This week I have learned: the stuff that goes viral is the trival - chat about iPads and croissants that look like a poo; being asked to fill out a two-page form when trying to get migraine medication on the cusp of a migraine is the epitome of user experience fail; tech events organisers - … Continue reading Weeknote 383: they still don’t get it
Category: Themes
Back in September I started what felt like an unlikely experiment. Through work for a client I had the opportunity to try out using an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil to see if I could switch from being an inveterate paper notebook user to working completely paper free. For many years now I've not printed … Continue reading The little white doo-dah that changed my (working) life
I was born in Northern Ireland in November 1970. Of all the times at which I could have chosen to be born in Northern Ireland (which of course there weren't any), November 1970 was probably just about one of the worst. Northern Ireland in 1970 wasn't a happy place. My dad was a mature student … Continue reading Ir-ish
Parking in the UK is a big business. In 2015-2016, according to research undertaken by the RAC Foundation, UK local authorities charged motorists in excess of £1.5bn and generating a cash surplus of around £0.75bn for parking their cars. But the process of paying for parking is a ramshackle and expensive affair. There are pay … Continue reading Digital parking
This week I have learned: This year so far has been busy. A couple of major projects running up to Easter has left me very much in need of the break. Good, but tired. I love running training events. They're exhausting, but there's real sense of achievement in a very short period of time. Eczema … Continue reading Weeknote 380: running out of steam
When Chris & I spoke on Sunday evening about the emerging Cambridge Analytica story as we recorded WB40 I was confused. As further revelations have emerged through Carole Cadwalladr's fantastic and dogged reporting (which I have been following for months), I am reminded of the Morrissey lyric "I was happy in the haze of a … Continue reading A state of confusion
The world of Information Technology orbits around the concept of repeatable process. We program computers to process data. Programming is the act of decomposing the world into a series of repeatable, logical steps. And the software that is produced from this act invariably then expects the world in which it operates to be one where … Continue reading Processless
This week I have learned: that the coat I bought ten years ago to travel to the northern-most tip of mainland Europe is still toasty warm The 7-S model is so very useful a way to check you've got most bases covered. Getting on for forty years old, but doesn't make it any less useful. … Continue reading Weeknote 376: let it snow
I was in a presentation earlier this week where a senior person from a rather idiosyncratic but large public organisation talked about their experiences of migrating to Microsoft Office 365. There were interesting and honest reflections, and many people asked if it was possible to get a copy of the slides that had been shown. … Continue reading Not from my tenant.
Silicon Valley seems obsessed with making things frictionless. At the core the removal of barriers to people using their products is a sensible business development strategy. Why on earth would you want to stop people being customers? In the "pay with your data" world of modern web services, it's even more important to allow people … Continue reading Less Frictionless
