This week I have learned: I find it difficult to see an unwillingness to work openly as much more than deep-rooted paranoia. It's also difficult to tell if they are actually out to get you. I'm not sure that camouflage fatigues are really appropriate office wear for the middle-aged man. The larger the organization, the more the … Continue reading Weeknote 317: schadenfreude
It's that reflective time of the year. And a few weeks back my old chum Sean Mills asked me if I'd pulled together a list of recent reading. So here you go, Sean (and the rest of ya). Listed below, in reverse chronological order, are all the books I bought in 2016. Can't say I've … Continue reading The 2016 Bookshelf
There should be a word to describe words that sound like they should be onomatopoeic but aren't. Top of my list of these nonomatopoeic words would be Fungible. It sounds like an adjective that could be applied to describe the properties of the caulk materials that builders use to fill in gaps around woodwork. "Ooh, … Continue reading Fungible
I was pointed yesterday to an article on Harvard Business Review that talked about how machine intelligence was about to change the world. It was interesting enough, although talked a great deal about MI being a "predictive" technology. As I've expressed many times, the human desire for sages of the future is deep and a … Continue reading Plus ça change
This week I have learned: complexity multiplies with connections... ...but a good connection can simplify remarkably quickly corporates can just be so dumb sometimes I have a publishing offer... ...so now it's time to find a few more Next week: a day of exploration, and another birthday. The end of my early 40s.
Over the past few weeks I've been getting a lot of social love from employees of Oracle the world over. A video interview that I did for CIO.co.uk a little earlier in the autumn has been tweeted dozens and dozens of times by people working for the Larry Ellison Relational Behemoth. Well, I say "people". I'm actually not so sure. This … Continue reading The anti-social
This week I have learned: occasionally events occur that really, truly make you take stock and think about how short this whole thing is. They're not the global political/socio-economic. They're the personal. chance encounters are to be engineered as much as is humanly possible it's all about helping people, ultimately. Next week: the last week … Continue reading Weeknote 315: fragility
There is a truth held dear in traditional IT management that with scale come economies of scale. In the old world of on-premises technology in server rooms that were run exclusively for the company consuming the technology, this might have been the case. Costs nestled in the price of running the infrastructure plus the costs of … Continue reading Cloudy economics
Last night I was lucky to be invited to speak to the 360° Club at a hotel overlooking St Paul’s Cathedral. here's roughly what I said… So here is my starting proposition: “You’re less likely to be disrupted if you are in sync with your customers’ view of your value proposition.” I think that most … Continue reading Ripe for disruption
Words fail me. Next week: realities bite.
