There have been two sets of buildings that seem to have been constants through most of my life: Watford FC's Vicarage Road stadium, and BBC Television Centre. The history of the latter enters a new era from tomorrow. TVC, as the abbreviation junkies at the BBC inevitably call it, was a place I first visited … Continue reading Separation anxiety
Category: Other Stuff
We've been doing a review in the team recently as the introduction of new services for collaborating (SkyDrive, SkyDrive Pro and Yammer in particular) have necessitated as rethinking of what tools we use for what purposes. As a general rule I tend to shy away from projects that lead with a bit of technology searching … Continue reading Clock watching
Here's a contention: that in the history of technological innovation, most of it has come about because of direct or indirect government money: tax payers have funded most of the quantum leaps we've seen since agrarian times. The UK was the heartland of the Industrial Revolution. Whilst most of that, from cotton mills onwards, was … Continue reading Funding innovation
Had a fascinating couple of hours this morning at a round table session organised by Roger, founder of http://www.profinda.com on the changing world of work; how do we organise ourselves in a world where (contrary to Marissa Mayer's preference, perhaps) the teams in which we work don't all sit in orderly divisions within a single … Continue reading Boundary-less organisations – meeting notes
We seem to be entering into a world where the cult of measurement is entering into the personal space, with the buzz term of the "quantified self". I know I'm (yet again) flying in the face of the numerical wind, but I don't want any truck with this. Measurement changes behaviours to hit targets, but … Continue reading The quantified idiot
And so the flexible working fight hits the ring: in the red corner, Marissa Mayer of Yahoo!, banning home working, in the blue corner (amongst others) Richard Branson, extolling the virtues of flexibility in work. Ding! Ding! Round one... There are an interesting number of paradoxes in this whole debate: the extent to which a … Continue reading Is flexible working?
Microsoft UK's token Long Hair, Dave Coplin, spoke at Research Now last week about how new technology is forcing new social rules for how we interact and engage with each other. His example, from his experiences of family snapshots last summer, is when someone proffers you their mobile phone to show you a photo from their … Continue reading Techiquette*
So, a few weeks into my hot-desking life, and it turns out that there are two reasons why I'm might put my back out. The first reason is obvious: arriving at a new work space each morning, the rigmarole of adjusting chairs, laptop stands, screens and all to allow for a comfortable working position becomes an … Continue reading Hot-desking: the osteopath’s dream
So, on the last day of the year, here are the five most popular posts on this blog for the 12 months of 2012: At 5, Innovation in Retail. This is (roughly) the text of a presentation I gave to kick off a hackathon event held at Marks and Spencer in the Autumn. At 4, #innovationeqs. … Continue reading Top 20 posts of 2012 – 5 to 1
The round-up continues: At number 10, Small Victories - the story of how talking about analogies and positive reinforcement solve an otherwise intractable timesheet problem. Number 9 is A green field IT function - which formed the basis for my presentation at this year's Cloud Computing World Forum in May. Types of App is at number 8, … Continue reading Top 20 posts of 2012 – 10 to 6
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