Achievements this week included: - surviving the mid-year performance calibration exercise without hitting anyone or bursting into tears. But it was close on both fronts. - review of a technical audience segmentation project that's producing some interesting findings - continuing to refine out the ITDF presentation - a great catch up with @euan over coffee (reviewing … Continue reading Weeknote 85: which is exactly how many pennies I spend on breakfast most days…
Category: Themes
In conversation with @euan this morning, I was reminded of a time when I was probably as near to putting my fist through a computer monitor at work as I ever have been. I was having to go through the emotional task of updating my HR records through a "self-service" system to change my marital status … Continue reading Data ownership
I'm a big fan of metaphor and analogy, as is witnessed by the title of this blog (even if I have reduced it to an abbreviation these days). In the world of business, however, it seems that metaphorical and analogous comparison for the business of doing business is limited to one of two spheres: military or sporting. … Continue reading Business metaphors
Achievements this week included: - Mid-year review meetings process completed - further thinking about the ITDF presentation in May - a bit of blogging for Computerworld UK - and surviving a week with the boys with Mummy in the USA with work (well, I say "a week"; actually, 5 days and with grandparents called in … Continue reading Weeknote 84: home alone
As I continue to get some thoughts together for the presentation I'm giving in May at the ITDF, and also with some of the recent conversations about start up mentality in existing organisations (see here and here), I've been wondering what would an IT department look like if you could start, today, with a completely … Continue reading A green field IT function
There is a truism that I have often heard repeated by teachers that when a pupil performs well it's because of the pupil's talent, and when they perform badly it's blamed on the teacher. This sprung to mind when I recently read reports of research from Gartner about companies and their IT strategies. The news item was … Continue reading When is an IT strategy a business strategy?
From a conversation with @bindik, @plankytronixx, @MikeOrmond and @mtaulty this week, an unordered list of things that start ups consider when they are making choices about which technologies to use: is it free? can I find people with the skills to develop on/with it? can I hack things together quickly with it? will a VC … Continue reading How start ups choose technologies
Amongst the mass of three-letter abbreviations (TLAs) that permeate the langauge here at Microsoft, there are two that I've been giving a bit of thought to in the past few weeks: ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) and CSVs (Cloud Services Vendors). Putting aside that there are over 17,000 TLAs available and we seem to be having to … Continue reading Moving products to services
Achievements this week included: - second week of full-time-working parenting involving but two trips to the GP and one to Kingston Hospital - mid-year review planning reaches fever pitch - preparation for a talk on Storytelling to some Microsoft students this weekend Next week: some rethinking of priorities for the next six months in light … Continue reading Weeknote 82: to A&E and beyond!
Spoiler alert: I'm about to do a whole load of advocacy for the devil... Earlier this week, to much fanfare, Michael Gove announced planned changes to the current England and Wales ICT curriculum, moving focus away from training kids in how to use computer applications, and moving instead to teaching them the fundamentals of computer programming. … Continue reading Does the UK really need lots more programmers?
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