Category: Insights
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The Zurich Axioms: A Summary through the Lens of Antifragility
The Zurich Axioms are based on the axioms that Swiss bankers have used to increase and preserve wealth over generations. I decided to look at the axioms through the lens of antifragility and with coaching principles in mind in order to better understand how to apply them. It’s all very well reading the axioms and…
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Applying Governance and Constraints to Jira to Increase the Potential for Agility
Customisable software is a double-edged sword. Whilst flexibility means that we can customise a piece of software to the unique needs of an organisation (and even to various unique needs within an organisation), the downside is that too much unaligned and unconstrained customisation, increases the risk that a chaotic system ensues. This is particularly problematic…
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New Book: “Escaping the Dopaminferno” and Reimagining Books
Escaping the Dopaminferno – dopaminferno.com Over the past year, Matt Gwyther and I have been tinkering away in the background! After we did our first dopamine detox we carried on reading, exploring, collecting quotes and tweets, following references, talking to people, taking their recommendations, watching talks and podcasts, making notes, etc etc. And then ……
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IKEA Hack Platform Bed
Ikea hack platform bed Ikea Hack Platform Bed made with ikea Kura beds and birch ply I’ve used three Kura beds. The tops have been cut off. I drilled into the frame to make the screws flush so that I can place the frames together. I reinforced the frames with upright supports using the leftover…
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The Persistence of Children
Yesterday afternoon we were mucking about on a wooden pirate ship next to a river. I was there with my daughter (5 yo) and a friend and his son. The two kids were playing happily on the top deck. My friend and I decided to try and get our kids off the boat. We tried…
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Capacity for Adaptability
Whilst watching a documentary about reindeer herders in the Siberian Taiga, the narrator said that the nomads have a ‘high capacity for adaptability’. It might just have been a throw-away comment, but it made a lot of sense and I wondered about it afterwards. Was it true? It was more than being adaptable. What was…
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Journeys to the Ends of the Earth – Trading in East Africa
In a delightful episode of this series (Journeys to the End of the Earth), the photographer, David Adams, joins a crew of dhow sailors as they sail along the East African coast trading from port to port. They have no compass nor maps to rely on, and sail without motor and electricity – just using…
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Some Problems sort themselves out
Not every problem needs to be dealt with straight away. Sometimes, they don’t need to be solved or sometimes some dithering is no bad thing. I remember once when my daughter was very young. We needed a gate to put on the stairs to stop her crawling and falling down the stairs. I was round…
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Some perspective
I remember my father told me a story about when we lived in India many years ago. Somebody in the village was collecting stories from the local village girls and translating them into English. It seemed to be part of some kind of scheme or charity to help these girls rebuild their lives. Somehow or…
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Inefficiency, optimization & timelessness
I sent a question out to Tobias Mayer and he kindly responded: Q. The best things in life are all inefficient. How do you reconcile inefficiency and ‘optimization / lean / agile’ in your life and maybe even commercial work? And to what end? I haven’t really figured it out but found a clue in…