According to Dave Evans from Stanford Design School (yes this is another Thinking Digital story) after five years, eighty percent of people who went to university aren’t working in the area that they studied. All that time and effort potentially wasted on what seems inappropriately focussed attention. I wonder why this is and if it … Continue reading 8 out of 10
Snow days
Should people be paid if they can't attend work due to bad weather? This is a question that raises its head every time we have a protracted spell of snow. Is it a question though of business ethics or management? On the face of it it is a simple question. We are paid to work … Continue reading Snow days
#CyberNorth Think Tank
The first of our planned events for the Dynamo cyber work stream was the Think Tank held earlier this week at Accenture’s offices in Cobalt. We had been planning it for several months and then suddenly it was upon us. The idea was to relaunch the work we had undertaken while raising our profile by … Continue reading #CyberNorth Think Tank
I didn’t get the job
One of the things that I have struggled most with when working for myself is saying no to new work. When I set the company up I thought about a reasonable sales objective for the year and I am happy to say that I passed it quite comfortably at the half year point. Perhaps my … Continue reading I didn’t get the job
My ethical dilemma with Oxfam
The recent events at Oxfam have highlighted, once again, the role that ethics has to play in modern organisations. It is impossible and indeed not right, to separate purpose and the ethical stance of those businesses and charities that we deal with. The scandal that has rocked Oxfam over the last few weeks has made … Continue reading My ethical dilemma with Oxfam
Happy New Year
I normally make a few resolutions yet rarely write them down. This time I have decided to publish them to keep them fresh in my sights. Here you go then: Publish my second book ‘Paradigms Lost’. It’s all written but I am not sure whether to self-publish or to try and get it through a … Continue reading Happy New Year
Cyber breakfast
Cybersecurity or cyber resilience as I prefer to call it is occupying a lot of my time and mental space these days. I think about it during the day, I mull it over during the evening but having it for breakfast is another matter yet when the Journal, one of our local newspapers, put on … Continue reading Cyber breakfast
Digital Exclusion
It is an old story, probably old as technology itself. Some people have it and some don’t. The arrival of digital has opened up old fracture lines of social inequality. Some people are on the right side of the digital divide and some are on the other, the side of digital exclusion. Yet with digital … Continue reading Digital Exclusion
True liberation
Can you ever be truly liberated at work? I have been pushing my freedom agenda for a couple of years now. It has become my mantra. Freedom from location, freedom from hierarchy and freedom from dogma. It has worked well in some places while in others it is still to get off the ground. … Continue reading True liberation
A daily question
We were all asked to gather round just before the Northumbrian Water Group’s Innovation Festival got started to be briefed on how the day would unfold. It was still early in the morning and the meeting place was in a tented village in Gosforth Park Racecourse. It had been raining overnight and the damp was … Continue reading A daily question