'The Creative Inventor'

John has worked for a variety of software development companies and corporate enterprises — as a systems analyst and database developer, since leaving Manchester University where he studied Mathematics. He jokes that he ‘ started with the dinosaurs’ working on an IBM mainframe systems using punch cards, job scheduling and COBOL.

He moved on to PCs right at the time they first started appearing in the corporate world, and loved the way he could produce instantaneous bespoke systems of high usability, most often using dBaseIII+. Because of his expert skills in database development, he was soon headhunted into training and technical sales, where he quickly became one of the organisation's top ten national sales people. Nowadays he says he prefers to ‘kick back a little, allowing the strain to be taken by the highly competent team he has trained over the nineteen years since he went self-employed. John says he '...still gets a buzz from inventing and creating systems that save people time, money and worry.

With a passion for patterns and problem solving, he has a firm belief in simplifying life. He explains that many highly competent staff work far harder than necessary, largely because they are so closely involved in the task: ‘They don’t have time to stand back and take an alternative approach, and that’s where I come in. I don’t know whether it’s a lazy streak, or if I have a particularly unique talent, but I always see a way to save people time and effort. The son of a bank manager he was brought up with a keen eye for managing finances, and fully understands budgetary pressures. ‘I know my work has to make financial sense: I’m not cheap — just great value for money!