One of the key concepts in dealing with complexity is the need to be indirect in pursuit of our goals. I often refer to John Kay's book Obliquity – but here is the original article from the Financial Times from 2004 on the topic. It suggests an idea that is Read more…
Last week, I was an interested observer in a debate that rumbled on over three days – about the definition of a term being used by three different organisations working together. On this occasion, the term was “Strategic Communications” or “StratCom”. (As an aside, it recalled the days, 20 years Read more…
Friday was an odd start – I’m used to catching the 0430 train to St Pancras for an early Eurostar. I’m also used to clubbers getting off the train on their wasted way home as I get on on my equally wobbly way to work. What I’m not used to Read more…
One of the things I'm always on the look out for is interesting visualisation – ways of presenting information that make it more engaging, understandable and hence easier to make decisions from. This one has nothing to do with any of that, but it's lovely. Take a tool from one Read more…
Reduced budgets are producing some interesting approaches to the necessary decisions to be made. A recent visit to the Blackberry Clinic in Milton Keynes showed me one of them: it turns out that the local PCT, having to cut budgets by a substantial percentage, had gone for the simple approach Read more…
Sometimes we like to play with counter-factuals – what if things had happened differently at this point? what if this market had been addressed instead of that one? It's usually for serious reasons and can be highly educational. This, however, is a counter-factual that is utterly frivolous. Recall, for a Read more…
For the rest of this week and next, I’m going to be guest-blogging over at Cognitive Edge’s guest blog, as well as here. I’m going to try to keep the blogs different, but I’m sure you’ll understand if I just say – “I stand by what I said over there…” Read more…
Apologies for the radio silence this week – normal blogging should resume tomorrow. I blogged the other week about The Story, the excellent event in London on 18th February 2011. All the tickets are now sold, but if you want to go but haven’t got yours yet, there is still Read more…
Some of the excellent events coming up include: Cognitive Edge accreditation course – 2nd-3rd February 2011 Details of what you get on the course are here , but it’s a course that we highly recommend for communicators, organisational development specialists and km people – everyone in Narrate has been on it as a matter of [sic] course. … Anecdote storytelling workshop A fortnight later, Shawn Callahan of Anecdote is in town with his one-day storytelling workshop on 16th February 2011.
For everyone at yesterday’s HEERA conference session, here are the main slides and some of the resources I mentioned: HEERA Conference slides For the basketball video I mentioned. More on Dave Snowden’s Cynefin framework: The Harvard Business Review article on complexity/leadership/decision-making by Dave Snowden Dave’s in-depth article on complexity and Read more…