Yesterday I wrote about the idea that we might be able to change the way we think about employment – building roles that suit people’s skills, rather than forcing them into boxes that might not be the right shape for them. That came out of a chat I had last week with David Nordfors, the mastermind behind i4j. We talked …
Square pegs, dodecahedral holes (part 1) [post 31/100]
How did you get the job you’ve got? What other kinds of jobs could you get? I’ve had cause to think about this again lately, since I’ve been invited to participate in the i4j think tank. This happened just as a totally arbitrary reminder came up that I was going to write something about T-shaped vs. Q-shaped vs. Square vs. …
Behold, the robot… invasion? [posts 27-28/100]
This week is MEX15, always a fun event but particularly so for me this time, as I was invited not only to speak but to facilitate some creative sessions with the goal of producing some design principles around my topic, which is robots. Since I’m pretty deeply engaged with what’s happening here, this post will have to stand for yesterday …
Good help is hard to find [post 26/100]
In 2009, Air France suffered the deadliest crash in its history. The short story is that due to a fairly common sensor failure, the autopilot disengaged. Pilots then made a series of questionable decisions that ultimately led to the crash. So, who’s at fault, was the question? Should it be blamed on the human pilots or the technology that failed? …
Waste not, want not (the mystery of the design-resistant startup) [post 25/100]
One of the students in the session I taught on Wednesday night – a super-bright 21 year old working for a startup – said he’s grown frustrated with the attitudes in the startup community, which always seem to demand a quite narrow “value proposition” defined more in business terms than in human terms. I’ve noticed this too of course, and …
Uber: another side to the story (part 2) [post 24/100]
Yesterday I started a post about what lies under the usual Uber arguments. Today it continues… 4. Uber shows you (the gaps in) the local market In London, UberEx is almost always a better experience than the local minicab company. Having spoken to loads of Uber drivers, I now know that the best of them are refugees from the minicab …
Uber: another side to the story (part 1) [post 23/100]
I can’t seem to get away from Uber lately – if it’s not another article on its disruptive genius or its double-digit-billions valuation, it’s another article about its equally disruptive misogyny. While both of these are valid discussions, I think there’s more to the picture than I see in a lot of the stories about the former (I’m not arguing …
Mysterious switches and other design phenomena [post 22/100]
I spent last night in one of my favourite hotels. As always, the bed was super-comfy, the room was beautifully appointed, the service was friendly and all was very comfortable. I appreciated, as I always do, the presence of not only power plugs but also USB ports at either side of the headboard – you’d be amazed at how few …
Chicken Little goes to SXSW* [post 21/100]
Have you heard about the anti-robot protest at SXSW? I read about it this morning and it just made me sad. On the one hand, it’s great that people care about how technology is evolving; on the other hand it’s sad that the thinking is still so simplistic and binary. Down the centuries, every new technological breakthrough has been condemned, …