Phil Sturgeon

I spent the last three months working as a hired gun for a start-up in an incubator program called ignite100 and now I am back in the south-west for the holidays and I feel like I have learned so much in such a short space of time. Ignite100 is a three month program run in Newcastle that helps teams create relationships with helpful mentors who have experience in different fields. I am sad that the program is over but I thought I'd write up my experiences. 

While I am on the ignite100 start-up incubator I have met some amazing people in some brilliant start-ups. One of these start-ups is Givey: a "social giving platform" which allows donations via SMS, Twitter, etc. They have organised an event happening in Newcastle tonight called "Stitch Your Friends Up" where a few people will be brought up on stage and be "Stitched Up" for money. Of course muggins here is involved and you can be too. I am sworn to secrecy on everybody else, but basically put for every £10 that is raised - at the event or via Twitter by users watching the live stream - I will have one strip of wax removed from my leg. Yep you heard it. You can cause me pain in real time and see the results!

I was giving a short talks at DevXS in Lincoln this weekend based on my Nomadic Web Development article and I was asked "Where did you find the courage to quit your job, leave your flat and just go?". I mumbled something about not being sure but I am really annoyed with myself for not coming up with a substantially better answer. If asked again I would say "Do the things that scare you. Try anything and you'll either succeed or fall on your ass and learn some valuable lessons, either way you come out stronger.". That might be some motivational bullhockey, but I believe it and you guys should give it a try.

This weekend I popped home to Bristol for Web Developers Conference 2011 and while I was mainly going to see a few friends I came away inspired to make some changes. Three of the talks at first seemed to be the common "This is how I went from being an inexperienced dev to being part of an awesome company" but the combination of different approaches and characters complimented each other perfectly and left me thinking for most of the day. By the time Paul Boag finished his talk I was ready for some big changes.

Anyone following me on Twitter will have seen tweets coming in from all-over the place for the last few months. Am I on holiday? Nope! I've spent the last 4 months traveling USA and Canada doing a bit of work here and there. With freelance, a passive income and some training sessions here and there I am actually making a profit on traveling the world. A few friends wanted to know more so they could do it themselves, so how can you?

As you may have seen in my last article I'm currently off traveling the world (well, North America for now at least) and I wanted to give people a quick update as to what is going on with various projects while that is happening. The good news is nothing is being dropped and everything is coming along really nicely, but I'll just quickly explain what my projects are and why and how I stay involved with them all.

Another year has passed and this has been the best yet. Most years fly by without me having any real record of what I have achieved or where I need to improve to better myself, so this year I decided to set myself a list of goals to help shape my life. Find out how I did!

Let's face it, none of us like dealing with big companies. Long waiting times, script reading Indian call centers, uncaring supervisors and red tape. In the last two months I have had several experiences beyond ridiculous so I thought I'd share my list of companies that have pissed me off and why.