Category: General

I had lunch today with an old friend who last year sold the company that he and a few partners built up over the past ten years to a big corporate. They are now experiencing what it is like to with in a big corporate after years of being an SME. One of the things … Continue reading For the corporate good

There has been significant PR activity in the past few days as HP have announced a series of mobile/tablet products based on the webOS that they acquired with the purchase of Palm last year. Punditry is the work of fools, so I feel well qualified to comment... Back in November I saw the head of … Continue reading Mobile punditry

An interesting conversationette with @coe62 on Twitter this morning, prompted by a link to a story about how the government is wasting money by not killing projects, and a question about why people in organisations find it so difficult to end failing initiatives. The public sector for years had been villified by the press for … Continue reading Killing projects

Following on from my last update back in September, here's a quick note about things that I'm currently using: Since September, I've moved from an HTC to a Samsung Galaxy S. Probably the biggest difference is the add-on software (that came bundled) calledSwype - and at last I've found happiness with a touch screen. I've … Continue reading Even more current stuff I like

A week or so ago I made the decision to move backup on my home PC into the Cloud. This coincided with moving our home ADSL onto an uncapped tariff, and an growing concern that at some point something about my home PC and its two internal drives would break. I did a bit of … Continue reading Online backup

I did my degree in sociology. There, said it. Cue people from the UK of a certain age chorusing "You've got an ology? You'll be a scientist!". There are a few things that have served me well as a result of studying this much-maligned subject. The study of culture, for example, has been invaluable in … Continue reading The power of open questions

Project achievements this week included: - beginning of the AD project pilot - meeting with first of two UC consultants - processing of the Adobe licensing data - spec for the replacement of the infamous Yellow Card system - and a first cut of the potential Cloud seminar I'm planning (contribute here: http://blog.mattballantine.com/blog/_archives/2011/2/3/4741694.html) and also: … Continue reading Weeknote 36 – in which sleep deprivation took hold

Yesterday, amongst much fuss and media attention, Rupert Murdoch and his staff at News International launched The Daily, the hyped electronic newspaper available only on iPad. Putting aside the fact that Murdoch carried his Apple device onto the stage like it were a rancid sock (he really doesn't like this technology stuff, does he?) the … Continue reading Media anachronisms

At the end of last year I was asked by Emma at The Cloud Circle to look at pulling together material for a seminar to be run at some point this year to share some of the learning and experiences we've had thus far in moving to the Cloud. In between Christmas, babies, and unscheduled … Continue reading Leading a move into the Cloud

I've written before about the practice in place at Google known as 'dogfooding', whereby the staff at the firm use pre-release versions of services as a kind of final, mass-scale beta test. This morning there has been a major revision to the Google Docs user interface, and it has made me think that there might … Continue reading The dangers of dogfooding