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DRAWER / 23 SLIPS

The Idea Drawer

Every workshop has a drawer like this. Slips of paper, half-sketches, things scribbled on the back of a job sheet at half past four. Some of these have escaped and become real projects. Most will stay exactly where they are, which is what a drawer is for.

The drawer was tidied up and written out properly in September 2026, so the dates below are when each slip was written down rather than when the thought first turned up. The older slips have been thought about for longer, which is why some carry a problem and an idea and others are still one line.

23 results
IDEA_001THINKING

Service Autopilot

Field Service

Exploring how field service could require less administration and feel more natural.

CREATED 18.09.26LAST TOUCHED 18.09.26
RELATEDField Service App
IDEA_002THINKING

Engineer Assist

Field Service

Making useful information easier to reach while working in the field.

PROBLEMTechnical information is written to be read at a desk. You need it standing next to a machine, one-handed, on a gym floor, with a customer watching.
IDEAMake the information findable from where the work actually happens. Search that understands error codes and part numbers, answers short enough to read on a phone, and no forty-page PDF between you and the one paragraph you need.
WHAT HAPPENED NEXTStill a thought. It keeps coming back, which usually means something.
CREATED 18.09.26LAST TOUCHED 18.09.26
RELATEDField Service App
IDEA_003JUST AN IDEA

Equipment Digital Passport

Field Service

Better ways of connecting physical equipment with digital information.

CREATED 18.09.26LAST TOUCHED 18.09.26
RELATEDQR Verification Field Service App
IDEA_004THINKING

Scan to Commission

Field Service

Making installation and commissioning simpler.

CREATED 18.09.26LAST TOUCHED 18.09.26
RELATEDField Service App
IDEA_005THINKING

Smarter Timesheets

Field Service

Exploring a less painful way of recording a working day.

CREATED 18.09.26LAST TOUCHED 18.09.26
RELATEDField Service App
IDEA_006JUST AN IDEA

Portable Network Toolkit

Field Service

Combining networking and field-service diagnostics.

CREATED 18.09.26LAST TOUCHED 18.09.26
RELATEDWorking Towards My CCNA 200-301
IDEA_007JUST AN IDEA

Tool Inventory

Workshop

Better ways of knowing what’s actually in the toolbox.

PROBLEMI own more tools than I can account for, which is either a filing problem or a personality problem. Possibly both.
IDEACatalogue the lot properly — what it is, where it lives, how long I have had it, whether I would buy it again — and let the workshop page on this site become the inventory rather than a highlights reel.
WHAT HAPPENED NEXTThe shelves are built. The inventory is not on them yet.
CREATED 18.09.26LAST TOUCHED 18.09.26
RELATEDThis Website
IDEA_008PROTOTYPE

Thinventory

Field Service

An experiment in making field-service inventory more intelligent.

PROBLEMA van is a warehouse with a steering wheel, and nobody really knows what is in it. Parts get carried for years without moving. Other parts run out on the one morning you need them, and the job turns into a second visit.
IDEAStop guessing. Work out what actually gets used, what sits there gathering dust, and which missing parts cause repeat visits — then let that decide what the van carries instead of habit.
WHAT HAPPENED NEXTThe thinking has already started leaking into a real piece of work on organising stock information properly.
CREATED 18.09.26LAST TOUCHED 18.09.26
RELATEDField Service Stock
IDEA_009JUST AN IDEA

Visual Parts Explorer

Field Service

More visual ways of navigating technical information.

CREATED 18.09.26LAST TOUCHED 18.09.26
RELATEDField Service App
IDEA_010JUST AN IDEA

Offline Field Notebook

Field Service

A field notebook designed for places where connectivity can’t be relied upon.

CREATED 18.09.26LAST TOUCHED 18.09.26
RELATEDField Service App
IDEA_011JUST AN IDEA

Fault Finder

Field Service

Exploring faster ways of navigating technical faults and information.

CREATED 18.09.26LAST TOUCHED 18.09.26
RELATEDField Service App Engineering That Moves
IDEA_012JUST AN IDEA

Customer Service Portal

Field Service

Service updates written for the person waiting rather than the system generating them.

PROBLEMA customer reports a fault and then waits. What they get back is a ticket number and an automated email that tells them nothing useful about when somebody is turning up or what is actually wrong.
IDEAService updates written for the person waiting, not for the system generating them. What is happening, what happens next, and who is coming.
WHAT HAPPENED NEXTNothing yet. It is a slip of paper.
CREATED 18.09.26LAST TOUCHED 18.09.26
RELATEDField Service App
IDEA_013RESEARCHING

Netball Stats

Sport

Exploring useful grassroots statistics without making match day complicated.

PROBLEMGrassroots netball runs on memory. You come off court fairly sure the centre pass went badly in the third quarter, but you cannot prove it, and by Tuesday nobody remembers.
IDEAUseful statistics that a coach or a parent can capture on a phone at the side of a court, in the gaps, without turning match day into a data-entry job. If it takes more attention than watching the game, it has failed.
WHAT HAPPENED NEXTBecame a project of its own so the thinking could be written down properly.
CREATED 18.09.26LAST TOUCHED 18.09.26
RELATEDNetball Stats G&W Netball
IDEA_014THINKING

One Club

Sport

Exploring a joined-up digital experience for grassroots sports clubs.

PROBLEMA grassroots club runs on spreadsheets, group chats and one very patient volunteer. Registrations, attendance, teams, fixtures, communications, the shop and the sponsors all live in different places and none of them talk to each other.
IDEAOne system underneath the club website that handles the boring parts properly, so the people running the club can spend their evenings on netball instead of admin.
WHAT HAPPENED NEXTPieces of this are already live behind the G&W Netball site. The rest is still being argued with.
CREATED 18.09.26LAST TOUCHED 18.09.26
RELATEDG&W Netball
IDEA_016PROTOTYPE

Independent Small Business Web

Web

Exploring alternatives to generic templates and endless website subscriptions.

PROBLEMA small business ends up paying monthly for a website builder, a booking tool, a form tool, an email tool and a gallery plugin, and still has a site that looks like everybody else's.
IDEAWork out how few of those a business genuinely needs. Keep the booking system that already works, replace the generic front end with something that looks like them, and hand back ownership of the result.
WHAT HAPPENED NEXTAlready running as real work for two independent wellness businesses.
CREATED 18.09.26LAST TOUCHED 18.09.26
RELATEDThe Wellness Room Pure Eden Inner Beauty
IDEA_018BUILT

Personal Digital Workshop

Web

The experiment that eventually became this website.

PROBLEMA conventional online CV describes a job. It does not describe what somebody is actually like, or what they spend their evenings taking apart.
IDEABuild a workshop instead of a portfolio. Somewhere the tools, the projects, the half-finished experiments and the people who shaped the way I think can all sit on the same bench.
WHAT HAPPENED NEXTYou are standing in it.
CREATED 18.09.26LAST TOUCHED 18.09.26
RELATEDThis Website
IDEA_019RESEARCHING

CCNA Homelab

Networking

Learning networking by building things, breaking them and figuring out why.

PROBLEMYou can pass a networking exam by memorising things. You cannot fix a network that way.
IDEABuild a lab at home that can be configured, broken and put back together deliberately, so the knowledge arrives through fingers rather than flashcards.
WHAT HAPPENED NEXTRunning alongside the CCNA. Currently more simulator than hardware.
CREATED 18.09.26LAST TOUCHED 18.09.26
RELATEDWorking Towards My CCNA 200-301
IDEA_020JUST AN IDEA

Network Fault Lab

Networking

Exploring practical ways of learning network troubleshooting.

CREATED 18.09.26LAST TOUCHED 18.09.26
RELATEDWorking Towards My CCNA 200-301
IDEA_021PROTOTYPE

Field Service App

Field Service

What field service software could look like designed from the van outwards.

PROBLEMMost field service software is built for the office and handed down to the van. The engineer, the coordinator and the customer all end up working around it rather than with it.
IDEADesign the thing from the van outwards. Start with the person standing in front of the machine, then work back towards the coordinator and the customer.
WHAT HAPPENED NEXTEscaped the drawer. There is a working proof of concept and a full write-up.
CREATED 18.09.26LAST TOUCHED 18.09.26
RELATEDField Service App
IDEA_022BUILT

Employment QR Verification

Security

A controlled way for somebody to verify an ID card rather than trust it.

PROBLEMAn ID card asks a receptionist to trust a piece of plastic. There is usually no way for them to check that the person in front of them is who the card says they are.
IDEAA QR code on the card, a controlled page at the other end, and a receptionist who can verify rather than assume — without exposing anything that should stay private.
WHAT HAPPENED NEXTBuilt and written up as a completed project.
CREATED 18.09.26LAST TOUCHED 18.09.26
RELATEDQR Verification