Just occasionally one spots something on social networks that makes you think "Uh oh. This is going to end in tears." Towards the end of the afternoon yesterday I had one of those moments; a sponsored tweet from UK supermarket Sainsbury's asking "Are you cooking with an unusual food tonight? We’d love you to … Continue reading Horsing around
Category: Themes
I've spoken and written in the past about how the general expectations that we have as consumers of technology these days are going to place increasing pressure onto IT departments as people rise up against the controls and constraints of traditional "systems". I thought it worth exploring a bit from the other perspective - how does … Continue reading Consumption patterns
You can stick your Gartner hype circles in a pipe and smoke them; this is all you need to know: Something is invented Somebody else successfully brings it to market Some people buy one Some more people buy one My Dad buys one My Mum spends her time saying "why do you spend so … Continue reading The Ballantine Family tech adoption cycle
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
Nomenclature is terribly important to the way in which we make sense of the world around us. Here are some terms related to the tech world that, quite frankly, are lazy and we could do without*... Digital What isn't digital these days? I'll tell you something... The carpet that my wife and I recently bought. … Continue reading De-cybering digital language: ten terms we could do without
I was in conversation this morning with a colleague who attended an event yesterday focusing on the book publishing industry. The general mood, he said, was that there was anger towards what the likes of Amazon and Google had done to the industry. Media industries in general have, it has to be said, had a … Continue reading Great experiences
By popular request (thanks Francis!) I'm going to get a bit more rigorous about noting books I've read. You'll then be able to find them in a consistent place: https://mmitii.mattballantine.com/category/bookshelf/ Recently read: As mentioned in today's blog, Dan Pink's To sell is human. Richard Rumelt's Good Strategy/Bad Strategy is a very readable exploration of what the … Continue reading Bookshelf
Daniel Pink's latest book, To sell is human is a well-recommended read; his central argument is that in this day and age many of us in roles that aren't "sales" find ourselves having to sell a lot of the time, and that the nature of selling in a world of incredibly well informed buyers has … Continue reading Better pitching
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