Chris Pearson

I worked in IS from the early eighties. My background was originally in the life sciences, working in the NHS in the south of England then later, and briefly, in the private health sector in the north west.

Over the last few years I've been living in the north of England and I think we, as a family, are now settled in Yorkshire. My youngest daughter is seven and a half, Yorkshire born and bred. Now I'm neither dashing between factories all over Europe nor spending most nights in hotels, I have been able to start enjoying Yorkshire again.

I am now developing web applications that are interesting (like the Sproxton Hall Cottages site, started from scratch in late July 2005, and a slowly evolving community project, the Badsworth PreSchool site, started in September 2005) and which, generally, break new ground (for me, personally, at least) as well as spending time writing - and not just technical documents but business techniques and process reviews, too.

Having been to a school reunion - the first one ever - at the end of October '05, I've registered wyborne.co.uk in the hope we can build an archive of interesting memories for anyone who attended Wyborne Primary School (known as Pope Street School in earlier times) in New Eltham.

Alongside these activities I'd like to continue teaching and training and - to build on my practical experience - during 2003-4 I took a post-16 teaching course, Certificate in Teaching Adult Learners.

From 1992 until the end of May 2003, I worked as a systems professional in the manufacturing sector; immediately before that I was a business systems consultant. Until May 2003 my job involved me in a variety of development projects and business change initiatives: On the back of that I've written articles on both business and technical subjects. These have included items in MV News magazine and the Cognos quarterly, SupportLink magazine (http://support.cognos.com) as well as material for IPS Limited and some other sites. Not to mention what's on this site.

In January 2003 I achieved Membership of the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators (ISTC - http://www.istc.org.uk) and have provided technical support for the institue's web site and Oxford Reference Online services. I've written a number of articles for Communicator magazine, including a series on process mapping.

My experience is summarised in my cv (See the cv page)

For a long while I resisted putting a photo of myself on this site - There were a lot of rather poorly defined reasons: Bashful, maybe. But having recently been in touch with a few people I haven't seen in a very long while, photos of what they now look like have been appreciated by me.

So I thought I'd post a snapshot, too. I started looking for pictures of myself and realised that, out of literally thousands of prints and transparencies I have filling many, many boxes, very few are pictures of me. (It shows that I've spent most of my time round the back of cameras, clicking the shutter release, I guess.)

Chris Pearson in the viewfinder: Oh, Orympus, very good camera!

This search for photos coincided with a project for which I needed to locate some test files - graphics and verbal data - for a content management system under development: Summary text plus thumbnail image which could be linked to a longer full-text description and full-sized image were just what I needed!

That prompted an effort to put together a collection of pictures starting in my school days, at least, and coming through to the present. (It was also a good excuse to spend two afternoons and a weekend getting sentimental over heaps of old piccies.) My eldest daughter, Ruth, then confessed to having some photos to fill in just a couple of gaps.

So, marvel at the quality of the content management system (probably the best reason for looking at it, if I do say so myself!) or just take a look at the pictures: The gallery is open for visitors!

For contact details - or to leave a message - please see the contact page

This is a tiny part of a Guy Fawkes night firework picture, taken in 1976,
found while I was searching through old colour
transparencies: I think it's amazing the way you can
scan slides - Oh, technology!
Don't you just love it to death?

Other sites being created or currently managed:
The Thorpe Audlin community site - just a placeholder at the moment with some @ThorpeAudlin.com email addresses for local people; The Ramsden Hall site of the Thorpe Audlin Community Association - growing steadily and recently redesigned and moved to a new server - and the new Badsworth community site - currently providing email but without any content. All work in process, really!

There's the Doom Products site and Bearface as well as the soon-to-be-launched commercial site, chrispearson.co.uk

I created the framework for the ISTC web site and designed the page format, now maintaining the members' area and the syndicated access to Oxford Reference Online