Monday, 20 May 2019

Innovating Fire


Tuesday, 14 May 2019

Just whos folly is it anyway?

It is arrogance to attribute our own folly to others. To say that “we all do  . . [this bad or stupid thing or that]” or “if we are honest with ourselves we all do/think  . . [this bad or stupid thing or that]” . Like, "we all eat too much fat" It might make us feel better, or at least smugger and wiser, but the truth is that not everybody shares our weaknesses - but it is more humble to understand some people have overcome things that we have not.

Wednesday, 8 May 2019

The vanity of Socrates

The Greek philosopher Socrates is attributed as saying "The only thing I know is that I know nothing". As a kid I would be screaming inside my head - no Socrates - you do not even know that . . . not even that. To be fair, it is only after his time that Aristotle started dabbling in empiricism and we actually got to the stage where we could build up a body of what we know to be false.

So things have actually improved since Socrates and it is false humility to pretend or assume ignorance of all around you (which was Plato’s aim in attributing that quote to Socrates). But don’t think that any of this will stop me challenging your views or models (or learning from you - but building your experience and life knowledge it into a bigger picture).

That's how we make progress on a day to day basis and build a better understanding and structure of knowledge - and from that a better world.

Monday, 6 May 2019

The true cost of innovation.

Steve Jobs reminds us that beyond a basic threshold Innovation has nothing to do with how many R & D dollars you have.

He lets us remember that when Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R & D.

The same was true of Tesla vs the whole auto industry, SpaceX compared with NASA.

It's not about money (although of course you need some).

It's about the people you have, how they're led, and how much the leadership “get it”.