I've recently diversified into preparing for a new role with my current employer. I've really enjoyed my time here so far; it's coming up to 5 years this June, and up until these last few months I've really felt as though I was stretching myself - both learning new things and working pretty hard.

So this new challenge is a bit of excitement for me, it's something a little bit different and challenging. I'm still in the preliminary stages at the moment, where we work out whether or not the ideas and strategies I'm coming up with have potential, or if I'm in way too deep.

One of the most interesting exercises I've done so far is the creation of a business plan. Now, having watched Dragon's Den (and studied a BA in Business), I've got a fair idea of what makes a good business plan. Interestingly, outside of the hypothetical scenarios we'd discussed at University, I'd not actually completed one.

The bit I've enjoyed the most so far is the market analysis. It's incredible to find that only ~2% of the UKs output (GDP) is created by the IT sector. Another ~2% is generated by the telco industry. Finance counts for 10% of GDP, and industrial output is up at 23%. Thanks Wolfram Alpha!

The interesting thing though is that nearly 45% of British GDP is described as Misc. I don't know what makes that up, that's what Misc means to an end user accessing the data. Can anyone fill in the blanks?

The other interesting analysis was that of the North West. 1 in 8 legal professionals work up here. 130,000 people are employed in finance/insurance, there are 3,000 individual accountancies and the market for Management Consultancy has grown from £6.3bn in 1998 to £14.05bn in 2006.

It's all interesting facts, but going back to Wolfram Alpha - if you can provide tips on how to get more out of it I'd love to hear it.