If you read these pages with any frequency, you'll probably be aware that I have two toddler boys. For the past few months they've had a few toy obsessions mostly revolving around emergency vehicles, firemen and postmen (well, one in particular, who's called Pat). It's got me wondering - and also a little worried - … Continue reading ActionGeek!
Category: Themes
There are a few key things that stand out from my memories of my University academic studies, and one of them is the ideas behind a book written in 1958 by Michael Young (father, I found out this morning, of journalist Toby) called The Rise of Meritocracy. In Young's satire, he paints a picture of … Continue reading Data enslavement
Human beings, I believe, are losing a skill. It's not a particularly important skill, but it is one that we developed as result of an old technology, and one that we are losing as a result of a new technology. We are losing the ability to remember telephone numbers. Nearly 40 years on, my parents' … Continue reading Machine-unreadable
Yesterday, for the second year running, I was lucky to be able to attend the annual CBI Conference at the Grosvenor House Hotel as a guest of Harvey Nash. It's a curious affair, a million miles away from the sorts of events I more usually attend these days, but gives me my annual excuse to … Continue reading CBI Conference 2012
For many years, IT has been talking about "the business"; how we need to understand "the business", to achieve alignment with "the business", to be able to speak the language of "the business". In conversation yesterday I had another one of those lightbulb moments: we've been speaking about "the business" as some homogenised whole when, … Continue reading “the business”
OK people. A random Children in Need idea for you. TwitterTrumps... your chance to be part of a unique, one-off set of trump game cards, with your name, face and details on them something like the illustration above (thanks to Rob Waller for the mock up!). If you want to be part of this, then … Continue reading TwitterTrumps
Following on from a bit of a test run at the Mindshare Huddle event last week, I'm organising a series of workshops based around the When to App model. If you are thinking about developing apps for your company, or for clients, the When to App model will help you to shape innovative ideas that … Continue reading “When to app” workshops
There is an article in the most recent edition of The Economist that looks at the fraught relationship that exists between newspapers and Google. The short version is that newspaper publishers across the globe are looking to get compensation for their work appearing on, in particular, Google's news aggregation services. Being The Economist it then … Continue reading The death of the pyramid principle?
I found myself launching into a bit of a rant on Twitter yesterday. I fear this might become an increasing problem as I get older. The thing that set me off this time was an advertising billboard on an empty building near the Reading campus where I work proclaiming "flexible office solutions". There are two … Continue reading The problems with “solutions”
I was shopping in Kingston upon Thames and seeing the newly branded EE shops touting their network's new 4G services, it struck me that the mobile network current known as "3" is about to look very dated. Contemporary naming of brands is a risky business, as there is always going to be a factor of … Continue reading Anachronistic nomenclature
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