Overview: Digital Transformation

" 2015 is likely to see a democratization of data throughout the organization, meaning that more departments will become adept at using the insight that it can bring. Rather than working towards a central strategy that is created by senior management, day-to-day activities will be based on data and the insights created from it." - Big Data Top T…

"Here's what I've come up with for advice to the 20-year-old version of me on being creative." Particularly like Neil Gaiman's advice: " A lot of times ideas will turn up when you're doing something else. And, most of all, ideas come from confluence - they come from two things flowing together. " Which is why I-Labs is all about bringing peo…

"Charted automatically visualizes data. Give it the link to a data file and Charted returns a beautiful, shareable visualization of that data... open-sourced and available for anyone to use at charted.co... it adjusts to any screen, automatically updates itself" - Introducing Charted - Data Lab - Medium

Interesting description of the benefits of being a 'fast follower' by The Economist's Paul Rossi: "instilling a culture across the business where staff are keeping an eye on what's going on ...the editorial side [is] ... actively talking to people about new technologies. How to deliver content, how to deliver video... on the commercial team everbo…

"the basics of human resources management goals and practices have remained little changed, philosophically and practically.... The main metaphor today’s HR professionals live in is still a machine with its designed-and-fitted parts and cogs, as opposed to the ‘living’ system of social networks in which people participate and interact... Let’s …

My most important two questions were 'what are you going to do when you get selected?' and then I always followed up with 'and what will you do if you aren't selected?'.

"Instead of trying to make them happy, ask them to do something hard... @the opportunity to use skills and abilities” has displaced “job security” as the top driver of satisfaction, and it consistently ranks among the top two... Employees don’t just want their skills used; they want them stretched.... Respondents ... started to feel stale after o…

"So, does engagement actually cause higher performance, or are high-performing employees just more engaged?... In one of the few robust studies to examine this issue, Ben Schneider and colleagues mined archival engagement and performance data for several Fortune 100 companies. " - To Motivate Employees, Help Them Do Their Jobs Better

"... is to foster alignment and enthusiasm toward the right goal. I’m thinking of official leaders (and myself) when writing the above, but there are official and unofficial leaders in every organization. " Very short post, very worth reading. Sometimes the simplest insights are the most powerful. - The Job of Leadership — Inside Medium — Medium

"a closer look at what types of comment sections news organizations are using, and what, if any, value they are adding ... reviewed academic and industry literature, spoke with industry managers and university researchers and conducted a small poll ... The result is a list of questions to ask and best practices for news organizations seeking retu…

"Al Jazeera English ... has developed from a TV channel to a media organisation with a multiplatform offering ranging from written news to interactives.... the outlet uses interactives as a way to offer its audience a fuller picture.... we complement the coverage on all the other platforms and the coverage on TV... Telling stories built with peop…

"movements... seem to self-organize and spread virally, as if they were LOLCats or some other digital meme. So why can’t we get our organizations to act the same way? You would think that with command and incentive structures in place, it would be easier for leaders to set a direction and get things moving, but anyone who’s run an enterprise kno…

"recent scientific work is putting a much finer point on just how stories change our attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors... to motivate a desire to help others, a story must first ... develop tension during the narrative... it is likely that attentive viewers/listeners will come to share the emotions of the characters in it and continue mimicking t…

Tackling corporate memory loss and innovation failure requires a different paradigm than that offered by social media.

"Through applying semantic markup to our site, we've embedded an incredibly rich layer of meaningful data in our code.... but don't let the search engines have all the fun; we can use that data, too. By looking at the semantic markup on any given page, we can see what type of "entity" we're looking at ... and its attributes or properties. If we c…

The basic reasons we launched I-Labs are all here: "The most powerful way of learning is ...  to have conversation... the best examples of great insight nearly always come from cases where people shared knowledge or experience.... every organisation is sitting on a wealth of information that potentially contains insight... This information is ly…

"Traditional intranets required someone at the helm with a broad perspective and variety of skills. Newer social intranets, with their greater ability to influence company culture and productivity, have only added to the pile of needed skills. In this article we explain what the core skills are for successful intranet managers, common gaps in exp…

"Ideas represent possibilities for alternate futures. But, ideas are a commodity ... concepts until they’re brought to life. And that takes ... courage, passion, and resilience... Ideapod creates a creative community where people and ideas come together. And by together, I mean we invest in and build an active community where ideas and engagemen…

"Swarmize enables journalists to tell new, collaborative stories by making use of real-time data collection and visualisation" Just the tests they've already done are awesome. The code's on GitHub. Think to use in surveys, real-time social media monitoring, live blogs ... anything where real-time is useful and/or you might want a second bite at t…

"calling people out.. comes from a place of ego or reaction. The intent ... is to make the other person wrong... of making them lose face. The tone is adversarial... the burden of change is on the other person... Calling people forth, in contrast, comes from a place of service and an open heart. ... It feels more like coaching than scolding." - …

While aimed at news organisation leaders, a lot of these insights apply to any organisation in the content creation business today: "When your mother lectured you that “actions speak louder than words,” she was giving important advice for culture change... if the leaders aren’t setting an example of change, don’t be surprised if change is slow or…

An organisation which cannot remember cannot learn; an organisation which cannot learn cannot improve.

""There's no right structure for an engineering team," says Thrall. "It really depends on where you are in product development. We have things that are pods, that are product-focused or feature-focused. That's your first family." The second family engineers belong to are working groups—say, of developers familiar with Apple's iOS or Google's Andr…

"Employees responded that only 54% of the time spent in meetings was time well spent. They cited unclear meeting purpose, unnecessary standing meetings, overly long meetings and unnecessary attendees as reasons for unproductive meetings." - Kill the weekly meeting – Quartz

"These APIs will usually take text in the form of a file or URL, and ... identifies the topic of the text you submit, and/or finds “named entities” in the text.... include people, places, organizations, nations... Given that there are several APIs that offer similar services, how can we (and you) choose between them?" - Semantic APIs, what to co…

Last year I decided to get Information Overload under control, setting up a GTD system with a DoIt-driven morning routine and Pocket, Diigo and IFTTT to queue, store and share useful stuff. I was all set. For what, I wasn't sure. But I was sure as hell organised. And then, a couple of days ago, an article on Aeon - What good is information? -…

"some skeptics in the organization feel that innovation is an overhyped buzzword that doesn’t justify being a separate function. So, what can you do in your first 100 days to set things off on the right track?" - The Chief Innovation Officer’s 100-Day Plan - Scott Anthony, and Robyn Bolton - Harvard Business Review

Lessmeeting looks like a cool tool. Even if you don't try it: "Below is our best practices guide to writing meeting agendas, capturing meeting minutes and following up on action items:"

"The worst part about meetings? Usually, they lead to more meetings." A lot to like here. I have 3 meetings with upper mgt per month, and a short Skypescrum with my colleagues every morning. The rest of the time I work from home. Sounds like many have a worse time: "weekly meetings ... often have no justification for existing and usually can be …

"Why is it so hard to get platforms on which people can help each other solve practical challenges or understand strategic directions better to take hold in our organisations? I reckon it comes down to the fear of being judged... Being found wanting by your friends is one thing but being judged by your peers or your boss represents a whole differ…