Bids and Savings

With the 'scrum meeting' system now in place, this week at Autism Works has felt more 'task focused'. With this comes a stronger feeling of sense of direction as well as a good balance of interaction between team members and working unsupervised. Two of our scrum meetings this week have had to be done via Skype with Peter having to spend time at home recovering from illness. Fortunately, he is now better and back to work.

This week, I have started working on another funding bid and to aid putting across a strong case to attract funding to autism works to assist with employee support and training costs, I have also been doing a literature search on cost savings and autism. One of the points that I have so often been putting across in bids or when promoting Autism Works generally focuses on how paid employment for adults with ASC, including Asperger's Syndrome, enables independence and becoming equally-valued members of their community. What this research focuses on though is how unemployment of adults with ASC has detrimental overall economic effects to society generally, including on the public purse.

Research conducted by the Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities (2009) suggests that while adults with ASC miss out on potential earnings through lost employment, the national cost of supporting adults with ASC amounts to £25 billion. These costs span all areas of public sector expenditure in terms of benefits an expensive care packages in addition to the high costs it can bring to families in relation to out of pocket expenses. However, the research also stresses that significant investment in supported employment is needed to address this. By putting across how Autism Works can potentially make a significant dent in this figure as well as the 85 per cent of an estimated 500,000 adults with ASC who are currently unemployed, this will hopefully attract investment

Already, I am seeing the benefits of the scrum meeting system as I am feeling much more focused on my tasks as well as how it is aiding more working interaction of team members, which also appears to be helping Grayson, our Testing Manager, continue to settle in. Grayson's ten years' experience of working in the software testing industry developing and delivering training that leads to industry-recognised qualifications is adding an extra element to the funding bid applications, where we are able to show where funding can be used effectively. That the ISEB (the qualification required to be a software tester) is widely-recognised across the IT industry, this prepares future Autism Works employees not just to work as software testers at Autism Works, but also with other IT companies.

Elsewhere, in a two weeks' time, we have our marketing intern Sumanjeet Sandhu starts her ten-week placement with us. Studying for an MSc in E-Business and E-Marketing at Newcastle University, Sumanjeet will work with us to help build our marketing strategy, including using digital marketing tools. be sure to watch this space to see how this develops.

Building Momentum

After a period of chronic forgetfulness, I can now say that I am near fully re-adjusted to the demands of Autism Works, which has come at just the right time, especially as we are highly likely to be extremely busy over the next few weeks. On a positive note, Grayson Cobb, our new Testing Manager, appears to be settling in very well in his first week with the company. Elsewhere, we have also appointed a marketing student from Newcastle University to work with us on an internship basis for ten weeks to help develop a marketing model, in particular utilising the social networks more.

This morning we have had our first team meeting since Grayson joined us. Though we all know what we would ideally like to achieve in terms of providing sustainable employment to adults on the autistic spectrum, what we have agreed that we need to do at this stage is to set about how we will achieve this. To help build momentum towards this, we are working towards developing a culture of collective responsibility, knowing our individual responsibilities as well as our responsibilities as a team, which will provide consistency as well as aid decision making.

With Peter taking much responsibility for the business development and decisions and the finances largely being within the realm of Karl Hardy, there have often been many inhibitors within my tasks, particularly with the financial information needed. Where collective responsibility will help is with decision-making without too much need of relying on a seeking a second opinion or being blocked by an inhibiting factor. This will also help me to avoid excessive procrastination, something which I was talking about at a mindfulness conference I was speaking at this about how mindfulness practice, by just being here and now in the present moment, enables one to focus on the task in hand avoiding procrastination.

Right now, in this moment, I am continuing to work on funding bids. With Grayson on board, this presents me with some help when applying for funding bids. Part of Grayson's duties and responsibilities is to allocate costs for training and employee costs, which will make it clearer for me when filling in funding application forms, particularly when answering questions such as how much funding are we to apply to for as well as what we will use the funding for. To have such clarity will be of great help to me. To keep on track of where we are, we have arranged to have 'scrum' meetings each day, to tune in the past and future to the present, enabling us to review recent activity, look at where it has us in the present before looking at the next step, rather like converting third downs in a game of America Football until reaching the ultimate aim, scoring a touchdown!

Be sure to watch this space as momentum continues to build.

Re-adjusting

Welcome back to adventures with Autism Works!

After a fantastic trip to South America, during which I took in some of the most spectacular scenery I can say I have ever seen, I have come back to some interesting changes at Autism Works as well as a slight disappointment.

My trip to South America was spectacular not only in the full sense of the word, but also in variation of different landscapes and climates, as well as experiencing some of the strongest winds I have ever known. Patagonia initially appealed to me after happening to see some footage of Simon Reeve’s Rough Guide to the World television series on the BBC and it looked so spectacular with its mountains and glaciers. I was told that I would be ‘blown away’ by some of the sights in Patagonia, including Mount Fitzroy in Argentina’s Los Glaciares National Park and Chile’s magnificent Torres del Paine National Park, and I literally almost was on at least two occasions! The ultimate highlight though was seeing a condor in full flight soaring across the Andes. I hope to go back to South America again in the not too distant future, after I have learned a little more Spanish, or in the case of Brazil, Portuguese.

Coming back to Autism Works, I learned that, unfortunately, we didn’t get any funding from the Department of Health Third Sector Investment Fund to which we submitted an application last Autumn. However, the positive news is that we have now appointed our Testing Manager, Grayson Cobb. With six years behind him as a Testing Manager and a total of ten years’ experience in software testing, Grayson has tested software for a number of major companies on a self-employed contractor basis, including two years at the National Institute for Health Research. In his new and potentially exciting role at Autism Works, Grayson is eager to bring high-profile software testing contracts to the company as well as developing confidence in our first software testers due to be appointed in the coming months.  

Before taking time off work to go trekking, I had been used to it being just Peter and myself sharing our Grey Street office, but now, our workforce, both paid and unpaid is slowly expanding. In addition to Grayson, we have also had some input from Dan Cottrell, a young man recently diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome currently experiencing the frustrations of not being able to obtain employment, despite having a degree in Internet Computing. However, Dan has very kindly been coming into Autism Works where he is putting his web-development skills to good use in helping to rebrand the Autism Works website – but on the look-out for an improved site over the next few weeks.

In the meantime, after struggling to adjust to coming back to work, I am working on three funding bids and we are also taking on a student intern to help us with marketing activities. After being away for almost a month, coming back to Autism Works almost feels like starting a new job, but I am looking forward to working with Grayson and continuing to work with Dan, to whom we are grateful for his contribution thus far with the website. I’m sure you’ll be impressed when it goes live!

Patagonia Pending

Hello all,

First of all, apologies for having to wait a while for another blog entry, as I have been using up some spare annual leave I have left to use before the end of March as well as giving talks and interviews, including an interview for the Autism File Media Channel. This entry will be my last before my upcoming trip to South America, after which I will hope to return to my duties here at Autism Works from a refreshed perspective.

One of the benefits of mindfulness practice, including meditation, that I have been noticing much of late is gaining a refreshed perspective which helps when when starting new tasks or adjusting to different circumstances, almost similar to the refreshed perspective one may find when returning to their job or to their native surroundings after having been travelling. It is surprising what one often notices or how they see their 'normal' surroundings after being somewhere different for a period of time.

Presently at Autism Works, Peter is continuing to work with potential clients while I am in the process of developing a database of major national and international software developers whom we will look to market ourselves to. While I have been away giving talks, I have also met with Jackie Jenkins, who is a marketing specialist working mainly from home based in Berkshire, who has very kindly offered to help Autism Works with marketing our services. Jackie received an Asperger's Syndrome diagnosis just recently, which she said explained why she had spent much of her working life working from home.  Like Peter and I, Jackie doesn't believe in sending the same one big mail shot to all, but rather going directly to potential clients, so that we can tailor our services to meet their needs should they be interested in working with us, just like at Autism Works we try to tailor or working practices to meet the needs of our employees.

On this theme, I had the privilege to listen to Dr Luke Beardon, Senior Lecturer in Autism at Sheffield Hallam University, in Nottingham yesterday. Dr Beardon's specialism is sensory issues and autism, but his approach relates well to what we value at Autsim Works, particularly in relation to being flexible towards the needs of people on the autistic spectrum, as this opens the way for them to use the strengths their condition presents effectively, rather than enforcing them to conform to and adopt conventional social cues, including eye contact. Luke was also pleased to hear that his work had been of help to Autism Works, and we would love him to come up to Newcastle and visit us sometime!

This time next week, I fly out to Buenos Aries before embarking on a trekking tour of Patagonia, including camping out in tents in Chile's Torres del Paine National Park. Be sure though to look out for my next entry in around late-April - early May.

MP Visit

Welcome back to Adventures with Autism Works. This week we have enjoyed a visit from Sharon Hodgson MP, who seemed very impressed with the efforts of ESPA and Autism Works as well as her constituency being something of an international hub for autism! Having been a strong supporter of the Autism Bill and through being a Shadow Education Minister, Mrs Hodgson was very well-versed and understanding of issues faced by people with Autism, including Asperger's Syndrome, but she said that working down in Westminster for much of the week, she doesn't get as much time as she would like to see what is happening in her constituency.

Mrs Hodgson's eagerly-awaited visit to ESPA to find out about Autism Works had been planned as far back as November 2010 after I had sent letters to all the MPs in the region seeking support for Autism Works. I received a few messages of support and then had a phone call from the office of Sharon Hodgson saying that Mrs Hodgson would like to come and visit us at Autism Works in relation to her role as a Shadow Minister for Education and her interest in Special Educational Needs. Though Mrs Hodgson had planned to visit before Christmas, other commitments stood in the way, but the visit was well worth the wait, for Mrs Hodgson, ESPA and Autism Works. Inspired by ESPA's record of making a positive difference to the lives of many people with Autism and Asperger's Syndrome and the potential of Autism Works to bring unique skills to the economy, Mrs Hodgson, before leaving for her next constituency appointment, said that she would be more than happy to offer any help she felt she could provide, including possible celebrity endorsement from Iron Maiden in relation to her campaign to stamp out ticket touting at live entertainment events! 

To help bring such new and unique skills to the economy, since my last blog entry Autism Works has advertised for a testing manager to help secure contracts and develop a training programme for our software testers. If anybody reading this blog either is or has been a testing manager and is looking for a new challenge or knows of anyone who may be interested, check out our Testing Manager post here Feel free also to pass on this link to anyone whom you think may be interested.

Back in the office, I am starting to undertake some more marketing work, continuing on from the database of local companies that I completed last month, and which, in relation to being diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, I enjoyed. The next part though is a little more challenging as it involves compiling a list of the big national companies and finding out of is responsible for Corporate Social Responsibility within a particular company, to whom we can market Autism Works to. When undertaking such tasks, I see in myself just how far I have come since my diagnosis in that I feel much more confident about making enquiries rather than feeling so nervous, not least because it introduces me to new people as well as opens me up to new experiences.

While our following on Facebook in terms of number of 'likes' we are continuing to get goes up, to show how much support Autism Works is generating, we have had many requests from people who want to help us. As well as Sharon Hodgson's offer, we have also had requests from parents of people with Asperger's Syndrome who would like to help where they can. This surely indicates that there are many who are inspired by what we are doing at Autism Works, which is reassuring in relation to the upcoming challenges we face, particularly the appointment of a Testing Manager and eventually appointing our first Software Testers.

Be sure to continue to follow Adventures with Autism Works to find out how we cope with the challenges we are soon to face.

Mistakes

Welcome back to Adventures with Autism Works. Please note that this week's entry comes a day earlier than normal because both Peter and I are taking tomorrow off after realising that we have annual leave to use up before the leave year is out. After the week we have had though, we both probably need to step back from the flow with a long weekend.

As I have mentioned previously in this blog, one of the aspects of which I have had to be aware of with Autism Works being a relatively new project, is that chances are that mistakes are likely to be made, especially as much of our operational procedures, especially our recruitment tools, remain largely untested. Earlier this week, Autism Works noticed its first major mistake, which was we forgot to include a field on the Expression of Interest for E-mails. Not having a background in IT, I naively assumed that Google Sites would pick up E-mails as responses came in. It was when we were looking at sending a message to those who have expressed interest to keep them informed of updates when we realised. Having checked the form before making it live, both Peter and myself were astonished at how we left this out!

Not long after we found this, an incident then took place during a meeting with ESPA Research, who are working with us to help measure the impact of Autism Works as the company develops.  The accident could quite possibly have had tragic consequences, when one of the meeting attendees had a car accident in the car park. Fortunately she wasn't hurt, though her car was very badly damaged. Even so, she was badly shaken knowing that she could have been severely hurt had the van that the car went into not been parked where it was.

Despite all this though, we are still working on getting back in track and I would like to thank those who I have got in contact with since noticing the Expression of Interest form error for providing us with their E-mail addresses that we don't already have. Regarding mistakes, often one of the most difficult things to do, especially when involved in the early stages of development as is the case at Autism Works, is to stand back from your role and realise that there is so much that can very easily go wrong, including stuff over which you have no control. I often find this true just about being diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome in terms of what can go wrong in relation to how the condition effects you, including how you are interpreted by those around you.

After realising that we had made a mistake, I initially felt really 'stupid', but Peter has been great in reassuring me. As he commented, it's got a lot less about being stupid and a lot more about being human!  I guess it is helpful when mistakes are made to focus on putting them right rather than become over-worried or too concerned about them, as well as learning from them, as they also represent things to learn from for anyone looking to replicate us. In the meantime, please be sure to continue to watch this space for further developments.

Set in my ways?

Welcome back to Adventures with Autism Works. The adventure has been very busy this week as I have had so many tasks on the go, including further developing our business plans, completing funding application forms and assisting with putting together the application form to the Testing Manager position to be offered by Autism Works this week. For me, being involved in recruitment procedures represents a major step into the unknown.

Looking at the variety of different tasks and responsibilities that my role has involved this week has been one of the most apparent signs to me as to just how huge a change this role is in relation to my previous role working in local government since I started at Autism Works, especially since there is so much in this role that is done off my own time management and initiative. Though I have previously worked in a role run off my own time management when working as an academic research assistant, re-adjusting to such arrangements has been equally hard since when working to a timetabled routine within a structured and largely hierarchical environment in local government I had become very 'set in my ways'.

So often, we don't realise how and when we can get set in our ways and routines. As a person with Asperger's Syndrome, often my natural preference is routine and predictability, but mindfulness practice helps me to notice more when I am getting stuck in my ways. In my role at Autism Works, with all the variety as well as how the company is developing I am finding that it is difficult to become stuck in a routine, and where initiative is needed is where I am finding that there is so much I need to un-learn as I need to learn, particularly when it comes to developing recruitment tools as well as managing different tasks. Again, in relation to how my Asperger's Syndrome affects me, multi-tasking doesn't come naturally, but to cope with the challenges that this and other aspects of the role present, it helps to observe where possible the qualities in what I am doing and how I do it.

In the past, I have gone through the phase of being a 'perfectionist' in relation to my Asperger's Syndrome, wanting to 'get it right' and succeed. Though I really want to succeed in my role here at Autism Works, I am finding that, especially when entering for me what is unknown territory in being involved in a recruitment process, it helps to be wary that because it is a new venture for me as well as it is for the company, mistakes may be made somewhere along the way. The other stumbling block that we have regarding recruitment practices, in addition to my lack of experience here is that Peter is also first to admit that after over twenty years of recruiting candidates through conventional methods, there is much he needs to unlearn, so much that various language used in job descriptions and person specifications that at one time was the norm now reads like nonsense!

However, Peter and I are convinced that in say about two years time, by when hopefully our practices and policies are more developed, such issues will seem trivial and we will be thinking 'did we really go through such nonsense back then'. Who knows, perhaps by then much of what is described in this and other blog entries will seem trivial by then? In the meantime, be sure to keep following Adventures with Autism Works for further developments.