Data and analytics are wonderful things, aren't they? Ooh, the power of data. Woo the insight from analytics. And it's all so automated. So automagic... Thing is, as the very old saying goes, Garbage In, Garbage Out. So it was when I came across a piece in The Telegraph from a month ago... "Only 7 of … Continue reading Keeping up
Category: Technology
So, right, imagine that you've got a padlock. And imagine that that padlock has got two keyholes, and can only be unlocked if both keys are used. But the key to lock the padlock is different to the key that is used to unlock the padlock, and whilst you are the only person who has … Continue reading Crap tech industry metaphors: 13 Public & Private Keys
Yesterday was the first day of adjudication for the CIO.co.uk 2015 CIO100 - the celebration of the best business technology leadership talent the UK has to offer. I've been very privileged to have been asked to join this year's judging panel, and it was a solid few hours of debate as we went through some of the … Continue reading Disruption, what disruption?
I came across an good article yesterday from one of The Guardian's data science team that explored how many (media) organisations invest into analytics tools mostly because everyone else does, and then have a tendency to star at the pretty pictures and the flashing numbers without really having the first clue what they should do next. Author Stijn … Continue reading Data Jazz
In 1993, in the spring of my final year at university, I stood for election to become the President of the Student Union at Loughborough. On election night, with a turn out of around 1,000 votes, I lost by a margin of about seven. I've never stood in a popular ballot since then. I learned … Continue reading Elected
There is an analysis of the US railroad industry that explains their demise in terms of too narrow a focus. The railroad companies, who had been a major part of the expansion of the USA across the continent of North America, became of the view that what they did was to provide trains. When air … Continue reading Pushing boundaries
There's an old joke that is along the lines of asking a stranger directions to somewhere and the stranger responding "Well, I wouldn't start from here." Yesterday I shared some of my Going Mobile experiences (where I spent a week with nothing but a mobile phone on which to work) with a group of people … Continue reading I wouldn’t start from here…
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
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
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
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