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Topic: Complexity
The NEXOS wave
Earlier this week, we introduced our thinking around digital culture. Using the invented word NEXOS, we briefly described our concerns over how digital information and digital technology proliferation are affecting people’s lives. As people in our mid 30s to 40s we remember life before the technology was so deeply embedded in social and working lives. We don’t want to turn back the clock, but we do want to understand how behaviours and attitudes are changing, and what choices we might make as individuals to stay sane in this new age of constant information. Continue reading
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 >
Announcing NEXOS
We’re really pleased to be working with Dan Simmons at Beyond Eureka on a response to the onslaught of digital information, messages, conversations. We’re all of an age where we remember life before mobile phones, email, RSS feeds, FaceBook. We wouldn’t dream of turning back the clock. But we do feel people need better tools and protocols, not simply more devices, more content, more conversations. > Continue reading
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 >
Driving technology adoption
Cultural readiness is a big part of adopting new technology. There’s only so much influence that thought leaders and vendors themselves can exercise. As this piece shows, direct mentors are often most effective in bringing “newbies” onboard. Continue reading
Uh-oh
Cloudy weather over the digital landscape…. Continue reading
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 >
Networked businesses: the icon isn’t iconic
In the second piece on networked businesses, we look at the classic example of the network business – today’s Hollywood films. Interesting as it is, the Hollywood model doesn’t migrate easily to other industries. Here’s why. Continue reading
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 >
A Disappearing Number: fine image-making
Top evenings at the theatre in 2010 included the return to London of Complicite’s 2005 production A Disappearing Number, which we saw in September. Continue reading
...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 >
Collaborating to create value: who is the client?
Now in our fourth year, we’re thinking a lot about how we collaborate to create value for our clients. One of things we’ve discovered is that: network-delivery models create hidden “clients” who can crowd out the needs of the actual, ultimate client. Here’s a story about hidden clients in a networked business situation:
Continue reading
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 >
Managing the future workplace? Start here.
We distil the essence of Wall Street Journal online editor Alan Murray’s advice to managers… Continue reading
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 >
Valid responses embrace the greater complexity that is now rife
The world is more global today. Valid business responses need to take this into account. Continue reading
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 >