Top Posts for 2013 – 20 to 16

Another year, another round up of the top-read posts on this (and also the stamplondon.co.uk) blogs. 20 Implosion September 2013 A review of Andy Law's great book about the Internet and what it's doing to us  19 What is a… Cinema? November 2012 Part of a short series that looked at ways in which many … Continue reading Top Posts for 2013 – 20 to 16

Influencing emotions

Compare and contrast... A new technological innovation is able to make judgements about people's emotional state, and target advertising to them as a result. An estate agency monitors Facebook accounts to target potential new customers in their area when statuses change from "Married" to "Single". A supermarket constructs long waiting lines at checkouts and then … Continue reading Influencing emotions

The television will not be revolutionized…

  The BBC has released a new tranche of data about the use of its iPlayer services (full report here: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/iplayer/iplayer-performance-oct13.pdf) and whilst the headlines (like this one http://thenextweb.com/uk/2013/12/02/bbc-iplayer-mobile-tablet-use-almost-caught-desktop/) will no doubt focus on the continuing narrative about the death of the PC, there is something far more interesting (not) happening from my perspective. Whilst the consumption … Continue reading The television will not be revolutionized…

Has everything gone hyperreal?

  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?

The end of email? I wish…

  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…

Bookshelf: The Curve

  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

What Linux could have been

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

Entrepreneur, Intrapreneur, Wombling free…

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…

Like yoghurt

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