How

I have a career of over 25 years in the IT industry. The delivery of education and training has change firstly in the IT industry but also that has now affected the delivery of broader education.

I quickly realised the scale of the Diploma task before me and therefore I used every trick in the book to cement the vast amount of content in my brain.

I am also an NLP practitioner which is the discipline that attempts to assess how people are excellent in what they do. A key element of NLP is that people absorb information differently, which I am sure you have worked out for yourself already. Some people like learning visually, some people prefer the spoken word and others respond to kinethestic themes. Much research has been done in the general population as to how prevalent each of these styles are. Visual preference is the strongest representational system with the other two being evenly split.

Wine education has to date been predominantly in the written word. Some innovators such as Madeleine Puckette's Wine Folly business is introducing infographics to describe wines and grapes in particular.

If you are interested in what your predominant style is there are a number of tests on line such as VAK. You can also do a self assessment by writing a paragraph to describe the day or weekend you just had. If you are visual you will use visual words such as 'see, look, etc' if you are auditory you will use 'heard, sounded etc' if you are kinethestic it would be words such as 'feel, touch etc'

Why

I have been passionate about wine since my teens. I have an insatiable appetite for knowledge and decided in 2009 to use the WSET programme to satiate my appetite. Finally in 2016 I realised that life is a gift and my appetite for wine and education was as strong as ever. Up to that point my career had built a significant profile in the IT industry. I decided to follow my passion by building a life in the global wine community. For me, a sense of purpose in one’s life is essential to maximise the gifts we are given