Luis Suarez over at ELSUA has just tagged me in a virtual cocktail party. What does that mean? I gather that when you’re tagged you tell five things people might not know about you, then tag five more bloggers. So here are five things people might not know about me. My original degree was in geography and […]

I was at the Salesforce.com Christmas drinks a couple of weeks ago and as part of the entertainment we watched a few short films. All the films are available at www.niceshorts.com.au but there was one in particular I thought you might like because it illustrates how we build stories to understand people and how often we […]

Metaphors are powerful for understanding what makes people really tick. Forget asking people what they think about a situation; ask them what comes to mind regarding how things really get done around here when you see these three characters? Each character is from Arthur’s The Organizational Zoo, a humorous collection of animal metaphors depicting people […]

I have a confession. I love stationery. Dave Snowden calls it the stationery gene and I’m sure it’s firmly embedded in my DNA. So I’ve been enjoying peaking into Notebookism which seems to be all things stationery and I marvelled at a recent post on the world’s thinnest pen, the Uniball Signo Bit 0.18 mm gel […]

The guys over at Signal vs Noise have it right. Fun is not at the other end of serious. You can have fun and be serious, creative, engaged, productive. Large companies are the worst offenders. It’s a false choice, not a real fight. And you accept its premise at your own peril. Fun is all […]

The guys at www.blogday.org has asked bloggers to list 5 blogs you love reading. Well, here are my five: http://www.vpscin.org/ – all the happenings in the Victorian Public Sector http://37signals.com/svn/ – all about online services http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/ – the author of the no asshole rule http://davidmaister.com/blog – on professional services http://gladwell.typepad.com/gladwellcom/ – new ways to look at the world If you […]

About two weeks ago my wife entered and won a Toastmasters humorous speech competition. Her winning speech was “searching for a soulmate”. It was about looking for a dog (thankfully not a new husband).  I’ve noticed how much people warm to dogs. Okay I might be a dog person, rather than a cat person, but […]

Stephen Colbert, the comedian who brought us the devastating roast of George W. Bush at the 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner, has outlined how you can be an expert in anything. Good advice for people wishing to fine tune their bullshit detectors. Here are Stephen’s 6 headings. Check out his article in Wired for the detail […]

What happens when you cross a well known Improv guru with a company passionate about story? You get a new workshop, of course! With Izzy Gesell coming all the way from the USA to Australia in November we have worked together to design a new workshop called “Change your story Change your world”. How story […]

I’ve always has an admiration for anyone who can display complex information simply. This is why Edward Tufte’s books, like Envisioning Information, are among my favourites. Nerida Hart sent me this link which I think you’ll find impressive: http://www.gapminder.org/ Nerida, when are you going to get a blog so I can link to this cool information […]