Michael Grayer, 37, is the director, chief statistician, and general dogsbody (his words!) of Floating Point Statistics Ltd, a statistical consultancy.
Michael works with companies, universities and research charities, usually in the medical sector. He assists them with all their statistical needs, writing analysis plans and protocols in preparation for collecting data, all the way through to analysing the data once it’s been collected.
We caught up with Michael to find out what drew him to co working and why the little things matter when it comes to a shared office.
What inspired you to start your business?
I’d love to have an inspirational story to share here, but my decision to start contracting was borne out of sheer everyday pragmatics.
It has its risks, certainly, but compared to permanent employment it involves less company politics, less management of people, more opportunities to get your teeth stuck into technical challenges (which is right up my alley)… and, let’s be blunt, better pay.
I’ve been doing it for nearly 3 three years and not regretted the decision.
What’s an average day for you?
Generally, I’ll either be scripting some code to run some statistical analyses or advising scientific researchers on their study design with a view to getting the right data to answer their research questions in a dispassionate, fair and unbiased way.
There’s so much rubbish spouted about how 97 per cent of statistics are made up on the spot, or spun so far that they’re meaningless. My job is to ensure that they’re not.
What’s the best part of your job?
Statistics is such a fundamental part of modern clinical research, and there’s good work to be had on interesting projects, working with interesting and motivated researchers, some of whom are associated with some groundbreaking scientific and academic breakthroughs.
Very occasionally, I bump into people who encounter the diseases and conditions that my work relates to in their everyday lives as nurses, doctors, physios and other medical professionals, and it reminds me that what I do, however abstract it seems at the time, has the potential to have a profound impact on people’s lives.
What challenges have you encountered in running a start-up?
The main challenge that I found when I made the switch was getting the first contract.
Clients tend to be looking for immediate starts and finding one that was willing to wait for me to serve my notice period on my old job was hard.
What drew you to a co working office?
I just can’t work at home. It would drive me round the bend.
A co-working office was the natural choice to get me out of solitary confinement, but very few co-working spaces met my needs.
Le Bureau provides me with my own (very spacious) desk and locker, meeting rooms and adorable little booths for conference calls (there’s a lot of those), and then there’s all the little things included which mount up in both money and faff if you have to sort them out yourself: internet, printing, shredding, stationery, tea, coffee, biscuits.
What’s next for your business?
Carry on consulting, I guess. I’m mid-way through a very interesting analysis project with a small health economics company, which will take me to the end of the year, and then we’ll see what happens next!
The Le Bureau Quick-Fire Q&A
Who is your business inspiration? Adam Jacobs and Kevin Kane, my employers from my last permanent employment and the one before that. They turned their one-person operations into fully-fledged medical writing and statistical service providers, and still are real forces for good in medical research.
Early bird or night owl? Night owl.
If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would that be? The Norwegian fjords. Simply breathtaking.
What’s your ideal weekend? A city break (I went to Ghent earlier this year, which doesn’t sound like it would be all that, but oh my goodness what an amazing place) or a trip out into the countryside.
What’s the last song you listened to? Something off the latest album by Say Sue Me, a really uplifting surfer rock outfit from Korea. Check them out.
The book that changed you? The Truckers trilogy by the late, great Terry Pratchett. Possibly the best three children’s books ever written, they’ve stayed with me ever since I read them when I was 11 and they’re still just as absorbing and inspiring as they were then.
What three luxuries would you take to a desert island? My board game collection, a piano and a fine whiskey.
And finally, happiness is…? …an abstract noun? I know it when I feel it.
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