Hello, I'm John Kitson, and this is my blog.

“Would you guest on Janice’s blog? It’s an opportunity.”

Hmmm. I tend toward Ambrose Bierce’s view; Opportunity defined as ‘an occasion for grasping a disappointment’.

B: So George, we get to do the blog this week! How does that feel?

G: Damn, I thought I could have escaped without having to do any blogging. How does it work?

B: Well, you just say what’s going on in your life and hope that people reading it will find it interesting.

G: What about what’s going on in their own lives – wouldn’t that be more interesting?

B: That’s not how it works! So come on, what’s happening, what have you been up to and what are you going to do next year?

Driving down to Birmingham after attending a family funeral on a wet and dark Friday night last week, I wasn’t really feeling or expecting too much from the evening ahead at the Insurance Times Awards.

Cup of tea (two teabags), a slice of Jigsaw shortbread, 6 sugars (sweet tooth, sorry) and I walk to the lifts to go back to my office.

A room on Sienna 2 (formerly known as Life Wing or Fire Wing or Bird Wing, or something).

Anyway, the lift door is about to shut…and it’s pretty full…and a guy I know (in my team) realises its too late for me to get in; shortbread et al. 

It’s the last Friday in October, it’s five’ o’clock on a Friday afternoon and it’s dark. I can’t stop yawning, so maybe it’s fast approaching time to go home.

Somebody asked me how I was yesterday and I answered with a really enthusiastic and genuine “I’m great”, which I am, they were completely taken aback, said “there’s not much great around at the minute”, maybe it’s that time of year.

Looking back over my old blogs, you might get the impression that I have lots of holidays…….I don’t, just the average amount, I do seem to talk about them a lot, so I’ll apologise upfront as I’m about to do it again.

I just got back from holiday last Wednesday, I normally wait until after the summer rush then sneak off when everyone else is back, it means everywhere is quieter and we can really escape it all.

“John, can you pick up a new role….can you take us back to number 1 for personal lines in the broker market……oh, and do it in 2010 please…..oh, and take the brokers with you by becoming the Aviva face on personal lines” ……..mmmm I thought………another massive personal lines challenge I thought.

Over the past few years I’ve met quite a lot of brokers; spoken to quite a few of them; e-mailed thousands of them; been involved in some good things and some not so good …

My time at Aviva is coming to an end … and I thought I’d let you know …

“So what’s happened since I’ve been away … while the cat’s away and everything …”

“Oh lots/loads/heaps/everything … you should have seen … you must read … and that plan to … and the numbers …”

“So nothing much then …”

So here I am (at last), 9 months since the birth of the Janice & John blog and 42 ‘posts’ later (see I’ve got the terminology right already, a natural!) it’s finally my turn to blog. Brian Spinks, head of sales & marketing, officially a guest blogger.

There is no doubt that life is full of ups and downs, highs and lows, peaks and troughs. Much as I’d love it to be the case that’s probably no less true now we’re Aviva that it was when we were Norwich Union, or as it has been through most of my career. You’re probably already thinking “what a revelation Janice, have you got nothing better to do with your time than think up such pearls of wisdom”…bear with me there is a point to all this.

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A few weeks ago I talked about my “Personal Best” on my blog and asked for yours! …Some beautiful stories…(miles better than mine) but I had to pick a winner…Tim Will won…well done…

Read and enjoy.
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It’s mid year appraisal time, as you can imagine appraisals with John are a bit different, mine went something like this

John: Looking back on the last 6 months what are the headlines

Me: Well relationships with consolidators seem to be a continued  theme, have we fallen out with them, are we making friends with them, even when nothing’s happening it’s forever in the headlines……

Well, how does the Chief Risk Officer of Aviva get to be writing a column out of John Kitson’s blog?  Surfing the net one day, I stumbled accidentally upon Insurance Times and couldn’t miss reading John’s blog.  What were my reactions?  Shock, horror, followed by praise and admiration and then eventually … disappointment … once I discovered that the blog about “my holiday with my hubby” had been written by our own Janice Deacon.  Misguidedly, I thought it merited an e-mail to John and anyway here I am.

I’m Brian Wallace, Head of Aviva Risk Management Solutions.  I’m spending some time gardening this week to the sound of Jimi Hendrix playing in the background (“Little Wing” what a great song!) and thinking how well Rangers will do in Europe next season…In case you’re wondering I’m actually on holiday this week but I wasn’t going to turn down an opportunity like this was I?! Guest blogging for Janice and John, I’m up for that and the chance to put some thoughts down. Anyway, I like relaxing in the garden, getting away from it all……..but it’s funny how your mind works even when relaxed………….

I joined the company that was last week rechristened Aviva 9 years and 2 months ago, 6 weeks after the CGU, NU merger was announced. You could say I never really belonged to a “legacy company”. As my colleagues swore allegiance to General Accident, CU, NU and L&E, it was really clear to me that people form allegiances to brands over many years and real passion and loyalty underpins these allegiance.

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In the… day… week… month…… and year ahead…………………
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The yellow and blue bunting will have faded in the sun…

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The yellow balloons will be long popped…………………

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The yellow cup cakes will be a distant memory………

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The yellow serviettes at the “scattered round the country” barbecues will have been forgotten ………

All those stands …

All those people …

All those badges …

All those half-drunk coffee cups …

Our newly erected Aviva Tunnel

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The BIBA conference in Manchester was a huge success. Just imagine – 1,400 brokers under one roof. Awesome.

The aisles were bursting at the seams. There were brokers, insurers and other interested parties all getting the low down on the main events of the year.

Norwich Union’s star-studded customer list. Who’s keeping your customers company on our books?

I discovered a few illustrious policyholders as I dug around in our 200 years’ worth of archives – so your clients are in good company. Churchill was a little worried about getting hurt in the army, and Newton seems to have been very aware of the physics of fire…

It’s 7 weeks since I wrote my first ever blog, it hasn’t turned me into a blog addict, a ‘Twitterer’ or a ‘Facebook’ regular. I like talking too much to ever do all my communications via virtual means, any of you who’ve met me will know that to be the case.

My name is Phil Bayles. I look after Broker business in the south of UK as well as National Brokers and London Property Owners. I live in Southampton and support Southampton FC – I get a lot of sympathy from taxi drivers at the moment on that count.

I am Alan, son of Sander, father to Fraser, native of Kilmarnock, friend to English Andrew, I am many things to many people but at this moment I am the ‘Johnblogstitute’.

I’m not blogging solely because I have the same initials. That’s just a coincidence! The main and most important reason I’m blogging is because of the role I perform for John and Janice. For those that don’t know me, I have worked for Norwich Union (soon to become Aviva) for 20 years, family man, Norwich born and bred and I love my football.

Is this the most stressful business environment I’ve ever been in …? (not Aviva just the world of commerce!) Generally … and for me at the moment?

That was the thing winging its way around in my head early one morning (as it does) …

I don’t spend my whole life doing the Aviva rebrand, you know.  It may seem like that if you’re one of my blog fans…OK fan. Whilst it’s critical; and we’re really pleased with the progress; it’s not the only thing in my life! …

“It’s a journey.”
“We’re on a journey.”
“What a journey.”

It’s a sort of must say, de rigueur, must say it phrase nowadays.
On those reality shows, you hear…

“My journey has been fantastic and I don’t want to get off.”
“This is just the start and I’ll be back – you haven’t heard the last of me.”
“My journey is just beginning.”

I’ve been thinking about “cut through” a lot this week.

For those not in the know, “cut through” is an advertising term.

It means that in a world of noise, colour, advertising, bill boards, internet, magazines of every shape and size, text messaging and outbound calling, the human brain gets cluttered and full. Therefore if you’ve got a message you want to get across, you have to “cut through” the noise.

Trying different things isn’t always easy.   “New” is not everyone’s cup of tea and this “blog” is one of those things.

I happened to be browsing on another insurance website (as you do) and there was a forum discussing this blog, a bloggers blog so to speak, bit odd but there you go, the wonders of the web.  They called me “a fruit bat” and a web Harry Hill look-alike.  Talk about not pleasing everyone all of the time!

Well, it’s started, well it started some time ago but we’ve now moved into fourth gear in terms of communicating more widely that we’re changing our name.

As I ate a brussel sprout, I heard Ringo Starr (nee Richard Starkey) on the television and caught Bruce Willis saying, “would Walter Willis have ever been a leading man?”