Category: General

In 1739 the Grenoble inventor Jacques de Vaucanson unveiled his latest invention to the people of France. The Canard Digérateur, or Digesting Duck was a life-sized model of a waterbird that appeared to be able to take food in its beak from a human handler, and then miraculously poop it out of its other end. … Continue reading Fooled by the duck

This week I have learned: that it's still possible to get a cold and feel crap for a whole week. This is strangely life-affirming. my birthday this year made me feel quite miserable. I can't pretend that I'm young anymore. that if it does go tits up, the thing I will miss most about Twitter … Continue reading Weeknote 612: 52

I've been spending this morning partly trying to set myself up on Mastodon. I'm not necessarily jumping ship from Twitter, but I'm just interested in checking out the potential lifeboats. What the experience has so far instilled in me is a deep respect for the engineering marvel that is modern-day Twitter. To deliver a service … Continue reading Twitter and technocracy

This week I have learned: ultimately it's about the people. We can get fooled in the world of technology into thinking that not only it's only about the tech, but that tech people themselves are somehow more machine than human. It's not and they're not. Chris was off sunning himself at a conference this week, … Continue reading Weeknote 604: people, innit?

Twenty-six years ago I started working at the BBC just as the corporation was entering into its first big phase of digital transformation. The world of broadcast media was changing as the production and distribution of television shifted from analogue to digital technologies. Shifting from analogue tape to first digital tape and then hard drives … Continue reading The digitally-transformed office

So far in this short series, I have looked at identifying who a modern technology team might be providing services to, the jobs those people might be doing, the gains they can receive if they are successful, and the pains that they might experience if they fail, or that get in the way of them … Continue reading The Tech Team Value Prop – services offered

Most business-to-business businesses are relationship businesses. They are driven by the relationships that exist within and outside. On trust built between people and on the way in which they interact with one another. Whilst procurement processes might deliver a level of objectiveness to the process of establishing new business contracts, who bids and who is … Continue reading Hybrid relationships