So it's two months now since I launched stamp London in anger at the Silicon Beach event down in Bournemouth at the beginning of September. What's been learned so far? Well, the good news is that I've been able to generate some revenue, and whilst it's not yet at a level that's sustainable long term, … Continue reading On starting up: two months in
Category: Management
For the non-MIcrosofters amongst you, that headline will need a bit of explanation. For the Microsofters, it probably will too, but for different reasons. The first explanation: KT is Kevin Turner, Microsoft's Chief Operating Officer. He's a powerful presence of an American senior executive. Now onto the second... Over the past few weeks I've … Continue reading Why KT should be the next Microsoft CEO
I spent a fascinating day on Monday as a guest at Twiliocon at the Inmarsat Centre on Old Street Roundabout. If you're not familiar with Twilio, it's a set of services that allow programmers to easily access telephony services - text messages, calling, conference calling and wotnot. It's a clever set of APIs and … Continue reading Ephemerality and the legacy of learning
The news that Burberry's Angela Ahrendts is to join Apple as their new head of retailing operations brings into stark relief one of the strangest appointments in recent corporate history. Why on earth did Apple bring Dixon's Group chief John Browett in to head their consumer selling arm last year? Browett was Tim Cook's first … Continue reading The John Browett mystery
I somewhat jokingly describe myself on my Twitter profile as "skirting the thin line between polymath and jack of all trades". My career has been one where I've had exposure (and exposed myself) to a number of areas which means that I've found myself often in a position to be able to translate things across … Continue reading The importance of adaptation
I picked up on a Forbes article that ran earlier in the year yesterday about the marketing organisation of the future, which reported on the Marketing2020 research initiative from the American Association of National Advertisers, together with the World Federation of Advertisers and EffectiveBrands. There doesn't appear to be much being published publicly on the findings, but the … Continue reading Spokes, silos and the challenges of change
I've spoken and written many times in the past about the folly of prediction. It's something that we are seemingly hard-wired to look for as a species (if someone can tell us the future, we mitigate away a whole series of risks); the people who predict the most extreme versions of the future are the … Continue reading The Watford Probability Index
Back in my days of building software for a living, bug-tracking lists were something of a necessity. Build up a list of problems, and attempt to fix as many of the serious ones as you can before you release the software. Rolf Dobelli's book The Art of Thinking Clearly is a bug-tracking list for … Continue reading The Art of Thinking Clearly
For almost as long as there has been a marketing industry, there's been a split between the scientists and the artists. The scientists see marketing as a planned activity with known inputs and outputs, measurable all along the way. The artists see marketing as being a mix of creativity and magic. At the moment, with … Continue reading Placebos and propaganda
Another day, another smart device vendor emerges (as a few more disappear). Today Tesco announce that they are throwing themselves into the tablet market with their low-priced Hudl device. The seven-inch Android device goes on sale at the end of the month, and one can only hope that alongside the four colours available at … Continue reading Underlying motivations
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