One Idea.. Boldly Done

You see a lot of houses decked out for Christmas at this time of year… but this one made me stop in my tracks.

Not because it had more lights or brighter colours, but because it backed one idea.

A huge red ribbon wrapped around the front of the house – playful, confident, impossible to miss.

While many displays try to stand out through quantity, this one proved how effective a single, well-chosen gesture can be. No blinking lights, no competing colours… just one bold statement, delivered beautifully.

Is there a quiet lesson in that? You don’t always need to be the busiest or brightest. Sometimes the strongest move is picking one idea.. and really owning it.

Stand out by standing apart.

This post appeared first on LinkedIn.

What Stopped Me Scrolling

It wasn’t the sea of McLaren papaya that stopped me scrolling – it was the red arrow.

A proud dad (Steven Rutter), pointing out his software developer son, Harry, in a crowd of hundreds celebrating a world championship. And suddenly the picture changed. Not just a team anymore. It was individual people, each with their own story, their own journey, and their own moment they’ll never forget.

Every big milestone in engineering – whether it’s winning a race or launching a satellite – is built on countless unseen contributions.

And behind every success, there are always a few arrows we never draw… but should. Steven’s done the honours with this one.

This was originally on LinkedIn as a repost.

On to Something

After our last staff family meeting of 2025, where I mentioned our Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) 40th anniversary series is ending and there’ll be a new focus for next year, my engineering colleague Patrick Hope (in pic) stopped me on the way out.

He’d been thinking… and showed me an old Red Bull F1 video – The Life of a Bolt. And he suggested we could do something similar with a satellite part. Not a grand system. Not a mission. Just a single component, quietly doing its job.

It’s easy to assume that in an engineering company you want engineers to focus on building things and solving technical problems – and leave the ‘creative stuff’ to others.

But being technical doesn’t mean they can’t be creative. Often it’s exactly why they are.

There’s an idea I like about success coming from the agency of others; surrounding yourself with good people and then paying attention when they speak.

Patrick’s on to something here. Not because the suggestion is fully formed – but because he felt comfortable sharing it before it was.

So we’ll build it up together – and see where it goes.

PoleCam Gives a New Perspective

A small lesson in storytelling from our cleanroom this week.

We had an ITV News crew on site, and the cameraman, Jamie Beard, did something interesting. Since you obviously can’t fly a drone in a cleanroom, he used a small camera on a pole to capture this overhead shot – a perspective we’re not used to seeing in our manufacturing environment.

And suddenly the whole scene looked different.

Wider. Busier. More architectural.

Almost like a miniature world you could drop into.

It reminded me how much a story changes when you simply change the angle.
Most of the time we tell stories from eye level because that’s where we stand. But move the viewpoint.. even slightly.. and you reveal things that were always there but never noticed.

Clever work from Jamie… and a nice reminder that good storytelling could start with asking, “What happens if I look at this another way?”

SNG Barratt Inspires SSTL 40th Theme

When I first saw the SNG Barratt 40th anniversary graphic a few years ago, I thought ‘Now this is good storytelling.’

And when I was hunting around at the start of the year for our own 40th anniversary inspiration.. for Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL).. I remembered what this image had powerfully communicated.

An interesting British company – conveniently just down the road from me in Shropshire, and one of the reasons my old ’90s Jag is still on the road – showing cars from different eras.

The cars do most of the storytelling.

But the unmistakably British pastoral backdrop helps, as does the laurel motif.. a subtle nod to the winner’s garlands of motorsport’s earlier decades. (F1 nerds will know these were largely dropped after 1986, when sponsors objected to their logos on the driver’s race suits being obscured.)

At SSTL we borrowed this ‘then and now’ principle and created our own hero image. Our very first satellite alongside our latest one. Both photos were shot in the clean room, and both feature satellite engineers from each era.

What I think really lands is how similar the satellites are in size, despite being vastly more capable today.. and also how clearly the engineers reflect the periods they represent.

Thank you to SNG Barratt for the inspiration. Sometimes great storytelling is hiding in plain sight, if you’re paying attention.