This week I have learned: if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...the football stuff is getting nerve wracking.without a massive shindig every year in Barcelona, some companies' business models start to look a bit threadbare.I'm still hiring - 5 days to go...buildings are living, socio-technical systems.a new angle on thinking about … Continue reading Weeknote 493: End of term
Ms Jackson was the song that got me into OutKast, but by the time they got to Speakboxxx/The Love Below they hit the big time with the single Hey Ya!, radio friendly pop with the wonderful "Shake it like a Polaroid picture" which immediately makes it seem like decades ago, and deeply, deeply dark lyrics … Continue reading 51 for 50 – 2003
This week I have learned: that a combination of rain and back to back meetings means I've barely left the house this week.there is a fine line between therapeutic and annoying.parent/child relationships exist all over the place. Often switching mid sentence.it's one thing to know what you need to do, but quite another to convince … Continue reading Weeknote 492 – housebound
Blazing Arrow by Blackalicious is a stupendous album. No track better illustrates it than Chemical Callisthenics. And then you've got guest slots from Gil Scott-Heron, Chali 2na and Cut Chemist too. https://open.spotify.com/album/0DyXkWHnFMIJSuHfLgNfcc?si=_5myObGfRRaYiipQsQgPow You can see the #51for50 project to date here: https://mmitii.mattballantine.com/category/projects/51-for-50/
It's been tricky getting time to read without a commute, but this was something I was contending with when, back in October, I was able to start a job for the first time in my 26 year career that involved but a walk from my house. The irony that that office has been closed to … Continue reading Summer Reading 2020
This week I have learned: whilst there is obviously no causal relationship between me buying a device to open up the skylight in my office, and it raining consistently ever since, it does feel like there is.Teddington Lock last Friday night was like Sodom and Gomorrah. Goodness only knows what the pubs reopening is going … Continue reading Weeknote 491: raining
There was a full-blooded attack on poor customer service experience yesterday evening on the BBC's One Show Watchdog concession. The gist of the episode was that many organisations seem to be remarkably unwilling to allow customers to use email as a channel with which to communicate, and this results in people having to spend interminable … Continue reading The trouble with being email
Roots Manuva was the first time that I heard an authentically British hip hop voice. Something that made sense... Lyrics like "Taskmaster burst the bionic zit-splitterBreakneck speeds we down ten pints of bitter" are not the sort of things that come out of New York rapper. It's a bit like how all American films seem … Continue reading 51 for 50 – 2001
And so we enter my fourth millennium and one of the few guitar-based albums to enter my noggin in my mid twenties and thirties. Badly Drawn Boy’s The Hour of Bewilderbeast is touching, sweet, whimsical. Almost folk music. And it captures a feel of my time back then. It’s only now though that I’ve realised … Continue reading 51 for 50 – 2000
This week I have learned: It's time to get a specialist stick to open the office VeluxIt's also time for a Wardley MapShould we stop talking about the future of work, and instead just focus on the future of meetings? That seems to be where most of the problems lie.Sometimes you need to be brave … Continue reading Weeknote 490: melting
mmitII 