To celebrate my 2000th blogpost, I asked Twitter what I should write about. This series of posts are inspired by those requests. Adam Learning suggested this one. Like many things that I do, I didn't really know why I started blogging. I had bought the mattballantine.com domain in a moment of digital vanity, and the … Continue reading Blogpost 2000: Your First Post
To celebrate my 2000th blogpost, I asked Twitter what I should write about. This series of posts are inspired by those requests. Hilary Gallo suggested this one. Looking back, I’m not sure that people who didn’t live through it can quite understand the pressure that there was on the New Year’s Eve party of 1999. … Continue reading Blogpost 2000: The party you had in 1999
To celebrate my 2000th blogpost, I asked Twitter what I should write about. This series of posts are inspired by those requests.Peter O'Rourke asked me these questions: The one blog your proudest of, and why? There are two, one sensible, one silly. Plus a short series of four posts that are really one long post … Continue reading Blogpost 2000: Some questions
This is my 2000th blogpost. Rather than simply write a normal post, or indeed write a post about it being my 2000th blogpost, I decided to ask the question on Twitter of what it should be about. I didn't really know what to expect, but as a result of the query I've now got the … Continue reading Blogpost 2000
This marks the last day of our kids being at home and balancing off school, work and all the other bits, all at the same time. Hopefully for a long while. For all that I might joke about the kids going back to school being a relief to me, it's much more about it being … Continue reading Weeknote 524 – schooling
Through the month of February, the wonderful Steve Chapman has been running a daily artistic event #WTFeb. On February 18th the challenge was this: Today’s challenge is to create a minimalist three line poem to express your own instructions for living a life inspired by the wonderful Mary Oliver poem “Instructions for Living a Life” … Continue reading #SAE March – A short poem about life
For the last 18 months or so I've been on a conscious, if somewhat haphazard, path to read more about issues of inequality and privilege. I'm white, male, straight, middle-aged, middle class and relatively wealthy. That's about as privileged as one can be in Britain in 2021. I was also brought up in the 1970s … Continue reading Educating myself
This week I have learned: the appeal of Japanese fox-based metaphors (cheers Mr Wilshire!)the power of listening to the stories customers want to tell.that The Bullingdon Club really are the crème de la crème.that Data is moving up the agenda.that you really need to know why.that standing is the new sitting. Or something. Next week: … Continue reading Weeknote 523 – 5 days
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a distinction between two types ofthinking - map thinking and list thinking. In a chance' conversation this week with a former colleague Mark, we started to explore how these two mindsets might apply to the thorny world of strategy. To start off, there are many interpretations of … Continue reading Lists, maps and strategy
The week in photos:
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