionaire yet, but this time next year Rodney.... you never know :D