Topic: Complexity

A new collaboration: Fostering better online conversations

Real things happen online, sometimes. The clearest case, in my experience, has been One4Ruby, the online storytelling platform for the family in our neighbourhood whose child Ruby is recovering from brain injury after her heart stopped with no warning. Through One4Ruby, conversations have been ...MORE >
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How heroes in brand stories evolve: example Nike

In 2001, when Nike launched its $25m "Play" campaign with the television commercial "Tag", it was the dominant sportswear company in the USA but Reebok was nipping at its else, with help from the likes of Adidas and New Balance. Most tellingly, in ...MORE >
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The NEXOS wave

Our thinking has been shaped by things we read, and much of that has been online. When we think about a Next Operating System - or NEXOS - it's something that relates to five  broad themes: I. Lost art of conversation and increasing trend ...MORE >
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Announcing NEXOS

NEXOS stands for Next Operating System. I was talking to a TEDx organiser about NEXOS in these terms: Albert Einstein once famously said: “It has become appallingly clear that our technology has surpassed our humanity. I hope that someday, our humanity might yet surpass our ...MORE >
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Culture fit for M&A

We've written about the dismal track record of acquisitions. Think about it. These are not deals done in haste. Financial due diligence is a huge business and rather sophisticated. Change management and logistic/IT/financial integration are taken into account in acquisition planning. Why do so many ...MORE >
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Driving technology adoption

Getting Mom Onto Internet A Sisyphean Ordeal (from The Onion ...MORE >
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Uh-oh

About this time last year, Throughline started working alongside MAYA Chief Executive Mickey McManus on a summit for a mutual client. MAYA's expertise is in innovating digital products and digitally driven experiences. At the heart of MAYA's story is the problem of information overload. ...MORE >
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Networked businesses: the icon isn’t iconic

From the birth of American cinema to the 1950s when television began vying foraudiences, studios made films. Studios owned land, held contracts with “talent”, and employed union labourers in order to manufacture a steady stream of genre films that could find ready audiences ...MORE >
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A Disappearing Number: fine image-making

...because it rendered complex ideas accessible, by mashing up a real story of friendship and collaboration from the 1910s with a fictional story of contemporary love across distance ...because the love stories moved me, as did the moments of loss, so much so that ...MORE >
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Collaborating to create value: who is the client?

Robert just told me about his work with Jane. Jane is internal communications manager for a company involved in a merger. Her annual budget trebled for the merger period. She had a choice: enlarge her circle of advisors or ask an incumbent agency ...MORE >
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Managing the future workplace? Start here.

Stay flexible. (Essential for agility in the face of uncertainty.) Devour data. (Not just bits and bytes - keep an "ear to the ground" and actually get out into the field and talk to the ordinary folk using your products. Be (somewhat) humble. (Recognise ...MORE >
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Alliance Pressure Points

How can we help? Throughline is the only UK consultancy able to take a Cultural x-ray of both organisations using the validated Itim Focus method. The purpose of a Cultural x-ray is to quickly, reliably highlight flashpoints. The next step is building conversations that improve mutual knowledge ...MORE >
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Valid responses embrace the greater complexity that is now rife

Thanks to technology and other factors, pace has now accelerated. Furthermore, the certainty that gives all sorts of institutions their authority is breaking down. The result is greater complexity. Actual complexity undermines command-and-control structures. That’s why we’re seeing their effectiveness wane. As these structures ...MORE >
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