In 1739 the Grenoble inventor Jacques de Vaucanson unveiled his latest invention to the people of France. The Canard Digérateur, or Digesting Duck was a life-sized model of a waterbird that appeared to be able to take food in its beak from a human handler, and then miraculously poop it out of its other end. … Continue reading Fooled by the duck
Category: Themes
The really big draw for me to join Equal Experts earlier this year was how it is managed. In my role, I don't have a manager. I don't have a performance review or annual targets. The business operates on the assumption that its employees are autonomous and able to get on with things without being … Continue reading 100 coffees*
This week I have learned: that it's still possible to get a cold and feel crap for a whole week. This is strangely life-affirming. my birthday this year made me feel quite miserable. I can't pretend that I'm young anymore. that if it does go tits up, the thing I will miss most about Twitter … Continue reading Weeknote 612: 52
A quick set of field notes from a retro we ran this week to talk about an adapted facilitation technique called Brainwalking. This approach is perfect for allowing all involved to have a say on issues without having to talk over one another. Brain walking Brain walking was introduced to me by my wonderful colleague … Continue reading Brain walking Retro
It's been a quiet few weeks, but things are now really hotting up on the PlayCards production front. After an interminable delay as a box sat at Stansted Airport waiting to be released from customs (obviously nothing to do with Brexit), I received samples from the printers in Italy that I'm intending to use to … Continue reading PlayCards – the journey to product ep. 3
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…
Last week I spent a bit of time with some of my Executive colleagues thinking about the way in which we understand and foster relationships with people who work for our clients. Our business, like many in the professional services space, depends on relationships between people. The ways in which we establish, foster and maintain … Continue reading Tracking client relations
I've been spending this morning partly trying to set myself up on Mastodon. I'm not necessarily jumping ship from Twitter, but I'm just interested in checking out the potential lifeboats. What the experience has so far instilled in me is a deep respect for the engineering marvel that is modern-day Twitter. To deliver a service … Continue reading Twitter and technocracy
I've been thinking about teams recently, and in particular the types of teams that are brought together where nobody really knows anyone beforehand, but where they are expected to start work and be productive pretty much immediately. Take, for example, flight crews on aircraft, particularly with bigger airlines. Everyone has a role to perform: pilots … Continue reading Model teams
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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