Mark Samuels

I love major sports events and major sporting venues. Actually, I love rubbish sports events and rubbish sporting venues, too.

I remember dragging my wife to watch Austrian non-league side FC Eurotours Kitzbuhel in a pre-season friendly. We were on holiday; it was her special treat. We’ve also watched old men bowling in Malta and she’s been spoilt with visits to a bunch of empty football grounds across Europe.

Sportplatz Kitzbuhel: Why my wife loves me

Sometimes major sporting venues are more than the sum of their parts. Snooker at The Crucible in Sheffield really has to be experienced. It’s a pretty awful theatre that – somehow – comes alive during the snooker. I think it’s the quiet intensity of having to sit in silence, watching a couple of blokes in suits smacking balls round a table with polished sticks.

Cricket at your regular haunt – Edgbaston, in the case of my youth – is also great. Especially during mid-week county matches, when the only people there are you, your unemployed mate and pensioners. And watching football live is always wonderful, of course.

But Wimbledon is rubbish. Thanks to our overuse of aerosols and rack-mounted servers, it’s normally too hot – despite everyone saying it always rains. And it’s always too busy. Unless you queue for 17 days, you can’t get on the main courts – which means you spend hours trailing round the minor courts, watching amateur British players lose stinky mixed doubles matches.

Other venues have an aura and a sense of excitement. Wimbledon doesn’t; it’s just full of people in caps, who eat too many strawberries and drink too much Pimm’s. It’s like the Chelsea Flower Show, actually – boring, busy and over-rated.

Don’t bother going to Wimbledon. It’s one of those rare events that’s actually more enjoyable on television. Again, like the Chelsea Flower Show.

I’ve been getting a bunch of emails from PRs that are pitching for what they believe to be forthcoming features in CIO Connect. The pitches are always welcome – but many of the suggested features have already been written and are about to be published.

Take the corporate social responsiblity (CSR) feature, which has received a lot of attention in the last week-or-so. Some nice ideas, too. The problem is that the feature is due to come out in July’s spring edition and was finished a long time in advance. I’m actually now working on content for the autumn edition, which goes to bed mid-summer.

One PR told me she’d got the details for forthcoming features from ‘Features Exec’. It’s a regularly repeated story – don’t believe everything you read on a database; better to get it from the horse’s mouth (in this case, me). Here’s what I’m currently working on for the autumn edition:

• Hyperconnectivity – How can collaborative technologies help CIOs to boost connectivity? Potential areas include mobile devices, next-generation web and the future office.
• Information management – How can CIOs control information management? Potential areas include content management, security, next-generation search and retrieval.
• Executive partnership – How can IT leaders create effective partnerships with other executives? The feature will draw on the significance of senior team relationships.
• Finally – and as ever – I’m also looking for interesting business people with an interesting story to tell. So, that might be CIOs, it might also be other c-suite executives, business gurus, leadership experts and futurologists.

There’s also the back page slot, which gives technology chiefs the chance to talk about out-of-work interests (we’ve recently had mountain climbing, round-the-world sailing and marathon running). Ta.

So, I was on my third Tube home tonight (I had to get a combination, due to the Underground strike) and there was a woman sitting next to me, busily telling her mate on the phone about:

• How she was going to have to leave the band because her non-understanding manager wanted her to go to LA and record a song that isn’t ready.
• And, anyway, she wants to do this other gig for a car company at some festival. And she’s going to get loads of cash for it. Amazing.
• And the manager only mentions LA because it will make her come running. But not this time. Oh, no. In fact, she might even leave the band.

Yeah, you show them. And while you’re at it, leave the train, too – and take your loud, boring, self-indulgent conversation with you. Talking of self-indulgent musicians…

Prior to my two-year-old daughter being born, I used to waste hours cutting up existing records, making loops and creating new tracks. My wife hates them, which is the main thing: “Turn that bloody noise off,” would be her review.