About me - NeilLewin.com

Hello there, I’m Neil – thanks for visiting my site.

My passions are technology, helping people and embracing adventure. This ties into my mission – to live honestly, help others and make the most of the opportunity.

It’s important to me to do this in all aspects of my life, whether at home with the family, at work, or volunteering in the community. I find this helps me stay authentic, upbeat and allows me to approach challenges with energy and open-mindedness.

I’m part of the team at Semantic, a leading digital agency for attractions in the UK.

Semantic was founded in 1997, and I joined in 2008, so it’s been a big part of my life.

I was lucky to work my way up, under the guidance of Nick Warren, the previous owner and still a great friend of mine. His support combined with my constant desire to take on more responsibilities helped me become Managing Director in March 2016.

Whilst on the surface it seems that Semantic develops websites, it’s actually all about developing people. I worked hard to buy the business in 2018, aiming make the most of the opportunity, keep the team happy and deliver awesome results for our clients.

Since buying the business, we’ve weathered the pandemic, and are constantly adapting what we offer to clients. We’ve done lots of business development work and are in the process of transforming what we can do for leisure, tourism and attractions clients. It’s fun and dynamic sector that we’ve been working in for over 20 years.

In 2023, we launched our new LOOP platform for attractions. It’s a fast, optimised solution to help get new attractions online quickly, or level up the online capabilities of existing attractions.

We’re now focused on broadening out our business offering and scaling beyond the UK.

My Thirties

In my twenties, I was fast and impatient – for instance, I used to power through as many audiobooks as possible to try and hoover up all of the knowledge.

Now, I have developed better processes to think things through in more detail, and to be mindful of goals and desired results. Some of the stand-out lessons that have really stuck in my mind over the past few years are highlighted in this blog post.

Coming to the end of my thirties, it’s made me much more focused on my overall vision, the fact that anything’s possible, and having the chance to define my own path in life…

Interests

Family & Adventure

Family comes first, and is a huge motivator in everything I do. We enjoy travelling, adventures and making the most of opportunities in day-to-day life. Hopefully I can inspire the kids to go after their dreams and pursue their passions.

Hobbies

Much of my life is consumed by work and family, particularly in my thirties, so some hobbies are bubbling in the background – things like badminton, piano playing, sailing, watersports, powerboating, paddleboarding and swimming and swimming coaching.

I’ve learnt that, despite how busy work gets, it’s always important to have these outlets. Whether that’s playing a quick few songs on the piano, or a morning’s paddleboarding. ‘Down time’ is key to be able to perform at my best for my family and team at work.

Volunteering

Aside from helping me fulfil my aims to help people, volunteering has helped rebalance how I spend my time, particularly after the pandemic. I’d say during the pandemic, I spent 80% of time working, or worrying about work, 20% on family, with minimal time for everything else (or at least that’s what it felt like!). My volunteering roles have helped shift this feeling to be more equal.

I’ve spent around 15 years volunteering as an Activity Buddy in a local scheme to help get disabled people into sport, with weekly swimming sessions.

In 2023 I started volunteering as a Local Press Officer for the RNLI. I live miles away from the lifeboat station, too far to make it out on a shout (for now at least!) so helping them with press releases, social media and promoting the great work of the RNLI feels like a great use of my time.

Mindset, Productivity & Positivity

I’m interested in how people can stay positive and make focused progress on their dreams. For much of my life I’ve not really known what I wanted to do, and even thinking about it has felt daunting. It was all too easy to procrastinate. It’s fascinating how we have the more resources and more opportunities that at any point in the history of the human race, but seem to be more anxious, stressed or unhappy.

I can relate to this as a business owner so I’m constantly listening to podcasts, audiobooks and reading, particularly books around growth, psychology, philosophy and stoicism.

What I’ve been less good at, is distilling the ideas down into my own life, or carving out time to think things through and coming up with new ideas or insights, hence this website and starting to write about my life and lessons I’ve learnt.

Get in touch

I’m always keen to meet interesting people, whether that’s as part of my work, or just in the community. Drop me a line and I’ll be happy to arrange a chat:

Otherwise feel free to reach out to me and the team at Semantic.

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