Month: October 2013
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Fraggl – Almost There
I'm conscious that I've been a bit quiet about Fraggl, the new Twitter curation app I'm building with AdaptiveLab. A crazy work schedule and a couple of key changes we've made along the way have conspired to delay us, but I'm pleased to say that we're very nearly there. In the meantime, we've had a major…
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Google Firestarters 10: Planning For Good – The Event
//instagram.com/p/ffsOzAIuC3 Last week saw our tenth Google Firestarters event. I can hardly believe it's been over two years since we had our first event. Since then we've built some pretty significant momentum, had some amazing and thought provoking talks (too many to mention individually) and a real sense of community has built around the events…
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We Discover Our Purpose by Trial and Error
It's really tragic how many of us are unhappy in our work. A big survey (covering 230,000 workers in 142 countries) just out from Gallup found that 87% of workers are either 'not engaged' in their work (putting little energy in, unhappy, but not drastically so), or 'actively disengaged' (emotionally disconnected, actively disliking their job). Another survey last…
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The Key Elements of Organisational Change
I've been doing some research recently around organisational change and innovation (can you tell?) and as part of that came across this simple model (from Knoster, Villa and Thousand) detailing in straightforward terms five key elements that are required to achieve change: vision, skills, incentives, resources, and an action plan. The vision, central to the…
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Technical and Adaptive Change
Dr Ronald Heifetz of the Center For Public Leadership at Harvard University is known for delineating a clear differentiation between what he calls ‘technical change’ (broadly speaking the type of change that addresses more tangible things such as products, procedures or processes) and ‘adaptive change’ (that which is more concerned with less tangible human aspects…
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Toxic Assumptions (Redux)
I wrote about toxic assumptions back in 2009. It's a term I rather like, but I've got a better definition of it now. Toxic assumptions are the kind of presumptions that are deeply embedded within companies but which contribute toward innovation inertia. They are the assumptions that commonly go unchallenged, and are typically based on a…
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There’s Meaningful Change, and Then There’s…
Two very different perspectives on digital change came this week, both in the context of news organisations. First the revamped Fox News newsroom (above) featuring bizarre 'big area touchscreens'. Then Lionel Barber's memo to staff on reshaping the FT for the digital age which talked of a fundamental re-shaping of workng practices and approach ('In…
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Post Of The Month – September 2013 – The Winner
A strong performance in this month's vote from Patricia McDonald's post on Why Big is Still Beautiful, but there was a clear winner in the end. So well done to Murat Mutlu, whose excellent post on why talented creatives are leaving (some) agencies won through. Murat is entered into the hall of fame and my…
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Post Of The Month – September 2013 – The Vote
Thanks for the nominations. So our vote this month is between: Why Talented Creatives are Leaving Your Sh***y Agency by Murat Mutlu Why Big is Still Beautiful from Patricia McDonald The Stacks, The Patterns and The Money by Matt Locke A Few Things I Learned Working in Agencies from Andrew Hovells How I Failed by Tim O'Reilly And you…
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Post Of The Month – September 2013 – Nominations
Time to open up nominations for September Post of the Month. Some good reads again this month so I have my usual starting list below, but please do add to these in the comments with any posts that you thought were particularly good and that were posted in that month. Once I have a good…