Topic: Listening

“StoryForm”: A work in progress

“StoryForm”: A work in progress

StoryForm is a new project Throughline is gestating. The aim is to create a tool for driving, inspiring and shaping BUYING (business and consumer purchasing) and BUY-IN (commercial decisions, especially around innovative concepts). As such, it relates to and also goes beyond our work in KILN around catalysing innovation. Continue reading

Back in late February, I heard Alexander Osterwalder speak at the Front End of Innovation EMEA conference hosted by the Institute of International Research. The keynote was about the Business Model Canvas. Indy had received Alex's book Business Model Generation (co-authored with Yves ...MORE >
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Announcing NEXOS

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 >
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A 3-min movie on Rachel Botsman’s Collaborative Consumption

A 3-min movie on Rachel Botsman’s Collaborative Consumption

I produced this short movie in January 2012 as part of the RSA/Nominet Trust Film Competition. The film was immediately featured by Rachel Botsman’s website and went on to attract over 1000 plays in the first four weeks. Continue reading

Although our movie was not selected by the judges, it was chosen for a TEDx in Leeds on the Future of Money in February that was picked up in the Guardian online, and continues to circulate in the Peer-to-Peer global community of which ...MORE >
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Collaborating to create value: who is the client?

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:
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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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Putting metaphor in the frame

Putting metaphor in the frame

University of Leeds Professor Joep Cornelissen’s talk “It’s all in the game: How to successfully frame a strategic change or opportunity” used real-world and television drama examples to the show the interplay between how leaders framed future action and what people understood through the frames. Continue reading

It’s so refreshing to hear someone flag up the importance of metaphor and analogy in business communications. They aren’t simply “literary tools”: metaphor and analogy are tools fundamental to humans’ sense-making. Joep’s talk and the discussion it sparked reminded me how powerful metaphors and ...MORE >
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Managing the future workplace? Start here.

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 >
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