So another piece of Green Field thinking for you (remember: it's not necessarily what you should do - just what could you do if you weren't constrained by legacy)… do we need IT Projects any more? There are two threads to this: firstly that in a world of commoditized services, the need for IT infrastructure … Continue reading The end of IT projects
Category: Themes
In my early-thirties I set myself a specific career goal – to be a CIO by the age of 40. It was a very specific target, time-bound and measurable in the good tradition of SMART. I achieved it when I took the role leading IT at Imagination, actually somewhat ahead of schedule at the age … Continue reading Philately
In the presentation I gave last week, I talked about the concept of Green Field Thinking - imagine what you would do if you had no constraints imposed upon you by way of legacy, and then work out what you can learn from that in the real world. The here and now can provide a … Continue reading Extreme Enterprise Architecture
Some of the titles on my (virtual) bookshelf at the moment: Imagine: How creativity works Jonah Lehrer Looks at creativity and innovation at the micro (individual) and macro (team and organisation) levels. Pulls together scientific research plus a stack of illuminating examples from business. Well worth a look. Ad Land: A global history of advertising … Continue reading Reading list: May 2012
The concept of "maturity models" is one that has been bouncing around the IT industry since the 1970s (according to the oracle that is Wikipedia). In one of my conversations last week at the ITDF, we stumbled upon the idea of an immaturity model. The thinking goes something like this: Traditional maturity models are predicated on the … Continue reading Immaturity models
Just a reminder... If you are looking for links from my ITDF presentation, you can find them here: http://bit.ly/MattITDF
Achievements this week included: - further new financial year planning - thoughts on a workshop for fellow members of the management team - running a couple of enjoyable sessions at the ITDF - attending a stack more - and some great conversations with IT leaders from across the UK about where IT goes next - … Continue reading Weeknote 99: sea legs
A couple of years ago, Wired editor Chris Anderson wrote a cover article entitled "The Web is Dead: Long Live the Internet". His argument at the time was that we were seeing a shift from Web development to App development, and that as such the Internet was becoming more a transport mechanism than a place … Continue reading Bye bye WWW?
I've been reading Mark Tungate's history of global advertising Ad Land over the past few weeks (reading books takes on a new time frame when you have toddlers). It's been an interesting background to the ad and marketing industry, and has given me a few surprises not least, how old most of the major ad agencies … Continue reading Art vs Science
From Twitter last week: @stevenackerman: Sainsbury's as a music retailer. Don't see that at all, but then again what do I know? http://t.co/zvtDXLhl @mattballantine: no doubt in late 1990s, "Apple as a music retailer" would have had a similar response... @stevenackerman: I really hope you're not comparing Apple and Sainsburys!! @mattballantine: I know, I know. Apple … Continue reading Pivots
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