A day in the life of: Mark Sampey

My last 'day in the life' revolved around a day at the office, but I'm just as often out visiting clients.

This is my second trip to London this week. The first was a visit to meet up with the parent company of my fund and asset management client, whose web site we've managed since 2007. Great news! We've been asked to rebuild the parent company's website, but - they need it in three weeks. That's what you get for telling clients you provide agile development!

Two days later and I'm back on the Stoke to Euston Virgin service. This one managed to arrive on time at 9.50 am, unlike my last two journeys, when the scheduled trains from Stoke just disappeared. The nice lady in the red jacket said it was just a coincidence but I'm not sure I believe her.

I'm in London today to meet a potential new client, just a short walk from Euston station. This is first time we've met in person, though we've been exchanging emails for six months. The project is a self-service digital project involving web, mobile and kiosk content and platform integration. This is a chance to meet the partners and scope out a take-to-market solution. We have a very interesting meeting but there's a long way to go yet before the project kicks off.

I walk back to Euston to get the tube to my next meeting at London Bridge at 2.00pm. There I'm meeting a longstanding kiosk client, to discuss a fresh approach to their kiosk network. We look at a couple of new locations for the kiosks and discuss updates to the software content and navigation. The kiosk usage statistics prove some of the links in the portal page are more popular than others, so we look at refreshing some areas of the content and improving access to their choice based lettings application, which is proving very popular.

I have a new contact within the council, so I spend some time introducing him and his colleagues to the kiosk content and functionality. I'm the longest surviving partner from the original project which began 6 years ago - the other members from the lead systems integrator and the council have all moved on.

The meeting takes longer than I had planned, so I miss my early train back. As I refuse to line Mr Branson's pockets by paying three times the cost of my ticket to get into London early, I'll have to wait three hours for the next one available on my cheap day return!

After a relaxed lunch / afternoon tea (what do you call eating at 3.30pm?!), on the banks of the Thames overlooking HMS Belfast, the trip back to Euston gets off to a good start with the failure of my Oyster card, while the journey back to Stoke takes the longer, scenic route via Wolverhampton, thanks to a fire on the train in front.

That's the thanks you get for trying to reduce your carbon footprint and leave the car at home! Next time I think I'll just drive to Hillingdon and tube in to London as I usually do!