Another rollercoaster year, but 2014 was one where it felt, at least towards the second half of the year, like it was beginning to make some sort of sense. Business has started to pick up, and I enter the New Year with a number of things in the pipeline. That's very different from where I … Continue reading Yearnote 2014
Things I have learned this week: - I distinctly prefer working with people in the learning and development world than those in the world of technology - greatness is terribly subjective (and wonderful as a result) - there is a power in maintaining a consistent level of naivety (or maybe nativity...) - diary scheduling is … Continue reading Weeknote 225: crimble
In the summer I started to use the LinkedIn publishing service to cross-post things from my own blog onto the business social network. Although the editing tools are a bit ropey, and the reporting non-existent, people seem to be commenting on LinkedIn articles a lot more than on my own site (mostly I guess because I've … Continue reading The Top Posts of 2014 – Part 3
With news this morning about how BT are looking to acquire EE, I've been having conversations with a few people recently about the point of telephones in this day and age. There's an awful lot of assumption and learned behaviour associated with these devices, and the continued existence of telephones (desk-based ones in particular) is today … Continue reading Why do we need phones?
Back in January I caught up with Mark Chillingworth for a cup of coffee at the British Library. Mark is Editor in Chief of CIO Magazine in the UK, and one of the upshots of that meeting was that he asked if I would start contributing a column to his online service. On January 20th … Continue reading The Top Posts of 2014 – Part 2
The shutdown of airspace across the UK at the end of last week raised an issue that's been bouncing around in my head for a while: that we have long since reached a point where the systems which we have developed, and the interconnections between those systems are too complex for us to understand. From what … Continue reading Failing gracefully
Things I have learned this week: - there's an awful lot of (IT) history on my doorstep - most technology problems aren't the technology - most people problems aren't the technology - the same event run to different audiences can have remarkably different results Next week: the last working week of 2014
So for the past couple of years at about this time of year I've pulled together a quick view of what have been the most popular articles on my blog over the preceding 12 months. It's a useful reflective exercise to see what has chimed with people, and also gives me the opportunity to remember … Continue reading The Top Posts of 2014 – Part 1
I'm currently about 2/3rds of the way through Walter Isaacson's latest book, The Innovators, an ambitious project to chart the history of what I guess one would call the world of "digital" - computing, programming and devices. From Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage coming up with the ideas of a multiple-purpose reprogrammable computing device, to … Continue reading Innovation is a team sport
This week I have learned: - big coincidences happen. They're great. - helping people think is great. Telling stories to do so is great fun. - random contact from the Internet is also great. - I don't know that anyone really can see beyond about 3 months into the future these days. - meetings that … Continue reading Weeknote 224: career paths
