I'm the sort of person who has favourite Laws of Social Science. Don't judge me. The two "Laws" (let's be honest, they're rules of thumb) are Goodhart's Law and Campbell's Law. The first, Goodhart's Law, is best described in paraphrase from Marilyn Strathem:When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. … Continue reading Goodhart, Campbell and Elections
Category: Social
The BBC recently ran a news item describing how an airliner got into difficulties because of a software flaw. On closer examination, it's probably more precise to say that an airline pilot got into difficulties because some people interpret the meaning of the title "Miss" differently to others, but that's not as snappy, and doesn't … Continue reading Data and ethics
In the course of my research for Who Shares Wins, I was told the possibly apocryphal story of how email was introduced into a law firm back in the early 1990s. The senior partners had been sceptical about this new-fangled communications medium, and had resisted its introduction. However a more tech-friendly group of employees started … Continue reading Let them play
A question came up about what makes for a successful online event on one of the many WhatsApp groups of which I'm a member. Here are my thoughts... First off, what's really of value to participants at an event? Maybe for some it's the content, but for many the content is just an excuse to … Continue reading Successful online events
I love simple questions that have complex and nuanced answers. In a conversation with my dad at the weekend, we came up with three that might for the starting point for a deep dialogue with a group of people about how they work together. The first one is one I've used a fair bit already, … Continue reading What three questions?
A couple of weeks ago I was running an event for the technology leadership team of a pharmaceutical company. The team is geographically dispersed across the planet, and one of the things that become clear from our conversations was that they were missing informal contact and conversation. As is often the way when teams are … Continue reading The #globalcanteen
Anyone who regularly delivers workshops or presentations will know the massive impact that the layout of a room will have on the session. An audience laid out in the lines of a theatre auditorium will be in receive mode. Put them around tables in "Cabaret" style and they'll talk to one another more readily. Put … Continue reading Virtual rooms
I've been working with lots of teams in different organisations over the past few years on a question that generally starts along the lines of "We'd like to know how to use Product X", where 'Product X' is one of Microsoft Office 365, Google G Suite, Slack or one of many of the dozens of … Continue reading Understanding collaboration through rich pictures
There is a thought experiment that I picked up a year or so ago, and the origins are sadly forgotten. It goes a little something like this: You have found out that the world is in mortal danger. Aliens are coming. They land in 60 minutes. When they land, they will take over the planet … Continue reading The Rumsfeld Paradox
Somewhere in a parallel universe... When we first pitched for the job it felt, to a great extent, like just about any other public sector gig. It paid fine, but there were constraints that we had kind of got used to in how many boundaries we might be able to push. The pitching process was … Continue reading Pushing social boundaries
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