I've been thinking lately about how we're rather good at solving problems, but surprisingly bad at identifying what the problems actually are. Take the double diamond process that every design consultant worth their salt will draw on a whiteboard: diverge to explore numerous solutions, converge to select the best one, diverge again to prototype, and … Continue reading The problem with problems
Category: innovation
(An experiment in stakeholder management, creativity and vibe coding) Some months ago, I came into the possession of a bag of 10 small rubber ducks. The reasons why are on a need-to-know basis, and you probably don't need to know. I thought about turning them into art. Originally, I was going to glue them to … Continue reading Ducks in a Row
I'll be turning 54 next month. I know, I barely look a day over 52. In my brain, however, I'm still waiting for the morning I wake up and feel like a grown-up. But despite my increasing years and abandoned hairline, I can't really remember a time in my life when I wasn't surrounded by … Continue reading The 4Cs of Computing
In the dark days of Covid, I set up a toy experiment on the place we used to call Twitter. I was fascinated by my coffee machine. In particular, the patterns that would emerge on the top of my morning Latte after preparation. Unlike in posh coffee shops where a trained barista will create intricate … Continue reading Seeing patterns
A few years ago I had a fascinating conversation with a journalist about a particular aspect of the psychology of working in an office. He told me that when he needed to read a book as part of his work, in the office he found it impossible because of an overbearing feeling that reading a … Continue reading A subversive sixty minutes
In Claire L Evans' wonderful book Broad Band: The untold story of the women who made the internet there is a particularly interesting observation about how a conference held in 1968 in the Bavarian ski resort of Garmisch had a huge impact on the gender bias in the computing industry. In the late 1960s there … Continue reading Prompt Midwives
Over the weekend I read a wonderful article by Stephen Wolfram that explores and explains the way in which much of the current wave of AI technologies operate. It's well worth the read. One particular point that has stuck with me is Wolfram's assertion that ChatGPT has blown apart a long-held assumption that the act … Continue reading The Halo Effect of ChatGPT
A vivid memory I have from growing up in the 1970s was my father's what seemed like annual slide deck preparation. This is, of course, in the days before Harvard Graphics, let alone PowerPoint. Dad was a lecturer at the University of London. He had to prepare lectures for his MSc students, and prepared visual … Continue reading Slide decks
Some years ago, in my first exploration of the world of virtual reality, I contrived to introduce a group of senior lawyers into what now is occasionally being called the Metaverse. I'd managed to spend a bit of their money buying an HTC Vive rig, and at their annual partner conference was inviting them to … Continue reading See what happens…
Over the past few weeks, I've been writing about how internal technology teams, whether IT, Digital or other permutations, might look at themselves though a service value lens to better understand what they do in the eyes of their "customers". If you haven't seen the articles, they are here, here and here. Last week I … Continue reading The tech team value prop – field experiments
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