Back to work

Well, I'm back - wonderful couple of weeks in Turkey. Lots of sunshine (and one day of rain which was unexpected!), lazing by the pool, reading and generally chilling out. So for those of you who follow me or @stuartba on twitter, it wasn't all drinking cocktails! I did have one or two I admit.

So, back to work, and the first task was obviously sorting through the hundreds of emails - I did wonder if you could get RSI though hitting the delete key so many times. Who are these suppliers who think I'm going to buy their product on the basis of a cold email telling me how good it is? Or who think I'm going to make time in my diary to see them and talk about their product which I've never heard of and am not interested in.

Had a good meeting this week about possibly outsourcing some more applications into the cloud - we're nearing a decision, so watch this space for details hopefully in a few weeks. As we all look to facing a future where finance is going to be tight (to say the least), our priorities are going to have to be supporting the University's core business of teaching and research.

Rest of the week has been spent looking our finances - the year-end outturn and next year's budget - interviewing and some other personnel work. Spent a couple of hours yesterday filling in a "Strength Deployment Inventory" - a personality type questionnaire - for an awayday with the rest of the Executive Team next week. Apparently I'm red. Hopefully all will be explained next week...