• Way of the minimalist for creative productivity

    The way of the minimalist is to “remove until it breaks”. As Henry David Thoreau once said, “Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify”. I subscribe to this philosophy 💯 although I don’t always live up to it. New research just out validates this view and especially when it comes to creative…


  • The employee customer experience connection – fundamentals

    Here is an infographic with some supporting source material and an industry overview for context if you want it. Here too is where my interest and expertise in this space lie. This post is intended to dig a little deeper on the subject. Check out the diagram which captures a little more detail than I’ve…


  • Update on As a Service Trends

    Sources for image gallery plus other related articles: Culture: The Biggest Challenge in Getting the Subscription Model Right MaaS transit: The business of mobility as a service The first era of SaaS ends: ‘Best of breed’ was prelude to ‘systems of delivery’ Smart Growth: the Case for Measuring Brain Capital Customer Experience Redefined: Insights From Chief Customer Officers on the Frontlines Top 10 IT…


  • The backlash to video calling and the alternatives

    Okay I wouldn’t call just one decision from the CEO of a major bank the indication of a backlash: Citigroup CEO ordains Zoom-free Fridays to ease ‘relentless’ pandemic workday. But come on, how many tales have you already heard of similar woes. Zoom fatigue has become a thing. And its not just about Zoom. Microsoft…


  • State of a category – customer success 2021

    I’ve been in this space formally for almost 10 years now. I say formally because I’ve been doing the work a lot longer, just under another name. I’ve been passionate about it all these years and still am but after that long, you’ve got to question things. I’ve written on the state of customer success…


  • A year of tech in charts – pandemic edition

    All the charts (click on any to view enlarged) come from an article in the The Information from various different sources: 12 Charts That Show How Tech Took Off During a Year of Shutdowns. The full article requires a subscription but I can share access to The Information with 5 friends or colleagues completely free…


  • Considering Microsoft Teams as a Platform – get started with App templates

    In several foundational pieces I have written about Microsoft Teams as a Platform (disclosure). This post gets to some of the detail and focuses on a simple way to get started with use of App templates in Teams. This is a big focus of my work with customers at the moment and I give an…


  • In an age of machines human organisations matter – an ode to joy

    There is an explosion of automation, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning with many fearing job losses. In the attention economy we have proliferation of social media, questionable content, digital addiction, etc. Freedom of expression knows no bounds yet sensitivities are tested like never before. There are many benefits to adopting these tools and approaches and there…


  • Accentures Technology Vision 2021

    From the article this 👇 “Small pilots and incremental scaling are an obsolete luxury, and the friction between research, development, and large-scale deployment must diminish or disappear.”


  • Employee customer experience connection – infographic

    Sources Harvard Business Review: The Key to Happy Customers? Happy EmployeesJosh Bersin: The Massive Market Impact of Microsoft VivaGoogle Trends More here


  • What hope, the individual, drowning in a deluge of content?

    I’ve been blogging on and off since at least 2005 in various forms or another, on many different platforms. This one is now 5 years old 🥳 (cue celebratory badge). The death knell for blogging has been tolled many times since. Social media and always on access through mobile phones have led to massive proliferation…


  • Employee Experience Platform – the birth of a category

    This week, Microsoft announced the launch of a new product called Viva (disclosure). Actually it is far more than a new product in many ways. It is also an attempt at consolidating technologies in the employee experience category as well as creating the category. It is also a shrewd leverage of the Teams as a…


  • On Microsoft Teams and building digital ecosystems and platform businesses

    In a recent FT article (registration required) based on an interview with Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, he makes the point that “Teams is on its way to becoming a digital platform as significant as the internet browser, or a computer operating system”. I work with customers on their use of Microsoft Teams (disclosure) day…


  • Tech trends of 2021 number 31

    The title of this post is based on an article from Fast Company: Here are the top tech trends of 2021, according to 30 experts. I am adding to the 30. Note I excluded any reference to myself as an expert – I abhor the term. I wouldn’t call myself an expert but I have…