Weeknotes

Weeknote 349: Calcio

This week I have learned: Footie's back, then. To continue to value the conversations that start on Twitter and then go elsewhere I have missed out on about 10 years of listening to music by not having a decent set of loudspeakers. Foolish. I really need to knuckle down and write my Silicon Beach talk. … Continue reading Weeknote 349: Calcio

Management, Technology

Data-based organisations

Picture the scene. We've created a multi-sheet Excel workbook, maybe with links into other workbooks, and it's used by a dozen people in our department. Gill who originally created the spreadsheet left the organisation years ago. But we've managed to keep it going, adding duplicate sheets where we weren't entirely clear how Gill's formulae and … Continue reading Data-based organisations

General, Weeknotes

Weeknote 348: Cupertino

This week I have learned: the sense of enormous relief to be found at coming towards the end of a major building project that everyone seems to know it's all about the people, but we still look to the inanimate objects for answers the simple stuff is sometimes the most valuable Next week: the bit … Continue reading Weeknote 348: Cupertino

Other Stuff

Planning a workshop

I've run a lot of workshops. I've attended even more. There have been good, there have been bad. There have been the truly shocking. In all of my years of workshopping, the single tool that I have found to be the most useful is a simple technique for planning rather than any particular technique in … Continue reading Planning a workshop

change, collaboration, innovation, Management, Technology

The ubiquitous inbox

Back in my later days at BBC Worldwide in the early 2000s, I commissioned a piece of research to look at the habits that our staff had in their use of file storage and email. The work, looking back, was relatively unusual. I brought in a social scientist to do a piece of ethnographic research … Continue reading The ubiquitous inbox

innovation, Management, Social, Technology

The middle of the journey

I'm currently reading Tim Harford's excellent new tome Fifty Things that made the Modern Economy. Based on his BBC Radio series, it charts ideas and objects that have created the world around us today. Some of them are obvious (the Light Bulb), some of them less so (the Billy Bookcase). In his description of the … Continue reading The middle of the journey

collaboration, Management, Technology

Finding the right space

Picture the scene. A modern office. Open plan. A bank of eight desks, two rows of four, facing each other. Screens, laptops. Six of the eight desks are occupied. Two are empty but with coats hanging over the backs of chairs, the workplace equivalent of a towel on a sun lounger. Five of the six … Continue reading Finding the right space

Management, Technology

The trouble with saving cost

Back in my days at the BBC (an increasingly distant memory - it’s nearly 13 years now since I left) I was involved in a project that created the first full-programme online streaming service. It was back in around 2001, a time before YouTube if you can imagine such a thing. The service was aimed … Continue reading The trouble with saving cost