Top Posts for 2013 – 5 to 1

  The countdown concludes... 5 Hot-desking: the osteopath’s dream February 2013 Or - why messy desks are necessarily a bad thing. 4 Meaningful job titles January 2013 How I long for a job title that my mum would understand... 3 Leap, and a net will appear* August 2013 The announcement that I was to be … Continue reading Top Posts for 2013 – 5 to 1

It’s not played on paper

There appears to be mounting press coverage at the moment about the causes and consequences of Microsoft being unable to announce the name of Steve Ballmer's successor as the next Redmond CEO. Much of that coverage appears to be about the culpability of the company's board in this, as their main job is succession planning … Continue reading It’s not played on paper

CDO – this officer is time limited

  For some time I've struggled to take job titles particularly seriously, but I was keen to refer to myself as something other than "founder" on LinkedIn because it's just a bit naff. In the end, after much thought, I went for the flippancy option and now am entitled Chief <Insert Buzzword du Jour> Officer … Continue reading CDO – this officer is time limited

Top Posts for 2013 – 10 to 6

The countdown continues... 10 The podcast playlist November 2013 The podcasts I currently have on my podcast player (BeyondPod, since you asked). 9 The Scunthorpe issue July 2013 A bit of a rant about the stupidity of thinking that the answers to all things evil on the Internet lie in technology. 8 Campbell’s law, Goodhart’s … Continue reading Top Posts for 2013 – 10 to 6

Tiptoe through the tulips…

  In the past few days I've seen news coverage of the Bitcoin phenomenon which has included a man trying to find a hard drive containing millions in the currency, lost on a landfill site in Wales, reports of a rise in theft of bitcoins, and even accusations about Bitcoins being nothing but a fancy … Continue reading Tiptoe through the tulips…

Trending nowhere

Continuing a theme from a post I wrote earlier, I have been spending a bit of time today looking through Business Insider's encyclopaedic collection of data about all things digital (see for yourself here: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-future-of-digital-2013-2013-11?op=1)There's a lot of data. Much of it summarized into neat graphs. It's all very interesting.But what does it tell us about … Continue reading Trending nowhere

Top posts for 2013 – 15 to 11

The roundup continues... 15 Internet of Things Is “Useful” Shocker! April 2013 Experiences of a holiday cottage at Easter this year that at last put the usefulness of The Internet of Things into some sort of context for me. 14 Thoughts on leaving August 2013 Reflections on my time at Microsoft. 13 Socially naked June … Continue reading Top posts for 2013 – 15 to 11

Big data, little questions, cognitive biases

  Nearly 17 years ago I was a member of a team that implemented the BBC's first data warehousing project. It gathered information from a number of operational systems, and then using a combination of products provided reports about the profitability of various products that the commercial wing of the organisation produced and sold. Technically … Continue reading Big data, little questions, cognitive biases

Digital fragility

I'm currently reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Antifragile. It's not the easiest of reads (a prequel written after a sequel starts on a bad footing - just ask George Lucas) but a fascinating concept - that the opposite of "fragile" isn't "robust" or somesuch (which are just neutral concepts) but rather "antifragile" where things get stronger … Continue reading Digital fragility