Congratulations to Lewis Hamilton on becoming the most successful ever driver in F1. It was an emotional win for him and the team and the boy from Stevenage has ‘done good’. (I also applaud his stance on both Black Lives Matter and the environment – it’s great to see him using his platform to encourage positive change.)

I was lucky enough to take part in a really interesting Zoom call yesterday with Women on Boards. It was a call designed to help women find NED or Board Advisory positions, and as this is something I’m looking to do, I joined in. It was great hearing from the speakers, Shane Reading and Nicola Mann about their experiences and to hear their advice about getting offered these kinds of roles.

Last week, I had a really good debate on LinkedIn with @Douglaswoodburn at CRN and some of the brilliant ladies who had recorded videos about the distance that there still is to go to see proper equality of representation for women in the channel.

There’s a famous quote (which may or may not be a Chinese proverb) that says: ‘The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.’ What it’s basically saying is if you want success in the future, you should take action now.

When people talk about ABM, they often refer to the ABM pyramid, which has 1:1 ABM at the top, 1:Few as the next layer and 1:Many as the base of the pyramid. Here’s why I think ABM at scale or 1:Many ABM is an oxymoron.

ABM is well past the buzzword stage now. Everyone knows it means Account Based Marketing. Adoption is underway and growing fast. TOPO (2019) says companies expect to spend over 40% more on ABM in 2020. But are you starting to feel a bit uneasy that despite all the hype you still don’t have a solid ABM plan? Or you have one, but you’re not sure you’ve got everything covered? Or even what ‘everything’ covers? It’s ok to be squirming in your seat a little bit. Because honestly, so are a lot of other people.

I'm a big fan of Sage Foundation and it's one of the reasons that joining Sage appealed to me. The Foundation supports charities and not-for-profit organisations especially those that help young people, women and ex-military personnel. I support Sage Foundation by getting involved in some of the initiatives (recently I've been mentoring some business students at Regent's University), but I wanted to do more.

Recently, someone shared the video on LinkedIN of Steve Jobs launching the famous ‘Think Different’ campaign from Apple. His introduction to this talks about how marketing is ‘noisy’ and that ‘speeds and feeds’ are not of interest to today’s buyers. This was back in 1997 and yet what he said is as relevant as ever today.

Is definitely: ‘If you love life, then don’t waste time, because time is what life is made of’.

Are you planning for 2018? I firmly believe that things may well happen for a reason...but also that we can help make them happen by planning for them.

Ella was never a very girly girl, but it didn’t seem to matter too much. After all, I’d been a tomboy too – often mistaken for a boy, especially in my pre-teen years. So what if people thought Ella was a boy? As a feminist, I tried not to impose gender stereotypes on either of my kids and wanted them both to believe they could achieve anything they set their minds too. Gender didn’t have to get in the way.