2019

No Trust; Always verify. How to keep your business safe in a scary world.

General /

Photo by Florian Klauer on Unsplash This guide is intended for senior technologists and tech-aware execs in small and medium size firms, especially rapidly scaling startups. It’s not meant for very large businesses or security professionals, and it’s certainly not meant to replace their advice. A sad truth of the internet age is that it’s almost […]

No Trust; Always verify. How to keep your business safe in a scary world. Read More »

The joy of climbing and the fear of falling: How becoming a climber made me better at my job

General /

Five years ago I discovered rock climbing. To be precise, I discovered ‘indoor climbing’ with a group of work colleagues. It was one of those team building events where we were taken to do challenging things in the hope that we would become a ‘high performance team’. Whether we became ‘high performance’ is still questionable,

The joy of climbing and the fear of falling: How becoming a climber made me better at my job Read More »

Putting tech to work — getting the business technology basics right with the Opinionated Tech Stack

General, Uncategorized /

Business technology is often unloved — email, laptops, finance systems and sales tools just don’t feel as important as building a great product. But getting business tech wrong will cost money and may even kill your business. A slice through Ridley’s Opinonated Tech Stack Why do I care about Business Tech? As a CTO, I spent many years of

Putting tech to work — getting the business technology basics right with the Opinionated Tech Stack Read More »

What’s the perfect team size? Getting it right really does make a difference.

General, Uncategorized /

Whether you’re a big company looking to move fast or a small startup growing your team, size really does matter. Photo by Eva Blue on Unsplash Jeff Bezos, of the Amazon, is famously (if unreliably) credited with coining the two-pizza rule. This rule states that any team should be well-fed with only two pizzas, and is intended

What’s the perfect team size? Getting it right really does make a difference. Read More »

A little less strategy, a little more action; why most successful companies fail at strategy

General, Uncategorized /

I used to believe that strategy was a necessary component for success in business. We’ve been taught this in 50,000 books about strategy. We’ve looked to the military, been inspired by Sun Tzu, ogled the luminous foresight of Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. We’ve been sold the desirability of disruptive innovation and the lustre of

A little less strategy, a little more action; why most successful companies fail at strategy Read More »

If your process doesn’t change, you’re doing it wrong

General, Uncategorized /

Photo by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash I’ve recently been reading Creativity, Inc, Ed Catmull’s description of the history of culture and processes at Pixar. Pixar’s journey, from a 3D rendering startup to its current place at the centre of the Disney empire has been influenced by luminaries like George Lucas and Steve Jobs, and more so

If your process doesn’t change, you’re doing it wrong Read More »

The biggest Tech Trends of 2019 so far: what’s happening in big tech, startups, social and gaming

General, Uncategorized /

Each year, I pull together the biggest tech trends and events for the last year. Originally, this was a tribute to the amazing team that I worked with at Reed for their hard work over the year. Now, it’s tending towards an obsession. Part Mary Meeker, part Black Mirror and a sprinkle of Rude Tube,

The biggest Tech Trends of 2019 so far: what’s happening in big tech, startups, social and gaming Read More »

The organisational implications of using employee messaging for data science

General, Uncategorized /

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash This article is a fairly technical take on the organisational challenges of using employee messaging like email, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business, Facebook for Work etc. This article is aimed at CTOs, DPOs, People Analytics professionals and vendors, and discusses the operational and compliance challenges of corporate message analysis.

The organisational implications of using employee messaging for data science Read More »

Scroll to Top