I spent some time last week with someone involved in business development for a tech consulting firm. The starting point was a question about what sorts of things might attract people to participate in online events. This isn’t quite how the conversation went, but it does recall some of the challenges I think online event … Continue reading Why I struggle with online events
This week I have learned: How to make baklavaThat by making a decision to stop something, you open up a huge new world of possibilitiesThat I refuse to believe that this is the best that the summer has to offerThat maybe we need to form urban remote working communitiesThat I might be bottom of the … Continue reading Weeknote 535: stop-starting
After a long old journey, I've made the decision to stop working (Deviate: Disrupt yourself) on the book that's been my pet project for the past few years. If it had been meant to be, it would have happened by now. Being busy at work is part of the issue, but more broadly my thinking … Continue reading The Play Book is Dead. Long Live PlayCards!
This week I have learned: Maybe we need sustainable, not high, performance?That elections are just Goodhart and Campbell in actionThat yet another thing has come up that means I can't make CardstockThat after a year of avoiding risks, learning how to take them again is going to be hardThe book is dead. Long live the … Continue reading Weeknote 534: sustainable
As we crawl out of the pandemic, exhausted by a year and a bit of worry and fear and general rubbishness, we are all looking to where to turn to next. This week is apparently Mental Health Awareness week, but you not necessarily know it in organisations that constantly bang on about "high performing" cultures. … Continue reading Sustainable performance
I'm the sort of person who has favourite Laws of Social Science. Don't judge me. The two "Laws" (let's be honest, they're rules of thumb) are Goodhart's Law and Campbell's Law. The first, Goodhart's Law, is best described in paraphrase from Marilyn Strathem:When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. … Continue reading Goodhart, Campbell and Elections
This week I have learned: that four day weeks can involve five days of workthat I've become a little bit interested in F1 thanks to the Netflix behind the scenes showthat the idea of sitting outside of a pub in this weather has zero appealthat contracting should be a collaborative activityas should planningmy extended team … Continue reading #Weeknotes 533: trade offs
The 1970s were a period during which Watford Football Club went through a number of iterations of the club crest. A time before shirt sponsors, and sometimes even kit manufacturers' logos, by 1978 the Club settled on something that is vaguely the same as what is worn on the kit today, a shield containing what … Continue reading #SAE May – Harry Hornet
This week I have learned: how strange it felt to not be there on Saturday, in person.that remote working might enable us to think differently about transitions between employers.that you can't beat a good pun.the winner of World Cup of Matts was a Mattock. A worthy winner.sometimes the strangest things spark on the socials.Boris Bloody … Continue reading Weeknote 532 – promoted
There's a story that is embedded in my mind from my time in my very first job nearly three decades ago.A friend of mine was dying. Lymphoma. He'd been in and out of treatment for months, but this trip into hospital looked like it would be his last. Every week we had a meeting for … Continue reading “Other models of masculinity are available”
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