Transactions, Interactions, and Teams

I wrote recently about the differences between interactions and transactions, and the trouble with scaling interactions. Yesterday I was chatting with a client in reflection on experiences that they have had recently in helping people to adopt Microsoft Teams, and it seemed to bear out an assumption I've had for a while that products like … Continue reading Transactions, Interactions, and Teams

Transactions v Interactions

I need to pay more attention. I can't remember who it was who introduced me to this concept. It might have been Mark Earls. It might have been Andy Law. The concept has stuck with me, the originator has been blurred in my mind. I'll blame autocorrect. The concept goes a little like this. Think of … Continue reading Transactions v Interactions

The #globalcanteen

A couple of weeks ago I was running an event for the technology leadership team of a pharmaceutical company. The team is geographically dispersed across the planet, and one of the things that become clear from our conversations was that they were missing informal contact and conversation. As is often the way when teams are … Continue reading The #globalcanteen

Meetingless papers

Sometimes my better ideas come from my mildly sarcastic one-liners... A couple of weeks ago I was in a workshop with a group of people when someone said that they were working on a project to promote "Paperless Meetings" within their organisation. "You should be striving for meetingless papers" I quipped. It's been a recurring … Continue reading Meetingless papers

The cultural assumptions in collaboration software

Semiotics isn't something I've heard much about in the two and a half decades in which I've been working in the technology industry. It's a bit woolly for the tech world. But I'm a big believer in how you can understand much about the culture of an organisation through the artefacts that it creates as … Continue reading The cultural assumptions in collaboration software

Understanding collaboration through rich pictures

I've been working with lots of teams in different organisations over the past few years on a question that generally starts along the lines of "We'd like to know how to use Product X", where 'Product X' is one of Microsoft Office 365, Google G Suite, Slack or one of many of the dozens of … Continue reading Understanding collaboration through rich pictures

Working Out Loud: #CHRO Priorities

Last week I had the pleasure of working with a group of senior HR professionals at The People Space's London event to create the HR edition of the CxO Priorities. If you're not familiar with the CxO Priorities project, they are sets of playing cards that encapsulate things that might be on the mind of senior … Continue reading Working Out Loud: #CHRO Priorities

Running effective online meetings

Although web and video conferencing might be second nature to many of us these days, in some organisations as they move to cloud-based collaboration platforms like Office 365 or Google G Suite, on-demand, at the desktop video and screen sharing tools might be a novelty. Even in organisations that have had access to these types … Continue reading Running effective online meetings

Workplace Safety

There are three things converging in my working life at the moment: Government client work on delivering modern IT services is at last at the point where we are starting to deliver actual technology into the hands of actual people who aren't in the technology team. My work has been to help shape the activities … Continue reading Workplace Safety

Agile/Flexible/Smart working tips

Another review and reworking of hints gleaned from the book Remote for a client I'm currently working with, here are some handy hints on how to support working when you don't have everyone in the same office at the same time... - make sure there is time-overlap as to the hours that people work/work in the … Continue reading Agile/Flexible/Smart working tips