March 2011
1 post
Collaboration as a Supply Chain
Why do we manufacture things in China, rather than domestically? Because it is cheaper. The compromise is that a lot of complexity is injected into the manufacturing process via the new dependency on managing the remote supply chain. If the cost of managing this supply chain was greater than the cost savings garnered by moving production to China then we would not do it.
Collaboration is...
February 2010
1 post
Employer Flexible Working Fears
I want to discuss one aspect of our recent flexible working study: the fear many employers have that employee productivity falls if they work from home ‘unmonitored’ and ‘distracted’.
It’s a natural fear: I’m an employer and I occasionally share it, but I’m going to argue that it is misguided and disguises more fundamental and harder problems that we need to address.
The national study...
November 2009
1 post
Twitter is the nose of the dog
Twitter is a niche tool and you love it or are bemused by it. I think that it is best understood as a meme tool - its anthropological economics are geared towards the fast filtering and propagation of interesting ideas - as opposed to, say, analysis.
In this respect it is like the nose of a dog. Dogs are constantly sniffing their environment. The dog is trying to understand which of the...
July 2009
11 posts
I am the future of search
What am I looking for again?
I can’t find my phone. What are my options for locating it?
1. Look for it 2. Ask others if they’ve seen it 3. Phone it
I would probably apply those strategies in that order as each fails. Of course, what I really want is for my phone to magically appear in my hand whenever I need it.
That would be nice.
Search on the internet today is somewhere between stages 1...
Context is King
God I hate the phrase “real-time”. It is misleading and frequently undesirable. “Right-time” would make more sense.
Very distracted by cricket today
A perspective on MS Office 2010
This week Microsoft started talking more about its Office 2010 release, specifically, changes to the desktop application, a new web-based version, and support for each in SharePoint. Since this impacts us at oneDrum, I’ve spent some time trying to understand what is coming.
Before I layout my perspective, let me first say that although I talk to the MS guys and had some visibility of what is...
Interview with me on Smarta
Click here to read it
Types of Innovation
A lot of people have been quizzing me about the relationship between collaboration and innovation. This got me to thinking about types of innovation over the weekend.
In my experience I’ve come across the following:
Process innovation - deliver a product faster or cheaper; Dell was a process innovator through it’s mastery of supply chain management.
Shop front innovation - sell a...
Wondering if lessons from supply chains can be employed in collaboration and innovation
RT @OneDrum: drinks are on us at the TechCrunch #Europas tomorrow
Article by me at Entrepreneur Country http://bit.ly/19BNxI
The economics of free
I attended Chris Andersons book launch for ‘Free’ on Thursday. I had low expectations of the panel discussion, but was pleasantly surprised.
While there was much discussion of marginal cost there was almost no discussion of marginal revenue.
Kevin Lomax (of Misys fame) has spoken to me, in the past, of the Valley of Death - a price point in Enterprise Software between USD20,000...
June 2009
5 posts
RT @webusermagazine There is indeed an article about OneDrum in Issue 216 of Web User, which is on sale from all good newsagents now…
Opera Unite
As a jaded software engineer, I struggle to get excited about most “innovations”, but I am excited about Operas new Unite product.
In case you have not read about it yet, Unite allows Opera users to turn their browser into a server through which they can directly share files and services rather than relying on third parties such as Google or Yahoo to mediate. There is an API...
Interesting article about us on zdnet http://bit.ly/OA7rG
Google Wave
I just got around to watching the Google Wave video. I hate watching demo videos (please tell me a story in 5 pictures or less), so it was an act of extreme dedication. I’m pleased I did because it really confirmed a set of arguments we’ve been making at oneDrum this year.
Conversations need to be more contextual. Place them as close as possible to the thing you are discussing...
Nice article about us by Mandy Garner http://bit.ly/RwoMr for Working Mums
May 2009
12 posts
Another article about oneDrum http://bit.ly/16SUEN
David Cameron beginning to get the culture for this century: transparency+devolution=engagement http://bit.ly/giTsx
US government gets serious about data transparency http://bit.ly/170i8P
blimey, just found a guardian article about us http://bit.ly/169nxU
oneDrum coverage at Web User http://bit.ly/DDMC8
Today we launched out new political party with a petition for monthly work at home days: http://www.onedrum.org.uk/
To celebrate national work at home day, 1000 beta invites at http://www.onedrum.com
"Why collaboration is broken" slides
http://bit.ly/QOjWK
Are you open to failure or closed to success?
Yesterday I had the pleasure of talking at the Butler collaboration symposium, to an IT management audience drawn from an enterprise and government background.
I argued that we need to enable employees to have conversations about their work because it increases their productivity. I provided as examples, the need to:
Let users employ the conversation tools they want (e.g. their preferred IM...
oneDrum website is GO! quick register!
Collaboration driving innovation http://bit.ly/clhB1
April 2009
8 posts
Forester WebOffice report http://bit.ly/d6Tio
Modes of Conversation
Until recently, there were three typical approaches to holding a conversation on the web: instant messaging, email and newsgroups.
A year ago I used to draw the following diagram:
I argued that these different channels fitted different modes of conversation along a single axis of formality and that conversations only ever became more formal. IM’s are on-the spot-conversations I have...
Watching my 2.5 year old son play with others reminds me collaboration is learnt and ritualistic.
The Dawning of the Age of Transparency?
I think a theme has emerged in some of my posts:
Transparency is the best mechanism for preventing and resolving crises
Information is becoming ubiquitous (ie. greater transparency is inevitable)
Neither of these are startling insights, but I’ll go further and posit that we are moving towards an age where our lives and the lives of businesses and institutions are transparent, and...
Conversation about collaboration with Peter Clark →
1 tag
Different kinds of Platform
I was pitching a new business idea to a friend last night. His first response was:
“You used the dirty word”.
I had to think about it.
“Platform?” I replied.
“Yes”.
For years it has been wisdom that the use of the word ‘Platform’ in pitches to VC’s is poison. I went into defensive mode.
“Google stopped ‘Platform’...
The Brown cabal motto: smears, not ideas | Alice... →
http://www.pcw.co.uk/personal-computer-world/news/2... →
March 2009
6 posts
1 tag
So why didn't they do this for Northern Rock?
I never understood the Northern Rock rescue. Supposedly we (the taxpayer) had to secure Northern Rocks future to prevent a run on other financial institutions.
It never made sense; all the government needed to do was guarantee the deposits (Lenders don’t care if the society fails). That was the only message anyone needed to prevent a run.
And that is what they have now done with...
Where to put your money? (if you have any)
So, if you’re lucky enough to be sitting on cash, where should you invest it?
Savings account? No, interest rate too low.
Bonds? Err too high risk and rates too low (unless you were already holding mature debt).
Equity? Possibly but it’s a long term bet with plenty of risk attached.
Commodities? Err.. no, I think that would be a straight forward bet.
So I think Venture Capital is...
In Praise of Inflation
I was surprised today, by economists surprise at a rise in UK inflation. Devaluation causes temporary inflation as the prices of imported goods rise and buyers take time to adjust their purchase habits.
That got me thinking: what we really need is a good bout of inflation: Inflation destroys debt. In the 1980’s, my parents had several horrible years living with high interests that were...
what happened to google maps?
I used to love google maps. But it’s terrible now. You enter an address and the bubble in the middle is rendered under the controls so that you cant close the bubble. And dragging, which worked effortlessly before, now requires some action because I keep rescaling the map accidentally.
It’s a great example of how to muller a nice UI.
Wow CloudCamp was boring last night. What a disappointment.
Looking forward to CloudCamp tonight
February 2009
9 posts
IT's path from exclusiveness to inclusiveness
Once upon a time there were a handful of computers, owned by governments. Very very exclusive.
Eventually a few big businesses bought them. Then more.
In the 1980’s, PC’s came along and suddenly lots of people had them - even at home. And there were spreadsheets and graphics applications and individuals could do amazing things.
Then we got laptops and we took them everywhere. ...
Road Map for Financial Recovery: Radical... →
My earlier article on transparency neatly anticipated this
incumbency vs appetite for power
It is a common wisdom that voters dislike political parties staying in power for long periods; that they instinctively turn against long-term incumbents.
I believe the opposite. Voters like incumbents - better the devil you know, etc - and incumbents have enormous power to maintain their position. It’s hard for oppositions to look presidential. Look at the percentage of incumbent US...
Web 2.0, it was good knowing you...
OK, so the phrase “Web 2.0” is sooo last year. It was a fraud, but not a total one. I think these are what we will carry forward:
Public API’s. As programmers we’ve used them for years and can take the latest incarnation for granted. But they have become a significant force in the makeup of the modern internet. The most obvious example is Twitter; their UI’s...
Computer games and effectiveness in the workplace
A few people have said to me recently that I’m too critical about my and my own company’s performance. Only time will tell whether my criticism is right or not - we’ve not even launched the product yet.
But it caused me to reflect on the psychological drivers for why I’m critical. There are a few reasons, but the most interesting stand-out was my experience playing...