DIY Disaster Relief - local level can be faster, cheaper, more effective
by Tony Quinlan on Nov 22, 2010 8:47:53 PM
One of the things that struck me from the work we did the other year in Pakistan was that current aid and disaster relief often works top-down, with governments and NGOs putting in large programmes and amounts of funding at the national or, at best, regional level. Where control (or t …
Practicalities and applications - SenseMaker in application
by Tony Quinlan on Nov 12, 2010 2:06:13 PM
Two great sessions last week at the QEII Conference Centre with Dave Snowden of Cognitive Edge. The shift from theory to practical application of new management techniques based on principles of complexity, cognitive neuroscience, anthropology and others has been remarkably swift in r …
Get the story straight - Storytelling in Communications 1
by Tony Quinlan on Oct 26, 2010 5:00:58 PM
The opening gambit of more than one past client project has been "help us get our story straight". Sometimes it's just that - the general story - sometimes it's something specific: "help us get our customer story straight", "our story on leadership". It's an interesting starting point …
Seminar workshop: Practical approaches to intractable problems
by Tony Quinlan on Oct 21, 2010 4:36:00 PM
I mentioned this on Wednesday. Details are finalised:
Doing more with less: detecting shifts, spotting weak signals - SenseMaker I
by Tony Quinlan on Oct 19, 2010 10:14:00 AM
I promised a series of posts talking about using SenseMaker. They'll be interspersed over the coming weeks with others - I don't particularly want to be singing a one-note song and sending you all away in search of diversity...
Organisational amnesia - is it safe to let go yet?
by Tony Quinlan on Oct 14, 2010 11:59:35 AM
The UK is having a bonfire today, well ahead of the usual Guy Fawkes Night celebrations. The Bonfire of the Quangos will be abolishing somewhere in the region of 180 QUasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisations today in a bid to cut costs and reduce the confusion around these organ …
No sweat - the myth that getting hold of stories is difficult
by Tony Quinlan on Oct 13, 2010 6:02:26 PM
There is a moment of great relief that comes in every client's experience - the moment when the stories start to come in. And then the delight that not only are they coming in, but they're coming in volume!
Where's the pilot?
by Tony Quinlan on Oct 12, 2010 2:53:49 PM
When did you last try something new? Or test a brilliant new insight? What have you done differently in your job recently?
Attribution is complicated, targets are unable to see contribution
by Tony Quinlan on Oct 11, 2010 10:34:46 PM
I'm spending time this afternoon at the launch of the UK office of the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie). While it's a subject I'm keenly interested in, it's not one in which I've got depth of understanding. I struggle sometimes to understand some of the conversatio …
The Merger - Baby steps
by Tony Quinlan on Oct 6, 2010 2:22:10 PM
Part of my time this year is being spent as an adviser to two organisations that are merging. It makes an interesting example of a merger process. All relevant posts on the process are collected under the Merger tag.