Today's coffee companion is a writer and consultant. We talked about what we have been up to since we last met. We also talked about how management, leadership and organisations are changing, sometimes against their will. The conversation led to an interesting hypothesis, which starts with an assumption - that the skills that one requires … Continue reading 70th of 100
Today's coffee companion is not a generalist. We talked about: the perils of not thinking "London" and ending up late for an appointment how many strokes a dog will get travelling on the Tube electric bikes, how heavy they are, and how that will remain a barrier to adoption for many the wonders of Suffolk … Continue reading 69th of 100
"Dump and clump" exercises are a fairly common tool in the world of workshop facilitation. Get people to think individually about a topic, and write down the things they think about on individual PostIt notes. ("No, Jeremy. One idea per PostIt note, please. Don't worry, it's not your stationery budget.") You then get people to … Continue reading Snap!
Today's coffee companion is a veteran of the IT industry. We talked about: being cross-discipline in the world of tech the experience of being a female developer in the 1970s (and how it wasn't until the PC revolution when men really started to dominate the tech world) how birth control changed perceptions of a leadership … Continue reading 68th of 100
Today's coffee companion runs a small consultancy. We talked about The challenges of being a small business selling to big corporations The way in which time outside a big org appears to be running in slow motion when inside it's going like the clappers Socio-technical thinking the challenge of bringing in revenue, building new business … Continue reading 67th of 100
This week I have learned: 5 days of being with hundreds of colleagues, away for the most part from the day-to-day is a wonderful thing it's also knackering the penguins article has become something of a brainworm. The extent to which we simply don't understand one another is profound, misunderstood, and probably quite fundamental to … Continue reading Weeknote 633: conferenced and out
2/3rds of the way there, yesterday's coffee companion is a designer. We talked about: how design is so much more than graphics my current brainworm about the transfer barrier and how broad collective misunderstanding can be the joy of tactility and how that means playing cards! our collective recent experiences of moving into new organisations … Continue reading 66th of 100
Listening to a talk about generative "AI" last night, it dawned on me that there is a lot of conversation at the moment that appears to be conflating two very distinct issues, namely, the potential near emergence of "Artificial General Intelligence" and an apocalyptic scenario where we see humans losing control to machines. The former … Continue reading Out of control
"It's just semantics" of a phrase that ironically has more than one meaning. There's the face value version, and then there's the way in which it is used to dismiss what is regarded as trivial and unimportant, often by those who get bored by detail. The thing is, it is "just" semantics that too often … Continue reading Pick up a penguin
Metaphors are powerful things. They are core to how we make sense of the world. Good metaphors are a great way to get ideas to transmit. Bad metaphors get in the way of understanding. In the last few months I've been thinking about the metaphor of "technical debt" and wondering increasingly if it is much … Continue reading Technical Credit Card
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