#WhenIWas15

Happy 15th Birthday to LinkedIn! Penblwydd Hapus! In celebration of a decade and a half, the good guys and gals at LinkedIn HQ prompted us to write a few words with the hashtag #WhenIWas15 so I thought I'd join in.

(some creative licence has been applied and the actual dates of the song releases may not necessarily *exactly* match with actual dates)

For the eagle eyed amongst you, and those of a certain vintage, the image above will have immediately transported you back to school discos or teenage house parties, remembering the first time you saw/heard the double-drums distinctive sounds of Adam and the Ants. In an era of synthesised electro-pop along came an outrageously dressed showman who, in three or four short years of chart dominance, burned brightly.

"Antmusic" was the soundtrack to some seminal years for me - final year school exams, first (proper) girlfriend, first weekend job and a number of slightly less pleasant experiences with strong/cheap alcohol with my school buddies down the park.

So there I was, 15/16 all full of youthful exuberance and energy, a few quid in my pocket that was earned with my hands in a cafe sink washing about a million teaspoons and cups every Saturday, finished school (O levels "back in the day") and already committed to two further years of study (A levels) my immediate future already mapped out and a vague idea that afterwards I'd go off to Uni and one day be a teacher and at 15 it seemed a simple, straightforward path that would simply happen around me. All I had to do was turn up and get on with it.

Now just a few (!!) years later, I'm not a teacher - not in the formal educational sense of the word anyway but all throughout my career to date I have certainly delivered many hundreds of hours of instruction, education and sharing of knowledge.

My Mum and Dad are both (retired) career academics having lectured at Universities and worked in the profession they studied to be in. Not so their four offspring! My sister has a First in Law and works in hospitality, my brother spent a couple of years studying for a humanities degree and is now a senior staff member in community social care, whilst my youngest brother has a degree in Sounds and Music engineering from the renowned Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (founded and supported by Sir Paul McCartney) and is a published author and freelance journalist.

Many companies will add "degree required" to their job descriptions and for me the value of having studied is a great indicator of a persons ability to apply themselves and meet deadlines. OK, not everybody gets top grades, not everybody actually finishes their degree and not everybody even goes to university in the first place. I've interviewed many people and I always like to dig into their post-school education history. I love to find out why the chose what they chose, what they thought they may do with that particular qualification, and the more random and unconnected with the role they are applying for, the better! I once gave a sales role in payments technology to someone mostly based on the fact she held a fork-lift truck licence from a summer job! [*caveat :- I wouldn't recruit someone with a degree in fine art to be my next quantum physicist, or indeed a quantum physicist to value my dusty old Rembrandt but you get the idea!]

People are interesting, the choices they make are fascinating and the starting point of their journey is often at a tangent to where the end up. My own journey took me from the starting point studying for a teaching degree in Welsh, to spending my days talking about infrastructure, DNS, traffic steering, data products and, most recently with the addition of web application security, it's been a varied path and promises to have a few twists and turns to come. Bring it on!