Written on Friday 24th July:

 This week has flown (a little aeroplane pun!) by: At the start of the week I handed my first report to the Executive VP, Hamish, who was over from the Washington offices for a couple of days. He kindly invited me out for lunch, along with another gentleman, it ended up being a rather Scottish/ Glaswegian affair with all three of Glasgow’s universities being represented between us.

Since then I’ve been keeping busy conversing with IT, aiming to everything in place so that building of the system can start of next week. I finished my report a lot quicker than expected- thanks to the prompt and enthusiastic responses to my questionnaire- as a resulted I have a good opportunity to investigate different areas of the asset management team and the BAE Systems company. I discovered yesterday that there was administrative work needing done regarding contacts and business’s cards (my new found passion!), I eagerly volunteered to help. The work was done using a piece of software called CardScan which remarkably picks up all the information from a scanned through business card, it automatically deciphers between which numbers are fax, mobile and office, which name refers to the company and which refers to the person- really unbelievable! My astonishment and amazement with CardScan actually slightly worried one of my co-workers as that evening we were attending a conference about the newest AirBus aircraft- he was concerned that if this piece of software caused me such amazement how would I react to finding out the capabilities of a cutting edge aeroplane! His concerned was well placed; the AirBus A350 blew me away! It was incredible interesting to see the unification of comprehensive market research and outstanding engineering expertise in practice; this fundamental, and extremely difficult, balancing act will always result in inspiring products and the conference last night was firm evidence of this. The evening ended with a reception of impressive canapés and wine; I got speaking to a retired pilot who had endless stories regarding the history of aviation and his personal experiences, it sounded so interesting that I was almost ready to leave accountancy behind me and sign up for life as a pilot then and there! On reflection I’ve decided that satisfying this new interest as a hobby would fit in a lot better with my aims in life and I’ve already started investigating beginners flying lessons.

Today I’ve been analysing the contents of the asset management external relations publications, this ranges from the website to magazines to business cards. I am well read in the area of sustainable business operations and fresh from my experience with many different business cards, this assignment made me think about the importance of adapting with the times and practices. When graphics first exploded into the world public relations, elaborate business cards sometimes held full advertising messages, even now some business cards are used to profile the newest products or to showcase impressive HQ buildings; clearly, intensions are good but the gloss and the pictures confuse CardScan sometimes resulting in details being picked up incorrectly which makes the card useless- what’s the use of having a card than may impress a receiver but means your details won’t be saved correctly? I’m glad to report that the minimalism of our Saltire Foundation cards works with CardScan perfectly, unless anyone chooses to have an image of their face pasted across the card, there shouldn’t be any worries about your information being saved incorrectly!