Twenty twelve has been somewhat of a roller coaster year, with both challenging and rewarding times for me in business. Its been my first year as a Board Director and towards the end of January will be my first year of blogging.

I’ve been really pleased with the positive feedback my blog has received to date and I look forward to taking the blog further this year. The blog has now had over 10,000 views from  120 different countries! This has far exceeded any expectations I had. The top five highest hitting countries were; the UK, India, United States, Australia and the United Arab Emirates.

My top five blogs out of my 31 total posts were;

• The Shard and the uprise of the ‘Vertical City’
• The Tallest Building in the World. The Burj Khalifa
• Formula One. A fusion of Architecture and Motorsport.
• The world’s largest Shopping Centre. The Dubai Mall.
• The future of Student Living investment and development.

My Formula One piece was only the second blog I did, and I plan to talk more about F1 this year. If you google “formula one and architecture” my blog is the first result to come up out of 10,500,000 results. Also, my trip to Dubai and India in July gave me lots of material to talk about and helped me to digest some of my experiences on this short and busy trip. The 4th July was my busiest day seeing 159 views.

So, what will 2013 bring as we look ahead at the year? I have lots to do in terms of our business. I’m now responsible for leading both our Manchester and Nottingham offices and maintaining a clear focus on some defined objectives will be essential as I balance my time carefully. We will be launching a new company web site in the very near future. This is something I’ve led and have been keen to complete. I hope it gives us a positive fresh look and clearly illustrates our diversity and experience in many different areas of architecture.

The blog will remain an ongoing tool for me to download my perspective on the world I experience. I plan to talk more about different buildings I’ve visited, architecture generally, our work at Lewis and Hickey, social media and of course; Formula One (linked to Architecture).

Social Media is still a real interest for me, especially in the business context. I am fascinated with the way in which we can now communicate with modern hand-held technology. Also I continue to be amazed by how quickly information can travel around the world. Earlier this year I was on a train back from London (following a pretty bad day) and a family friend of ours shared a video on YouTube called Eton Style. James was one of the creators of Eton Style and features in the short film. You may have guessed by now that its a take on PSY’s Gangnam Style. From watching it on the train late that evening it made me laugh out loud. I then showed my wife the video the next morning…and it had gone Viral! It has now reached nearly three million views! It reached newspaper headlines, got celebrities tweeting and also got a mention in The Weeks people of the year last week. The power of social media is immense. I wonder where it will go next – it is sure to continue evolving and progressing.

You can see this film by clicking on the image below – its worth a watch!…

So, all that remains from me, in my first blog of 2013, is to wish you a very Happy New Year and I genuinely hope that this year is a positive one for you and your business’