I'm not big on New Years resolutions but I thought it a fitting time to put something out there by way of a personal ambition for the coming year. I'm going to write a book.
It has been a long held aspiration of mine to do this but the reality of running my own business for the past five years has meant that it's been very difficult to carve out the necessary time to progress with it. Nonetheless I've been writing about themes that I feel passionately about on this blog for almost a decade, and accumulated over 100 posts on the loosely bracketed subject of 'agile' over that time.
So I'm taking digital transformation, an area I've done a steadily increasing amount of work in, as my theme. As I've said before, I don't believe in digital strategies. But I do believe in strategies that are fit for purpose for a digitally empowered world. And as I have often said in those 100 posts it is my fundamental belief that digital technologies impact right across the organisation and require a re-evaluation of not just marcomms but also product design and development, business models, service design and delivery, customer and supplier interaction and just as importantly not just strategies but also organisational structures, culture, skills, behaviours, and ways of working.
I believe that this re-evaluation is not about a transition, with a beginning middle and an end, but instead about equipping the organisation to effectively deal with continuous and accelerating change, and increasing levels of uncertainty. I believe this re-evaluation is not just about adapting for the new networked world, but transforming to be fit for purpose for it.
Yet whilst there is clear and growing demand in the business world for intelligent and concise insight in this area, there is still no ‘bible’ or manifesto for digital transformation. So many business books talk about the need to change. So very few talk about how to do it. So I want to write that book.
This has become an itch I have to scratch. And that, to me, is the best reason to write a book. Austin Kleon said 'Write the book you want to read'. So that's what I'm doing.
Putting this ambition out in the wild means that this is a public commitment, but it also means that I can use this blog to continue to develop my ideas as I progress with the writing. And I'm delighted to say that I'll be working with Peter Abraham who will be co-authoring the book with me. Peter is one of the smartest digital practitioners I know and a long-time collaborator of mine so I'm really pleased to have the benefit of his enormous expertise and experience on the project. Between us I think we bring a very rounded perspective to what is a hugely important topic.
We'll be talking to publishers of-course (if you are one and are interested in publishing the book then do drop me a line) but in the meantime watch this space for more posts as I explore and expand on our thinking.
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