We bought a two hundred year old stone cottage two years ago. It was charming and full of character. We moved in and discovered it was also really rather cold. The previous family had happily lived here for twenty years but had made most of their improvements many years ago. Many things needed replacing or improving. Slowly, as savings have allowed, we have been making changes to try and make it warmer and work more efficiently for us as a family…

I was recently drafting a research plan for some of our products and services and came up with a simple category system for commissioning of all future research. I thought it might help everyone know what kind of research they were working on and what the likely outcomes would be. I called it the Research Funnel.

I've written previously about how I think research is everyone's job and can help you make better decisions. I believe that I am not here to get in the way of all the great work already being done and to do every single piece of research, for every single project at Monotype. I see my role as more of a Research Facilitator. My aim is to empower everyone in the team to get involved with research - whether that be running a research project, watching people use our products, drafting a survey or facilitating a session where research insights are used.

As of Tuesday the 6th May, I'm delighted to say that Craig and Amie are the new owners of Five Simple Steps. Mark and I are thrilled that Craig and Amie are taking over the company. They see the value in the brand and the catalogue of books we have developed and want like to grow and develop the business in ways we would never have been able to.

A beautiful field maple in my parents' garden blew down in a terrible storm last week. It's stood in their garden for 40 years and has been there a lot longer as part of a very old hedgerow predating their 70's housing estate. Last Summer my eldest daughter climbed it for the first time and I took these photos.

I was pretty chuffed to find out we'd been nominated for four Net Awards today:

Team of the Year for Five Simple Steps

Agency of the Year for Mark Boulton Design

Redesign of the Year for the redesign of the CERN website

App of the Year for Gridset

Many years ago, I did a number of creative facilitation training sessions so that I could become one of the BBC's official creative facilitators. This basically meant I was called upon to run ideas sessions and brainstorms for any team who needed help across the BBC. I've always remembered one of the things my trainer and mentor, Paul said to us during one of the sessions, 'Sit on the pen'.

I recently wrote a fairly lengthy article for 24 Ways on Bringing Research and Design Closer Together. I talked about how it's tough for a modern web designer who needs to keep up with the latest developments in the industry. There are still plenty of specialists who just 'design', just 'develop' or just do 'ux' but there are plenty more hybrids who do a bit of everything. Particularly with the advent of responsive design and the need to move away from drawing pictures of websites to rapid prototyping; learning code is pretty much essential for designers of all disciplines. The main focus of my article was that designers should also become researchers and get stuck in and do their own research.

I've been very ranty lately. This in itself isn't new but it's also been accompanied by a sense of frustration and isolation. Ranting into an empty void on Twitter or at my colleagues or husband about things I think or believe in isn't enough anymore. I need an outlet. A place to gather together my thoughts and ideas.

I left paid employment at BBC Wales 5 years ago this spring and entered into the scary world of self employment. I thought it was about time I got a personal website.