Why Is It So Hard To Listen?

When I became involved with ‘knowledge management’ in a large science and technology organisation (over 10,000 staff), the subtle role of conversations became apparent. Sometimes even little asides or passing comments could lead to unexpected and interesting connections and occasionally even opportunities. Persuing this topic further, it’s helpful to distinguish between discussions and dialogue (see

Insight Versus Experience

“A moment’s insight is sometimes worth a lifetime’s experience.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes Jnr (American jurist)

Beauty and Patterns

I was interested to read on the School of Life site that one approach to beauty was to classify it as the sweet spot between order and chaos. It’s main thrust was architecture, something that affects us all. Too much order and things look boring whilst a chaotic situation (say a heavily built up main

Grand Challenges and Anticipating the Future

I met up with a colleague recently who works in the transport area and she recommended I take a look at a couple of articles including (for general context) the UK Innovation Strategy. The document detailing this (published in Nov 2017) can be found here, including: “As well as setting a path to improved productivity,

What’s your Minimum Viable Product?

I think this is a really brilliant graphic, it really gets you thinking – which route am I (perhaps unintentionally) taking? Pity about the awful name though, Minimum Viable Product. It applies to developing ideas and plans of course, not just commercial products. More, for example, here.

Ask the Chauffeur

A fun story spotted in The Telegraph and reproduced here: One of the most important figures in quantum mechanics was the German physicist Max Planck. After he won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1918, he undertook a lecture tour of Germany. “Naturally enough the lectures he delivered to the various audiences were more or less identical,

Courage And Confidence

I had a meeting with a friend yesterday where we discussed the key ingredients for successfully developing new ideas/startups etc. In particular, the differing roles that emotions and logical thinking play in making decisions that stick. This brought to mind a recent post by Ed Batista on the difference between confidence and courage: We may

Politics

Spotted in The Independent today (which incidentally has a much needed refresh of it’s website): “Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich by promising to protect each from the other” – Oscar Ameringer If, like me, you’ve never heard of him, there’s an interesting description

Getting And Presenting Ideas Gone Wrong

Other similar and amusing videos from Duarte here.

Thought Experiments And Thinking Differently

The following thought experiment is attributed to the German Gestalt psychologist Karl Dunker: One morning, exactly at sunrise, a Buddhist monk began to climb a tall mountain. The narrow path, no more than a foot or two wide, spiraled around the mountain to a glittering temple at the summit. The monk ascended the path at