Over the past few months, I’ve been watching old 1990s episodes of Top of The Pops (ToTP). For anyone who isn’t UK based, or doesn’t remember ToTP, it was a weekly show which featured music artists and bands from the charts. Being on ToTP was seen as a huge indication of success, and at the time it was one of the few places to see chart music on TV. For anyone that liked pop music, it was required viewing. (Image Credit: ©moodboardww — yayimages.com #35516264) One of the things that looks really odd, in retrospect, is how the crowd reacts to the music. Generally speaking, they pretty much clap ..read more

“Your call is important to us…” (Image Credit: © djmilic — yayimages.com #45136074) If you’ve ever been on hold when trying to contact a company by phone, you’ve probably experienced the irritation of hold music.  Typically, this is an irritating experience for two reasons: The sound quality is awful. This is particularly true if you’re calling via a mobile/cell phone. I gather that phone calls via the GSM network are optimised for voice; they literally cut out non-voice frequencies to save bandwidth, meaning music sounds compressed and garbled. The music is interrupted every 30 seconds ..read more

I suspect that many people reading this article will have been involved with the definition of business processes. Business processes, when well-defined can help to ensure a standard approach is adopted, as well as ensuring that work and customer queries are dealt with in a consistent manner.  They can also help remove the cognitive burden of those conducting the work. A good process will ensure that all of the predictable, high frequency, repeatable decisions are made in advance so that less ad-hoc decision-making is needed “on the fly”.  Of course, there are some contexts where thi ..read more

At a park near where I live there’s a large pond which is inhabited by many swans.  The swan population varies depending on the time of year, but at the moment there’s somewhere between 40-80 there, including some juvenile (grey) swans.  If you’ve never sat and watched a community of swans, I’d highly recommend taking some time to do it. One thing that I find particularly interesting is when somebody comes to feed the swans.  Generally, the swans will be unevenly distributed across the pond, and some will be on the land.  There’s plenty of weed in the pond for them to eat ..read more

One of the first jobs I had was at a small insurance brokerage firm.  As archaic as it sounds, back in those days, memos were physically printed and sent between offices in the mail (in fact, there may have even been the occasional handwritten memo sent). We didn’t have email, so if something was urgent, the only real options were to pick up the phone or send a fax. Every day, the post arrived in a big batch, and at the end of the day outgoing correspondence was collated and sent out in a big batch.  If you wanted to keep a copy of something that you’d received you had to, well, make ..read more

The music video was set on a desert island (Image credit:  ©12ee12 — stock.adobe.com #105027014) One thing you probably don’t know about me is that I was a backing dancer in the video for the  2001 hit ‘Survivor’ by Destiny’s Child.  One of the reasons that you probably aren’t aware of this is that it isn’t something that I talk about much as 2001 seems a lifetime ago and I’ve made a major career shift since then. However the second (and most important reason) that you probably don’t know this about me is that it absolutely isn’t true.  Literally none of it. That’s right, I ..read more

Image Credit: © everettovrk — stock.adobe.com #104450030 A term that seems to have taken increased prominence over the last decade or so is digital transformation.  It has become such a frequently used part of the organisational lexicon that it is rarely questioned.  It’s a term that is accepted, it sounds like something that is self-explanatory and somehow obvious.  I mean who doesn’t want a digital transformation?  In the next breath there will be the inevitable cliches of Blockbuster, Netflix, Uber and others (cliches, by the way, that I am just as guilty as anyone as us ..read more

Thanks for being a follower of my blog. It suddenly occurred to me that some people who follow my blog might not be on my main mailing list, and you might be wondering why my blog has been a little quieter than usual. There’s a couple of really exciting initiatives that I am keen to tell you about: a free conference and a free quarterly PDF magazine. I hope that you find them useful! Serendipity: A FREE half-day conference Firstly, I’m very excited to be co-chair of a FREE half-day multi-disciplinary conference that is taking place on the 15th July. Serendipity Festival focusses on business an ..read more

In recent years, it seems that many organisations have become blindsided into maximising the speed of technological change.  Being able to get technological innovations to the consumer quickly is of crucial importance, but in some cases it appears that technology is moving much faster than the rest of the organisation.  Put differently, whereas once technology was seen as ‘the bottleneck’, this really doesn’t have to be the case today, and other parts of the wider organisational architecture and business context appear to be the things that are slower to adapt. Image Credit: © Inside ..read more

Image Credit: © alexlmx — stock.adobe.com #162566687 In college, I bought a set of disco lights.  They were fairly basic by today’s standards, essentially consisting of a box with four coloured bulbs that would respond to the beat, flashing in a fixed pattern.  However, they helped to create a real party atmosphere. There’s something about colourful flashing lights that just invites people to dance.  Throw in cheap beer and Britpop and you’ve got a classic 1990s house party. Although I bought the lights to use at my own house parties, I found that owning them had an unexpected ..read more