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...

Now, where's the thought? Barclays' latest TV ad sets a new low standard for the bank. Davidreviews has a stream of it here. It's a fantasy in which a young executive creates a debit card that can be made to vanish at a touch....

$400,000 to stay the same Stefan Liute points to the absurd story of Singapore authorities paying Interbrand $400,000 to rebrand Marina Bay... only to decide to leave the name unchanged. The really funny part of the coverage is this:Finding the right name for the city-state's...

I spoke too soon So yesterday I smugly say that conferences where we have to sit and endure powerpoint are "exactly the kind of event I would avoid these days." And yet barely 3 hours later, I saunter into Six Apart's evening blogging conference...

Book overload rant I'm putting this in the Dr Rant category because I don't want you to take it too literally. I am being rhetorical; please comment back rhetorically if it pleases you. I'm also going to generalise sweepingly. Forgive me in advance,...

Phone Spam Chris Lawer takes aim at Peppers and Rogers. The champions of one-to-one marketing are hitching their cart to "voice marketing". That's Phone Spam to you and me. Idiotic answerphone messages trying to sell me things. I'm increasingly weary of answering...