Government reports I have a longstanding beef about what I call celebrity government reports. The MO is this: some contentious issue arises in society. The government responds by appointing someone to do a report. The choice of author is often capricious but...

Enough crappy conferences, already I'm getting to a certain age and I think I've been to enough crappy conferences and events in this lifetime. I am all for adventure and risking failure. But I'm also in favour of learning from experience. So I'm not...

Change myths This HBR post attempts to evaluate Obama's record on change management, based on a four step model. I'm instinctively wary of models and this one strikes me as typically trite and questionable. The first step is to "make the case...

Behaviour change, revisited Please don't take this too literally, I just need to get this off my chest. A while back, Mark posted some good provocative challenges to notions about behaviour change. Geoff has just weighed in with some good thoughts of his...

Change management and mistaking green for gold A few years back, a well-known consultancy business decided to abandon its dress convention of dark suits and white shirts and said folks could dress casual. But quite soon, they decided to make it a bit clearer just what counted...

Bourn impudent Warning: bad language ahead. I rarely read newspapers or magazines, but I do regularly pick up Private Eye. Lately, the Eye has done a terrific job uncovering the lifestlye - and that is the right word - of Sir John...

Podcast: Shadow in Organisations (part 2) Here's part 2 of my podcast conversation with Annette Clancy and Matt Moore. You'll find part 1 here. Our chat about the shadow side of organisations branches off here into looking at the role played by Knowledge Management (and Human...

Not computers and not children but rather like chimps I keep meaning to write a long, well-argued rant against a basic assumption in much corporate thinking: that we're all basically computers on legs that simply need reprogramming to achieve excellence. Excellence, in this context, is a little hard to...

What's in a logo? The new logo for the 2012 Olympics has been launched, accompanied by the customary list of contrived quotes about what it allegedly conveys to people. These always sound as daft as wine critics finding notes of rhubarb and spinach in...

Enough moralising, already In the Guardian, Jonathan Freedland says The revolutionary public space that online debate represents is in danger of becoming stale and claustrophobicIt's a longish piece that is a bit like one of my terrible college essays, on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand, but the overall...

Code of conduct Oh dear, I'm still feeling a bit ranty this morning. Perhaps this will exorcise my demons? Here is a draft code of conduct for this blog. 1 If you look thatat the entire content of this blog, you'll get some...

Some professional communication James Byford posts about the link up between Technorati and Ogilvy. James raises some good questions about what it means. I find the comments Technorati make about it depressingly full of hype and jargon. To start with, could we be...

One Word Equity James posts about Maurice Saatchi's thoughts on the future of advertising. Saatchi's article is tucked away behind the FT paywall. James critiques it very well. Essentially Saatchi says advertising is dead (on the same day his agency is running... er...

Winer wars and the trouble with lawyers I'm way behind on my blog reading after my holiday, so I've only just caught up with the hoo hah over the battle between Dave Winer and Rogers Cadenhead. I found out via Stowe Boyd's thoughtful post: What we can...

Barclays spends £5m on trivia Oh dear. Since last October I have managed to avoid posting in my Dr Rant category, but today I am unwilling to hold back. According to the Daily Mirror, Barclays Bank is spending £5m "changing the way it talks to...