Dan McNeil's Blog

Blackpool is sometimes described as being world-famous.  That may be true within the worlds of ballroom dancing, rollercoaster enthusiasm and tram nerds, but my experience is that anyone from outside the UK needs an explanation when you mention Blackpool.  Nobody from the UK needs that explanation, with Blackpool week firmly in the Strictly Come Dancing calendar and the silhouette of a metal lattice tower more likely identified as "Blackpool" than "Paris".  Blackpool is a long way from London.  Given I grew up not that far away, it still feels seems a local resort to me but even had the train from Euston not meandered through Birmingham and Wolverhampton on its way north, it's still a hefty old journey from where I live now.  Three hours after we set pulled out of the platform, we took the turn off the mainline at Preston and headed for the coast.  When I caught my first glimpse of the tower from the window of the train, I couldn't help the skip of excitemen

 I have a love hate relationship with social media.   I keep in touch with friends and family on Facebook, using it as a place where we check in with each other's lives in a way that we wouldn't if we didn't have our connections on Facebook.  Without doubt, the circle of people whose lives I felt involved in would be smaller if it weren't for Facebook. I use LinkedIn for work.  I post stuff about leadership, mental health awareness in the workplace and the need for further LGBTQ+ inclusion.  I have a fair number of followers on LinkedIn, and it slots nicely into my professional life as a way to get my thoughts on leadership out into the wild and also as a good tool to find candidates for open roles in my team. I've been on and off Twitter and - more recently - Instagram over the years, but have ultimately given up on them.  I don't really know anyone I'm interacting with, and all those people I do know are on Facebook or LinkedIn anyway... I have never subsc