What has been your personal highlight of 2020?
2020 has been an amazing year. I was pleased that QBS was able to complete the acquisition of three software distribution companies during spring and summer lockdown, enabling us to expand into and across Germany, establish QBS in the Nordics and bring a focused security VAD into the group.
Which three celebrities would you invite to a Zoom party?
PG Wodehouse, Ricky Gervais and Christopher Hitchens. That would allow me to sit back and enjoy the strong opinions from three excellent conversationalists who are bright, articulate and incredibly amusing.
What has been your guiltiest lockdown pleasure?
Using the spare time to almost complete my lifelong collection of Wisden Cricketers' Almanacks. I only need an immaculate copy of 1875 if any members of the channel have a spare one?
Which tech figurehead has inspired you most this year, and why?
At the time of writing, Elon Musk for the astronomical level of value creation he has delivered with TSLA on the Nasdaq.
What piece of technology, or app, have you not been able to do without during the pandemic?
Drooms has been the most useful from a work perspective, but nothing beats the Apple iPhone for everything else.
If you could be anyone else for a week, who would you be and what would you do?
It would have to be Pythagoras and I would absolutely need to discover exactly how many of the attributed discoveries were actually his. I would also like to understand what life was really like in ancient Greece.
Do you miss face-to-face events?
I miss them immensely; everyone must be suffering from Zoom fatigue. There are so many extra values that can be derived from in-person communication and also the added value from the unexpected conversations that just happen from bumping into past contacts.
How will COVID leave its mark on the way the channel operates long term?
There will be no difference long term, yet medium term there will be minor changes to our working behaviour such as more remote working, more videoconferencing, and more virtual events. The channel is perennial and will survive and even thrive a global pandemic or two!
