Category: strategy
-
What Darwin, Faraday and Wollstonecraft teach us about navigating an overwhelming world
I’ve been listening to Human Intelligence, a wonderful podcast from the BBC which features short (15 minute) episodes focusing on ‘brilliant thinkers with 50 stories that celebrate the human mind’. Like one of it’s subject thinkers Socrates, Human Intelligence is concerned with how people think rather than what they think, and I loved the way that they organised an impressive…
-
On the Agentic Organisation
The next wave of AI innovation is already upon us, and it’s the era of agentic AI. In fact, OpenAI’s CFO Sarah Friar has already said that ‘agentic’ will be the word of 2025. The pace of progression has been remarkably fast from simple chatbots that were primarily designed to engage in conversation, answer questions,…
-
On misinterpreting the diffusion of innovations curve
The diffusion of innovations curve, developed by Everett Rogers, has become a pretty iconic tool in understanding how new ideas, products, or technologies gain traction within a market. Its simplicity is compelling: a bell curve that categorises adopters (or a population) into five groups — innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. Yet,…
-
Using GenAI in strategy, research and insight
Last week I ran a virtual version of the Advanced Application of AI in Advertising course that I put together for the IPA. One of the key topic areas is about how to use GenAI tools in the strategy and planning process which I think is an endlessly shifting but fascinating topic. I genuinely think that integrating…
-
Learning from Formula One
There’s some interesting things happening with Formula 1 right now, and Scott Galloway wrote this week about how the sport is at an inflection point as it tries to build from the huge broadening of appeal that ‘Drive to Survive’ has given it (not least with women). As well as the obvious (fast cars, glamour, drama, exotic…
-
The Lindy Effect, and the optimisation trap
A while back I read Shaw Talebi’s reflections from doing Nassim Taleb’s Real World Risk Institute course. One of the concepts featured in the course is The Lindy Effect – a principle derived from the observation that the future life expectancy of non-perishable entities, such as technologies, ideas, or institutions, is proportional to their current age. Put…
-
‘Good enough’ prompting
I really liked Ethan Mollick’s thoughts this week about ‘good enough’ prompting for AI tools. He references a study of Doctors using GenAI tools which revealed some interesting observations around algorithmic aversion (our hesitancy to take advice from machines when they conflict with our judgement, even when the machine may have a higher degree of…
-
What a 400 year old ship can tell us about technology projects
A couple of years ago whilst I was on a work trip to Stockholm I went to see the famous Vasa ship. It’s a marvel to see, but it’s also a superb monument to the folly of man, particularly when it comes to technology. The Vasa ship, ordered by King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden,…
-
Top-down, bottom-up data
I really liked Robert Van Ossenbruggen’s idea about top-down and bottom-up approaches to data and insights, captured in his visual below. The concept defines a subtle but fundamental difference between bottom-up ‘data-driven decision-making’ and top-down ‘decision-driven analytics’ (for which Robert credits the book of the same name by Bart De Langhe and Stefano Puntoni). The…
-
On technology acceptance models
One of the critical aspects of navigating technological change effectively is understanding more about how users accept and adopt new technologies. For leaders trying to drive technology acceptance and adoption, and to introduce new ways of working within organisations, or consultants and strategists looking to understand changing contexts and capabilities, it can be really useful…