Author: Simon Sole

Simon had three related careers: military engineer/intelligence analyst, entrepreneur and finally film maker and investor in technology companies. Highlights of the Army career included teaching at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, engineering in Bosnia and Northern Ireland, Pakistan Command and Staff course Quetta, lots of mountaineering (Alps, Peru and Alaska) and finally two periods on exchange with the Canadian Army firstly in Vancouver then Ottawa latterly as an intelligence analyst. There was then an entreprenurial decade building Exclusive Analysis (EA) which forecasted violent and political risks. EA's niche was a managed global source network and very specific forecasts about world events. Principle client value came from rich-data pricing models for the insurance industry to which EA was the biggest provider of political intelligence. In 2012 Exclusive Analysis was acquired by IHS (now IHS/Markit) In addition to running Bandoola Productions, Simon is a Non Executive Director at Lowe and Fletcher. He invests in and/or advises a range of companies with digital offerings, including; Gift Wink, Sandpit, Deepcrawl. Areas of advice includ: structuring a sales process, the value of brand and building robust code that clients actually want. Bandoola Productions has completed two feature films Containment and Road Games. Soldier of Empires is currently our main project. Simon has degrees from RMCS (Maths and Physics); MA in War Studies from the University of Baluchistan and an MPhil from Downing College, Cambridge in International Relations. Present hobbies include riding a BMW motorbike, cross country skiing and sculling. He lives in Hereford and Chelsea during the week with his wife Jacquie who is a student at SOAS. Club is Sohohouse.

Written by Simon SoleApril 4, 2018June 28, 2019

What to do about Russia; avoid a modern Versailles.

Many historians agree The Treaty of Versailles signed at the end of WW1 was largely the cause of WW2, which was the very thing it was intended to prevent. The divergent views of all-powerful leaders combined to make a treaty which had exactly the opposite effect to what they intended. A hundred years, later western […]

Written by Simon SoleJanuary 23, 2018July 4, 2018

Robot Line Dancing and Defence Spending.

Summary Robots can line dance and cheap mini drones can do air displays, so either can be weaponised to overwhelm conventional weapon systems. Mass use of cheap automated fire units, and much else, are game changing military technologies and are already happening. Yet, defence procurement is stuck in the past, presided over by vested interests […]

Written by Simon SoleNovember 25, 2017July 2, 2018

CV Tips

(Reading Guide. Only bother reading this if I have asked you to. It is generic advice for CV drafters. Lots of folks ask for guidance and I point them here for it before meeting them). CVs play a smaller role in the hiring process than they used to. Technology allows for video interviews and online […]

Written by Simon SoleNovember 21, 2017January 15, 2019

Death of Stalin: Animal Farm with humans.

One of my heroes, Armando Iannucci, a modern political satirist (Veep and In The Thick of It) has made a film about one of my historical obsessions, Stalin. I had to comment. Most reviews cannot decide if the film is comedy, tragedy or farce and thereby flatter its historical accuracy. The real court of Stalin […]

Written by Simon SoleJune 6, 2017November 15, 2017

May’s poor communication + Corbyn’s poor execution =Conservative majority of 59! (Post-Script: Still pretty happy with the analysis but numbers wrong clearly)

Politicians need three things to be successful: attractive policies they can credibly execute and convincingly communicate. However, 80% of public debate is confined to policy choices which are are irrelevant if they do not happen! Two outlier examples. Michael Gove had innovative school policies, ruthlessly executed but disastrously communicated and so now largely abandoned. Gordon Brown […]

Written by Simon SoleJuly 8, 2016January 27, 2018

Brexit and Infinite Money.

50 years from now historians will be debating what shaped Britain in 2016 and these factors will shape the aspirant leaders, not vice versa. History is nearly always bigger than the people in it. One of these factors is what money actually is and what social purpose it serves? Only when there is a finite […]

Written by Simon SoleJune 26, 2016

Brexit: Too soon to celebrate or despair.

Clearly, we are in an avoidable mess which is very annoying. Half the population is very sad, although it is a different half to a week ago. Here are some reasons to postpone despair or euphoria. (Meanwhile, digital emotional messenger Bandoola hopes to create lots of new love which according to Quantitive Easing theorists will reduce […]