“I’d like to thank my mother, my directors, my team…”

2 May

IDBS Support team shortlisted for major service award

While I was thinking of ways to recognize all the improvements and achievements that the IDBS Support team have made over the past few years, one of my team, Jenny Perry, came up with the fantastic idea. Why not enter the prestigious Service Desk Institute Awards?  I pondered this for a couple of seconds and quickly agreed that it would be a great thing to do.

As is often the case with such snap decisions, the consequence of what you have just agreed only hit home when you find out what is required! Jenny gave me the entry criteria. We had to provide written submissions for nine separate categories, including Leadership, Policy & Strategy, Processes and Customer Satisfaction. All we needed now was a plan to create all this collateral by the submission deadline – just a few weeks away! The entire Support team rallied to the cause with everyone taking one category each.

It still amazes me how IDBS people always rise to a challenge. A couple of weeks later we had our draft submission completed, and I have to say it already looked pretty good.

After an external review, some sanity checking by Marketing – not to mention a frantic morning battling with the office printer to get five copies ready – a very heavy envelope was sent to the SDI with bated breath.

SDI logo

Waiting, waiting, waiting …

We figured that the shortlist of three would be finalized on April 20. So just over a month of nervous waiting ensued. Had we provided the right kind of information? Was the detail to the required level? Having never tried to win an award before the simple answer is we didn’t know. But I was proud of what the team had achieved and was quietly, if cautiously, confident.

At 11:30 on the morning of the April 20 I got a phone call saying that the SDI had shortlisted the IDBS Support for the Small Team of the Year Award. To say I was pleased is an understatement. Thrilled is more like it. The looks on the faces of the team when they found out told the same story.

So what next? Well, the judging panel will visit IDBS in a few weeks to make sure we know our stuff. And then four weeks later … it’s awards time.

I’ll keep you updated of our progress. But for now I just want to pass on huge congratulations to my team for all their hard work, professionalism and, of course, their terrific support. They are rather good at that!

Nothing stops the race for Gold… not even a cold!

12 Apr

It’s started as an eventful week! Back problems left me unable to move for two days and I picked up a chill the day before the Olympic Park Run, so I wasn’t feeling on top of the world. (Come on IDBS, where’s my personalized cure for the common cold?) But somehow I got there on Saturday March 31. It was worth the wait.

Along with over 5,000 other runners I descended on the Olympic Park and Stadium for its first public event. The Stadium was fantastic, with music and dancers keeping everyone entertained until we made our way to the start line.

Half an hour later, Princess Beatrice (minus that infamous wedding hat!) got us underway. A flat, winding course took us past all the main Olympic venues and gave us a rare first-hand look at the sheer scale of the site.

Too much, too soon

Like most of my fellow runners, I went off a little too fast. But sense prevailed (for a change!) and I reined it back in and managed to stick at a more realistic 7-minute mile pace throughout – not bad considering the ‘man flu’. 

The highlight was running into the Stadium. Sprinting through a tunnel under the stands I entered the magnificent arena to 10,000 cheering spectators. A few waves and then a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to run on the same track that Usain Bolt and others will grace in a few months is something that I’ll long remember. The final 300 meters on the track flew by and before I knew it I was crossing the finish line in 35 minutes 46 seconds, putting me 634th out of 5,708 runners. (Actually, my GPS watch proved the distance was really 5.18 miles so I’m doubly chuffed with that time.)

One for the record books

The winner managed a ridiculously speedy 25 minutes 11 seconds, beating the official Olympic record by 0.2 of a second. Mind you, the last time a 5-mile race was actually held at the Olympics was in London in 1908. But it’s an impressive double; first to cross the 2012 finish line and another Olympic record for London – 104 years later!

So I’ll sign off from my brief but memorable 35 minutes of glory. Thanks to everyone for your support. I couldn’t have done it without you. And I’ll be back again this summer … as a spectator. But if any Olympic champions need a few tips on how to handle the course, I’m available!

We’re like that at IDBS, always passing on our knowledge for the greater good.

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Mars is the last place you want to run out of batteries!

28 Feb

XLfit provides crucial analysis to keep the experiment of a lifetime on track for NASA

Now you might say that I’m over the moon with the sheer scientific value that XLfit offers. And you’d be right.

It integrates perfectly with the ever popular, not to mention ubiquitous, Microsoft®Excel for easy, intuitive, scientific curve fitting and powerful statistical analysis that lets you visualize, interpret and present scientific data. Plus you get mathematical and 3-D modeling, global fitting, automatic outlier detection… well, I could go on.

Suffice to say it’s got truly universal appeal. In Korea for example, it proved a real star in Wind Generator research. And now it’s playing its part in making a series of vital experiments a reality some 140 million miles from Earth – on Mars of all places.

Heavy science

This August the new Mars Science Laboratory mission will land on Mars to discover if this enigmatic planet has ever supported life. The rover ‘Curiosity’ will analyze soil and rock samples for nearly two years. But that means carrying ten times the mass of instruments than any previous mission, all of which are going to need an awful lot of power to deliver meaningful results.

So for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory it was vital to find out if Curiosity’s generator and batteries could last the distance – not an easy task considering the thousands of complex variables involved, many of which have not or could not be tested for real on the Red Planet’s less than hospitable surface.

XLfit was able to use data from past experiments; fit curves and correct data for temperature disparities; build appropriate models and extrapolate voltage tables to help NASA understand how they could keep Curiosity’s batteries fully powered at all times. In addition, XLfit is also regularly used to analyze solar cell performance curves.

Working at IDBS I’m proud to be part of a team of people who have played a part in some pretty major scientific discoveries all over the world. But if it turns out that we have helped in some small way to realize man’s dream of proving that extraterrestrial life does (or at least did) exist, then that might just be the biggest thing we have ever done.

Watch this space!

IDBS investment bears dividends in Olympics

1 Feb

I first ran the London Marathon in 2006 and was lucky enough to run it again last year, both times with incredibly generous support for my charities from everyone at IDBS. Thanks guys, you’ve helped keep me on course and become the runner that I am today!

Steve Mayhew marathon

To be honest, I thought that marathons would be the highlight of my running career. After all, there aren’t that many bigger challenges. But then someone told me about the National Lottery Olympic Park Run – with only a few days left before the ballot to select the lucky runners. So I applied.

Guess what? I got picked. Yes, I’m going to be one of 5,000 competitors cruising past the Olympic Park’s Aquatic Centre and Velodrome, before finally setting foot on the actual running track in the Olympic Stadium. Wow!

Going for Gold!

According to the blurb any one of us could be the first person to ever cross that hallowed Olympic finish line in an official race … cue three minutes of wonderful daydreams as the world’s press fights for my photograph, adoring crowds around the globe celebrate my God-like athleticism and I find myself headline news from Aldershot to Zhezkazgan.

Steve Mayhew marathon

Then reality hits. On a good day, on a flat course, with the wind behind me and a Red Sea-style parting of any slower runners in front, I reckon I can get close to a credible 35 minutes over the five mile course. However, I have a feeling that there will be more competitiveness in this race than there is in the pursuit of identifying putative biomarkers for disease identification or discovering the genetic drivers for just about any of the world’s illness you care to name.

But, at the risk of sounding like Wall Street’s Gordon Gekko, I think a little competition is something that brings out the best in all of us.

After all, I’m an IDBS man and a runner… so I’m well used to that!

So wish me luck for 2pm on the last Saturday in March. I’ll keep you posted.

Pride in the IDBS badge

26 Jan

Friday January 20, 2012 was a proud day for the Healthcare team at IDBS as our new US Healthcare Center of Excellence was opened by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick in front of a crowd of local dignitaries, press and analysts, customers and, of course, our employees.

Gov Deval Patrick

New gene sequencing technologies have – in the space of only 12 years – reduced the cost of sequencing a human genome from $3bn to $1000. To apply this data to clinical decision support requires new approaches to data management and understanding of genetics in the clinic. Our translational medicine solutions provide an enabling capability.

We see tremendous opportunity for Massachusetts and the rest of North America, as a result of the Meaningful Use Program, to advance scientifically and clinically from the growing availability of electronic medical records, but clinical and genetic data needs to be pulled together and made consumable by those who can take action for the benefit of patients.

Forward-looking organizations we speak with are looking for ways to use data from the clinic to accelerate research and then to apply the genetic and genomic understanding back into the clinic. With our ground breaking new systems, such as the ORIS project at King’s Health Partners, we are delivering this critical piece of the personalized medicine puzzle.

Click to see the video

We believe it is critical to unite diagnostics, pharmaceutical, academic centers and now hospital environments to create a collaborative genomically-centered ecosystem that is focused on improving patient care and research. Our new Center of Excellence is the hub around which we are building these systems in the US.

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