Last summer Mats Alvesson and Andre Spicer published a book called “The stupidity paradox”. At a time when let’s face it many of us thought that we were having a summer of stupidity. Spicer and Alvesson’s book is not however about politics, elections or Brexit.  It is instead about organisational stupidity at work. They argue…

Cannes week saw the unveiling of the latest WARC survey on the future of strategy. Of course strategy itself doesn’t change in function. Richard Rumelt usefully defines it as discovering the crucial factors and designing a way to deal with them. Does 2017 change how you do that? If it hasn’t yet it should do.…

Not the printer. Not the presentation facilities. Not the air con now that summer has arrived. Your business model. Over 70% of venture capital and equity funding in the UK goes into developing tech; in excess of £9bn last year. The variety of innovation driving this investment demonstrated in June’s London Tech Week takes your…

20 years ago one man had his life’s effort trashed by a computer. One pundit wrote “the world champion found himself humbled by a 1.4-ton heap of silicone in a victory for IBM’s Deep Blue that marks a milestone in the progress of artificial intelligence. It is a depressing day for humankind in general” In…

“We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run”. So says Amara’s Law, which we see repeatedly play out in nearly every new thing in media and marketing. It’s best illustrated by the annual Gartner Hype Cycle, which plots new tech every year…

Eve Poole, author of Leadersmithing and leadership coach, believes that one of the overriding qualities for leadership is manners.  Making others feel comfortable.  Faced with rudeness you should shame those people by perhaps saying “How Rude” loudly and beaming at them.  Or making eye contact and “shaming” them.  (Do try this in a media pub…

This week I experienced clown school. No, I have not had a lifelong ambition to don a red nose and big shoes.  Nor have I discovered a hitherto unknown love of slapstick. At a networking event for Rada for Business we had a taster of what clown school is like. One of the exercises involved…

It’s always a pleasure to watch Rory Sutherland of Ogilvy in full flow.  If you haven’t seen him speak, here’s a collection of his bon mots. Last time I saw him speak he was holding the ad industry to account for a lack of risk taking.  He said: “is the industry programmed to think too…

The new forensics of media will change how we evaluate media, just as forensic DNA revolutionised criminal investigations. The introduction of forensic DNA in criminal investigations in 1985 revolutionised the field.  Before this date, crime scenes relied on much patchier evidence.  If the criminal wore gloves, there’d be no fingerprints, so any astute crook could…

Edwina Dunn, famous for setting up the mother of big data DunnHunnby, has retired from her previous life in data analytics and is tackling a problem dear to all our hearts, how to inspire young women. Her new book, The Female Lead, is designed to inspire the next generation of girls.  It takes the idea…

Twitter chief Bruce Daisley used to have the wrong photo on his LinkedIn feed as he explained on the MediaCom Connected Podcast this month.   Instead of his happy smiling face, for a long time he had a picture of iconic British comedian Bob Monkhouse, a man who frankly does not bear much physical resemblance to…

“You get an ology….you’re a scientist ”   Some adverts enter the language, and sometimes last there long after the product they were plugging has dropped the campaign.   The BT ology ad featured Maureen Lipman as a grandmother, told by her grandson over the phone, (incidentally played by Josh Krichefski’s brother by the way),…