There was a short exchange between a Twitter account run by the CBI and Minister for the Digitals Matt Hancock MP last week that in less than 280 characters summed up my concerns for what appears to be currently going on in the UK government: https://twitter.com/MattHancockMP/status/697811253385895937 Now I know that it's probably unfair and unkind … Continue reading Technoration
Category: Management
I've spent the last couple of days mostly in the wonderful Names Not Numbers event in London, a festival of eclecticism that was timely given my recent thinking about the importance of diversity of thought. The final session I was able to attend yesterday was a debate about the impact of emergent technologies, and particularly the … Continue reading Technology doesn’t shape the future
"Paradigm shift" is a much overused phrase, coined originally by the philosopher Thomas Kuhn. Kuhn argued that far from being a series of linear progressions, the body of scientific thought tended to move in abrupt leaps - paradigm shifts. At times of a new paradigm emerging, established wisdom tends to double-down on the existing models … Continue reading A perfect storm
Here's an interesting paradox: teams that include people with greater diversity of background (gender, ethnicity, sexuality, nationality, language, academic level, academic subjects...) are likely to have greater diversity of thinking. Greater diversity of thinking is likely to lead to better decision-making, because if the people making the decisions come at things from multiple perspectives they'll … Continue reading Diversity of thought
It used to be that information technology trends started in business and then moved into the consumer space. "Enterprise" edition meant the full-fat, no expense spared version, "consumer" the lite, hobbled, crappy version. And then it all changed. To my mind, starting around 15 years ago as home broadband started to become available, then wireless and … Continue reading The inexorable shift
There are a couple of articles that have sprung up in the business press in recent weeks that have highlighted challenges with collaboration within organizations that have piqued my interest given my current work with #sharingorg. The first, the cover article in the January/February Harvard Business Review, talks about problems of collaborative overload. Specifically, authors Rob Cross, Reb Rebele … Continue reading The wrong tools for the job
The Internet, and in particular social networks, for all their wonderfulness, are crammed full of banal aphorisms, insights that aren't insightful, and motivational proclamations that make me want to take a spoon to my own eyeballs. I saw one of the last category last week on one of the many channels I pop into now and … Continue reading One-speed IT
I've written in the past about the curious evolutionary mutation that happened in the railway industry in the middle of the 20th Century with experiments to develop diesel-fueled steam locomotives. In hindsight the idea of using a different fuel to power an engine that operated using the same propulsion methods as coal-fired steam engines was obviously daft, … Continue reading Steam diesels revisited
The National Audit Office yesterday published a fascinating paper examining the role that contract and consulting staff play within central government and the broader civil service. I found it a somewhat depressing read. The short version: contractors and consultants can be used to help bring in resource on a short-term basis to add skills or capacity when … Continue reading Interchangeable units of resource
I can't draw. Well, not very well at least. There's one massive psychological block I've got to drawing, and that stems back to when my O Level art teacher, Miss Moon, told me outright just before my exams "You've got a reasonable eye, Matt. The problem is you can't draw." That kind of stuck. But, … Continue reading Sketch lines
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