Friday riff

1. Yesterday we finished the Laura Horton tour in Leeds - it's always a bittersweet moment, after 7 weeks of shared experiences, including lots of laughter (largely at ourselves). Thank you Laura for sharing your experience and wisdom and for generating such positive feedback from The 100;

2. Today I finish my Marketing Masterclass and have thoroughly enjoyed the delivery, although I feel somewhat guilty at the risk of overwhelming delegates with how much marketing there is to do. One of our London audience shared the feedback that my marketing day felt like "A Michelin-star 5-course meal, served all in one go in a bucket."

3. Which brings me to a point (another point that you won't like) - that every practice needs a full-time TCO - plus a full-time marketing manager - to be clear, 2 extra members of the team, who don't work reception or nursing (except for a genuine emergency) and are free from distraction, so that they can get on with their job;

4. You can add that expense to the iOS in every surgery and in the TCO consult room - soz;

5. My workflow has exploded since Monday 2nd September - and I'm getting feedback from clients that they are seeing an upturn in work as well. I told you this would happen - schools back and now it's time to get things done;

6. After three months, my marathon training is finally starting to have a positive effect - I ran for 9 km along the River Calder in Leeds last night - and didn't feel like an old man. It reminds me that any positive change takes time - so if you give a team member a new job, or hire someone new, give them three months to get fit for purpose;

7. I took my Plaud out of the box yesterday and set it up - then had a play by recording the last hour of Laura's presentation. Within minutes I had a transcript, summary and action plan. I'm going to leave it switched on for the complete Marketing Masterclass today and see what happens. Everyone at The Campbell Academy was carrying a Plaud around when I visited on Wednesday - is this the new ChatGPT/AI meeting note taker? It's looking promising.

Next week I'm mountain biking across Snowdonia for 6 days with three pals - I'll be truly off the grid and the blog will take a break.