My favourite French post-modernist sociologist is, without doubt, Jean Baudrillard. The knowledge that Baudrillard is the only French post-modernist sociologist that I know is immaterial. And yet also material. And statements like that give a little flavour of what you are getting into with post-modernist sociology. I did enjoy reading Baudrillard two decades ago … Continue reading Has everything gone hyperreal?
Category: Themes
I love Twitter. I love it for a whole load of reasons. One of the reasons is because it gives you the chance to have conversations spurred by slightly out of context observations from people attending conferences. One of those came up this morning from the Computing IT Leader's Forum - a special event on … Continue reading The end of email? I wish…
At the core of Nicholas Lovell's book The Curve is a central assumption: if the costs of reproducing and distributing a product drop to as near as dammit zero, then the price of those products will inevitably drop to zero. If you have a business that's model is based on a markup percentage on … Continue reading Bookshelf: The Curve
I've been itching to buy a new phone for some months now. My current phone - a Galaxy SII - has been "showing its age", by which I mean it is three versions behind the current up-to-date version of the Android system, and there are lots of new phones on the market now. I've had … Continue reading What Linux could have been
It was an early start this morning and as a result I dressed more or less in the dark to try avoid waking my wife. Unfortunately two toddlers jumping on the bed put pay to that. Dressing in the dark, however, isn't quite as simple as it used to be. Ten years ago most clothing … Continue reading What underpants can teach us about UX design
I had a great conversation yesterday with Martin Talks over a burrito at the very good Daddy Donkey in London's horrendously rebranded "Midtown" (Holborn/Clarkenwell in old money). One of our topics of conversation was the concept of entrepreneurship in large organisations, its role and appropriateness. I don't really think of myself as an entrepreneur, although to all … Continue reading Entrepreneur, Intrapreneur, Wombling free…
Neville Hobson published a good summary of an article from the HBR this morning on the subject of accelerating culture change within organisations. A point raised in the article, and highlighted by Neville, was that "There must be a clear connection between the target culture and the overarching strategy of the company." when you are … Continue reading Like yoghurt
In a bid to keep the kids entertained last night, I dug out my 17-year old Alesis QS6 synthesizer, plugged it in and let them make a horrendous racket. As I got the thing plugged in, and excitement levels were rampant, I did for a split second wonder "Will it still work?". There were no … Continue reading Reliable over time
One of the plethora of wonderful people that I met in Bournemouth at this year's Silicon Beach event was Simon White. He's formerly of the ad world, and these days thinks of ideas and then makes them happen - I aspire to such ideals. Today he wrote an article for the magazine Imperia, and whilst … Continue reading The need for Digital
At university (distressingly some twenty-odd years ago now), I quite quickly realised that I was a qualitative, rather than quantitative, kind of guy. Oh yes, I knew how to live the student dream. To explain - I studied Sociology. And in the realm of the social sciences there is a long-standing debate about whether … Continue reading Qual not Quant
mmitII 