For most of this year I’ve taken a weeks holiday every month in the peace and tranquility of the Lake District or the East Coast, normally Filey. I’ve stayed in pristine, high quality, cheap, out of season, apartments or caravans and it’s been wonderful. Some of those weeks have been...
I’ve been a smartphone user since the Blackberry disrupted the business world over 10 years ago based on the earth shattering observation that people needed access to their email and calendar while travelling and I was one of their most passionate users. Another disruption was soon to follow though when...
Steph and I were out walking this morning and enjoying the superb views of the estuary from the Humber Bridge, it got me thinking about the prospect of virtual reality windows some time in the near future. I imagined being able to replace all the windows in a home with...
I work from home which has a lot of advantages so I don’t begrudge it, but sitting alone in a room is a sure way to kill every ounce of creativity that I have. Not one to be easily beaten though I’ve experimented with ways to boost creativity and it’s...
Debbie and I have been staying at a holiday village called ‘The Bay’ just to the south of Filey on the east coast and a short walk away from a superb beach. It’s an idyllic spot, designed to look just like a traditional ‘cottage style’ village but with all mod-cons,...
I finished reading the highly recommended book The Phoenix Project this morning while chilling out in Lincoln Caffe Nero, which is nicely nestled inside the Waterstones bookshop. As soon as I saw the premise of the book it reminded me of the classic novel about manufacturing The Goal and it...
I stopped buying things last year, choosing to focus on buying experiences instead. Although it’s been a fantastic success I’ve been slightly conflicted because some of my best experiences depend on buying the things that enable them. For example some of my most cherished experiences this year involved listening to...
As I’ve said on this blog many times, throughout my career my over-riding motivation and interest has been to make peoples lives better. For the last 20 of those years it’s been by improving their productivity, eliminating frustrations, improving autonomy, enabling effective team working and creating work spaces that enhance...
I was recently sent a list of about a hundred documents that were being produced as part of readying a new product for sale. The ‘exam’ question was were we missing anything? My first and lasting impression was not what was missing but the lack of focus that might result...
While I was out walking yesterday (and trying to distract myself from the sensation of my leg muscles tearing due to a nasty flare) I was thinking about how to go about gathering information at scale. The most popular mechanism for this is to survey a population asking them for...