I have realised that I talk a lot about commodities, and particularly about the concept of commodity IT. But I'm starting to wonder if that is quite the right term, or if it underplays the connection that people have with the technology that they use. A pure commodity is something that is generally under processed … Continue reading Commodities
Category: Themes
Since the summer of 2013 I've been doing a regular investigation into the social networking habits of the FTSE100 companies, and in particular of their CEOs. Next week will see the publication of the sixth edition, and some of the highlights coming from the analysis so far include: 33 CEOs now have LinkedIn profiles of … Continue reading #socialCEO January 2015
So amongst a flurry of new product announcements yesterday, Microsoft announced that with Windows 10, the "voice assistant" Cortana will become part of the desktop and laptop experience. Putting aside that Cortana conjures up images for me of the 1960s Ford, this has got me wondering: in the age of Siri and OK Google and … Continue reading Don’t talk to me
Over the past few years I've toyed with the idea of writing a book. I'm writing pretty much constantly, so pulling together some focus on the themes to produce a coherent tome couldn't be that hard, could it? And a book would give me credibility that a mere blog doesn't have. Would give me something to talk … Continue reading What is a book?
I'm generally not that patriotic. I was born in Northern Ireland in 1970, both of my parents the children of mixed English/Irish background, on one side Catholic on the other Protestant. Before I was three years old Mum and Dad moved back to the South East of England - they'd been in Belfast for a … Continue reading National pride
I've an interesting challenge at the moment with one of my clients. I have a group of people who don't come from an IT background who need to get up to speed pretty quickly with what IT in organisations is all about. And there doesn't seem to be much out there in the way of … Continue reading What is IT? A brief guide for non-IT people
This morning there was an interesting idea tweeted by author Ian Leslie about how to make a distinction between what is a game of skill and what is a game of chance or luck: It got me thinking. It got me thinking specifically about the deterministic role that people and organisations have on the world around … Continue reading Attributing success
Compare and contrast, if you will, the average purchasing processes for two different sorts of technology in many businesses today: Mobile telephony services have become truly commoditised. Organisations select on the basis of price and perceived value (handsets on offer, consulting services and so on). Rarely does quality of service come into it: I've known … Continue reading Trust and precedence
I've become slightly obsessed with the distinction between social networks and social media. I don't know if I'm the only one, but it strikes me that social media is what organisations tend to do, whilst the advantage of all this wonderful technology to us as individuals lies in social networks. Networking is what us humans do. Well, some … Continue reading Why network?
Charles Arthur flagged an interesting article by Richard Chirgwin on The Register about the weird worldview that the Google Nest Internet of Things house has about it's occupants. Put simply, it really struggles to understand that there might be more than one person living in a house. If you use online services and you are … Continue reading Groups think
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