Yesterday's coffee companion is a political strategist. We talked about: what we got up to at the weekend expectations around travel, and how our childhood experiences shape us London Detroit Washington DC and the power of the federal government to keep it relatively low-rise how DC was originally supposed to be square the complexities of … Continue reading 77th of 100
Today's coffee companion is a data person. We talked about: the huge great hype machine that is going on around LLMs and machine learning the lack of qualitative data in business and organisations Goodhart's and Campbell's laws the strange cycles that emerge around financial periods ownership of data (or, more often, the lack thereof) how … Continue reading 76th of 100
This week I have learned: that my youngest is doing pretty well at school. The annual parents evening, still a Zoom showreel in neat 4-minute chunks, was nice. getting unsolicited feedback is the best sort. Thanks to John Sills for the lovely write-up of the PlayCards. I spent some time un-DRMing my e-book library. Knowing … Continue reading Weeknote 637: hawt
Today's coffee companion is a colourful soul. We talked about: the disruptive abilities of cats and public transport how the mental models of a city can be changed with new transport options cycling in London my next presentation how the feeling of "imposter" is as much about personal expectations of what others expect from you … Continue reading 75th of 100
Today's coffee companion is a marketing consultant. We talked about: the nature of coaching getting into organisations through one's professional discipline the tech hub that is Leeds conferences the loneliness of free-range working the surprising cross-over between our networks despite geographic distance the way that timezone might be a bigger gap in how networks form … Continue reading 74th of 100
In the 1990s, the Dutch traffic engineer Hans Momderman pioneered a radical approach to urban design known as "Shared Space" or "Naked Streets". At its core was the idea that street furniture, from kerbstones to road markings to signs and traffic lights, stopped people using the space from communicating with one another. Remove them, and … Continue reading Naked organisations
This week I have learned: That people are probably confusing Serious with Solemn, and banning humour and fun from work makes serious things so much harder. I had a lovely evening listening to Neil Mullarkey talk about humour and improvisation at work and then saw this (prompted by Tom Geraghty's wonderful newsletter). In a conversation … Continue reading Weeknote 636: less solemn
There are a lot of duopolies in the world. Coke and Pepsi. Windows and Mac. Android and iOS. Labour and Conservative. When you have a duopoly it's really hard to get a new entrant in to break it. Remember Virgin Cola? Remember OS/2? Remember Windows Phone? Remember the Liberal Democrats? I was working at Microsoft … Continue reading Apple’s Duopoly Challenge
Today's coffee companion puts a human face on audit. We talked about: how we got to where we are the overlap between audit and accountancy the human nature of developing good audit practices the 3 layers model the challenges of risk management in organisations, and how positive risks taken get siloed from negative outcomes avoided … Continue reading 73rd of 100
On this day in 2022, I entered the Equal Experts offices in Farringdon, London, for the very first time as an employee. After nearly three years in my last role, I'd got to a point where I knew that I'd done enough to get RHP onto a different track, and it was time to do … Continue reading One year on…
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