Powerful structures for product-driven organisations
Four weeks ago I went to Wales, to the beautiful area around Cardigan Bay, to join Russell Davies' day on How to be Interesting. And now I want my money back etc etc. Boom boom. But seriously folks, seven hours on Parc y Pratt Farm (home of the Do Lectures), with one of the most fascinating… Continue reading Out of our minds
I've talked before about my amazing Maths professor at Bristol university, Dr Mayberry, and in particular about his dissection of the phrase 'every nice girl loves a sailor'. Is it: "For each nice girl, For each sailor, the nice girl loves the sailor", or perhaps "For each nice girl, there exists a sailor, such that… Continue reading Every nice girl
I remember heading up the stairs at the Ace Hotel in New York City (one of the finer things about that fine city) and, stumbling - almost literally - over this: I think I took a photo at the time but I can't find it now. And this one is better anyhow. Turns out the… Continue reading Optimism
Anyone who is a bit of a smart arse, like me, will recognise the quote above. It's from Winston Churchill and it is about Democracy. You would be forgiven for thinking the full quote is 'Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others', as that is how the punchline is usually… Continue reading The worst form of government
A side effect of the digital revolution has been the closing of the perceived gap between product thinking and communications thinking. Not always with desirable results. Watching these worlds collide has long been a fascination for me, as they are such distinctly different approaches, require such different skills and temperament and are typical bought by… Continue reading Two tribes
I've always been a fan of Lean. Most recently Lean Startup has been very influential on me, as it has been on many others. On my desk sits an unread copy of Lean Analytics, and now, I see we have also got 'lean strategy', meaning not the strategy of using lean techniques, but rather the… Continue reading Lean blog post
"Music is, to me, proof of the existence of God. It is so extraordinarily full of magic, and in tough times of my life I can listen to music and it makes such a difference." The quote above from the great American Novelist, Kurt Vonnegut is made more compelling by Vonnegut being, at times, humanist,… Continue reading Music
This wonderful clip from Mad Men on Amelia's blog started me thinking again about Kodak, both a case study of success and failure in product innovation, and - now - a cautionary tale for businesses facing change. But what, if anything, can we actually learn from it? One of the best studies of the primacy… Continue reading Kodak moments
For me, the patent wars, in which so many major brands are currently embroiled are fascinating because of the underlying biases they expose. Read any story about XYZ Corp winning a legal battle and scroll down to the comments and you'll find acres of diatribe about just how immoral it is for XYZ Corp to… Continue reading Patently
Rarely is it inexplicable why something hasn’t worked. The things that succeed are the few, are the exceptions. Most technology projects aren’t huge successes. But the odds are stacked so heavily in favour of Google Plus that it’s almost hard to believe it isn’t the world’s best and most popular site already. And it’s clearly… Continue reading G-
Leading product 