Welcome to Muse & Reason, I'm Dr Robert N. Winter and this is my public Memex. A place for articles, essays and jottings.
This site is loosely divided into the categories of history, leadership, philosophy, and technology.
Leading Change and Managing Complexity
When Line Managers lack the hard skills of process design and implementation, the capacity to initiate changes in procedure, or the ability to write sound policy, and instead try to *lead* their team to success by hiring or co-opting other managers in the business to solve their problems, an engine of chaos is created.
Read MoreLeading Change and Managing ComplexityThe Ties of Informal Leadership
Structural and qualitative criteria can be applied in analysing employee interactions to answer: Are the people in my team effective informal leaders or merely highly social people building their brand?
Read MoreThe Ties of Informal LeadershipThe Boundaries of Informal Leadership
Strengthened organisational hierarchies can be a path out of the mire of evermore specialised roles and excessively collaborative work environments. However, even with an effective and open hierarchy in place, informal leadership is critical to organisational efficiency and success.
Read MoreThe Boundaries of Informal LeadershipAre Hierarchies Healthy for Organisations?
You can have high performing teams with deep hierarchies, so long as there is an open model to knowledge access. But when knowledge hiding goes on, hierarchies tend to erode team performance.
Read MoreAre Hierarchies Healthy for Organisations?Managing as a Coach
By stepping away from being a subject matter expert and toward a focus on people and coaching, a manager is in a much better position to transform their job into a leadership role.
Read MoreManaging as a CoachThe Value of a Chief of Staff
A good CoS helps a leader achieve their potential in a sustainable way that delivers long term success when managing complex organisations.
Read MoreThe Value of a Chief of StaffLeading Psychological Safety in Teams
The challenges in creating psychological safety are in some ways more complex for managers because they not only need to lead the process, but also lead themselves in the initiation of the process.
Read MoreLeading Psychological Safety in TeamsRecovery Experiences and Your Mood at Work
By taking charge of our recovery experiences, we have the power to become masters of our mood at work.
Read MoreRecovery Experiences and Your Mood at WorkRunning Effective Meetings
Meetings are the space in our day we make to provide some sort of service to other people.
Read MoreRunning Effective MeetingsA Psychological Safety Primer
Going against the grain may make people feel unsafe, yet it is through this process that true psychological safety is ultimately achieved — because people feel safe to feel unsafe and to challenge the status quo.
Read MoreA Psychological Safety PrimerDEI: A Continuum of Acceptance, Understanding, and Questioning
Successful DEI comes down to balance — ensuring that belief doesn't descend into ideology. A process that is founded on the bedrock of psychological safety.
Read MoreDEI: A Continuum of Acceptance, Understanding, and QuestioningLeading AI-First Organisations
By employing leaders capable of creating an AI framework — because they are awake and aware to the unintended effects of AI on social well-being, data integrity and privacy, diversity, and governance — organisations seeking to transform into being AI-first are well positioned to engage in trustworthy and responsible AI use.
Read MoreLeading AI-First OrganisationsForging Resilience Through Adaptability
As our adaptability mindset strengthens, resilience will also improve because individuals and teams are better equipped to absorb shocks today and use the energy to bounce forward into sustainable growth tomorrow.
Read MoreForging Resilience Through AdaptabilityLeading At Scale
When leadership is exerted in this form, organisations become increasingly accountable, agile, and autonomous — all the while operating at scale. At this point, an organisation can truly be described as 'purpose-driven' — a genuinely awesome competitive advantage.
Read MoreLeading At ScaleRemote Working Policies
Setting boundaries will see some employee attrition, but those who remain will feel a heightened sense of trust and an improved quality of employment.
Read MoreRemote Working PoliciesMinding the Capability Gap
Once the capability gap is closed, instead of feeling fear and frustration about not knowing how to perform a role or achieve an outcome, staff are empowered to deliver value and be rewarded for their achievement.
Read MoreMinding the Capability GapA Challenging Time for Talent Management
In an era of heightened employee mobility, hybrid work environments, and a skills shortage, the idea of matching great talent with critical roles may not be new, but it is more essential than ever.
Read MoreA Challenging Time for Talent ManagementRecovering From The Great Attrition
The challenge for managers is that we are no longer comparing apples with apples. Instead, we must leverage the power of personas to better understand the individuals that make up our teams.
Read MoreRecovering From The Great AttritionMental Health As A Strategic Issue
While the overall numbers of people affected by mental health issues is a cause for concern, perhaps as alarming are the number of firms or individual managers who engaging in well-being washing.
Read MoreMental Health As A Strategic IssueBe Bold With Efficiency Aspirations
By tackling some of the common problems, teams and organisations will be well placed to achieve aspirational efficiency objectives. When this happens, we can get one of those virtuous circles in which the approach sticks and compounds over the years.
Read MoreBe Bold With Efficiency AspirationsAnchoring Teams Through Transformation
By adopting this approach, we will not only end up writing good, albeit not perfect, OKRs, but also take that vital step in the practice of management; taking individuals or teams outside their zone of comfort to learn, improve, and explore — ultimately achieving meaningful transformation that unlocks value for the organisation.
Read MoreAnchoring Teams Through TransformationSustaining Value in the Transformation Life Cycle
No fixed set of actions can define, measure, or achieve success. Thus, trying to make transformation a tick box affair is to setup an organisation for failure. This is because successful transformation is as much about the process as it is about the outcome.
Read MoreSustaining Value in the Transformation Life CycleEnabling Managers in a GenMe Landscape
Providing more structure, not less, in both the daily tasks of employees and their perceptions about career pathways, offers the strongest viable path to improved staff retention and higher team performance.
Read MoreEnabling Managers in a GenMe LandscapeChallenges for Leadership when Managing GenMe
By reframing the leadership models presented, propositions for managers can be advanced to enable better leadership of people with GenMe attitudes.
Read MoreChallenges for Leadership when Managing GenMeLeading GenMe
Given the obvious dichotomy in this approach to work generations, the practical implications for management are that the leadership theories many have encountered will struggle to provide solutions when it comes to developing coherent teams.
Read MoreLeading GenMeGreat Managers Free Up Their Time
Managers often fail to build autonomous teams,keeping themselves in a job to solve for problems which should have long since been put behind the organisation.
Read MoreGreat Managers Free Up Their TimeThunderous Ambivalence
Because being off the grid is next to impossible in many societies, it is tempting to give up and proclaim 'I have nothing to hide'.
Read MoreThunderous AmbivalenceDefund the Police — Yet Again
No matter which way you look at it, police popularity seems to be at something of a low ebb with even the usually excoriated politicians enjoying something of a bump in the polls when compared to the men and women in blue.
Read MoreDefund the Police — Yet AgainEpochs Within Epochs
While our own short lives may lack the eternality of the Holy Spirit we can transcend events by our choices. Choices which, religious or not, have deep and long lasting moral implications.
Read MoreEpochs Within EpochsThe Effective WIP
The value of a WIP is to discuss and monitor results. Unpacking how the outcomes of work relate to the organisation's strategic goals.
Read MoreThe Effective WIPActing for Privacy – An Australian Story
There is the case to be made that this is not only the cost of doing business in the digital age but that, like environmental protections, there are great rewards to be reaped in improved quality of life.
Read MoreActing for Privacy – An Australian StoryTempus Fugit
As Apple's privacy respecting posture gives way to the pull of marketing dollars through making user data the product, their third way begins to fall short.
Read MoreTempus FugitOn Replies and ‘Reply Guys’
We do well to live and let live, we also do well to post and let post. Devote what limited energy we are gifted with to thought and the formulation of our views and let the 'reply guys' reply. They are, generally, all sound and fury signifying nothing.
Read MoreOn Replies and ‘Reply Guys’Our Mind is a Blurry Image of Life
The hope is much, for having gotten this far is to be forewarned and thus forearmed. In that we do well to employ scepticism when listening to a human interlocutor. Because even the best of us are filling in the blanks in our memory.
Read MoreOur Mind is a Blurry Image of LifeGhost Writers — Rise of the Machines
Ultimately, I do not think the problem is that we are building machines so ‘smart’ that their output is indistinguishable from human compositions. The problem is that we are educating humans whose output is so illiterate, and devoid of experience, it is indistinguishable from computer generated text.
Read MoreGhost Writers — Rise of the MachinesAn Opportunity Afforded
This is why some people will look at a library and see a wealth of opportunity, while others will see the same space and same books and apprehend only barriers to entry or exclusion from a world in which they think they have no part to play.
Read MoreAn Opportunity AffordedAs ‘An’ Historian
Modernists may disagree, but if challenged by these dangerous revolutionaries, refer them to the below and the glorious roots of our language.
Read MoreAs ‘An’ HistorianAutodeleting the Public Record
Rage if you will and burn screen time if you like — I simply accept if I want my thoughts to be personal and private then I ought not post them online.
Read MoreAutodeleting the Public RecordReview — Doom, The Politics of Catastrophe
So long as we keep our heads while all around are loosing theirs, never dwelling too long on exaggerated threats, we are in a position to muddle through.
Read MoreReview — Doom, The Politics of CatastropheA Warning From Content
You can join me in camp confusion or post using or not using CWs with a certainty that would make a prophet blush.
Read MoreA Warning From ContentTwas Gunpowder Treason Day
As late as 2015, Royals who married Catholics were removed from the line of succession, and Prime Ministers avoided disclosing their Catholicism in office.
Read MoreTwas Gunpowder Treason DayQuestions for a Future Employer
An interview is a crossroad, one at which you are making a choice between merely seeking a job and wage or using the opportunity to grow a career.
Read MoreQuestions for a Future EmployerResponse — We Need To Stop Calling Ourselves Conservatives
Those of us who believe in the merits of conservatism, the road ahead is one on which it is more important than ever to start calling ourselves conservatives.
Read MoreResponse — We Need To Stop Calling Ourselves ConservativesReading More Efficiently And Effectively
I can well picture 'Hitch', cigarette languidly hanging from the corner of his mouth, hand clasped around a whisky glass, tossing the book toward the wastepaper bin, and then leaning back in his chair. Content in the knowledge he had repaid the reading in the only way fit.
Read MoreReading More Efficiently And EffectivelyCR III Royal Cypher
The design of the CR III cipher was produced by the College of Arms and continues a tradition of heraldry that has bound individual monarchs to the institution of monarchy for over a thousand years.
Read MoreCR III Royal CypherResponse – Why PI Planning is like a wolf in sheep’s clothing
When PI Planning is deployed by leaders who have the nuance, skill, and strategic capability to deliver an Agile project with a multi-year roadmap, PI Planning is an invaluable framework for program delivery.
Read MoreResponse – Why PI Planning is like a wolf in sheep’s clothingResponsibility, Ownership, Accountability
These are words we use often in an organisational context, but words that are seldom discussed; and when discussed, often done so opaquely or inaccurately.
Read MoreResponsibility, Ownership, AccountabilityThe Sources of Soviet Conduct
Today's Russia is pursuing the same aims as in 1946: autarchy for Russia and Russian-dominated adjacent areas by a leader, under pressure from nationalistic backers, who has miscalculated the situation.
Read MoreThe Sources of Soviet ConductTwenty Years of Firefox
Little did I know how consistently Firefox would be my window to the World Wide Web, nor how its security, and in time privacy focus, would shape my understanding of what it means to be online.
Read MoreTwenty Years of FirefoxOn Fairy-Stories and the Art of Fantasy
'Fantasy (in this sense) is, I think, not a lower but a higher form of Art, indeed the most nearly pure form, and so (when achieved) the most potent.'
Read MoreOn Fairy-Stories and the Art of FantasyWith a Quiet Heart
The Queen was an ever constant in a changeable and unpredictable world. Over seven decades, she was always there for us.
Read MoreWith a Quiet HeartThe Subjective Nature of ‘Nothing to Hide’
Whether you have something to hide has far more to do with who is looking than what they can see.
Read MoreThe Subjective Nature of ‘Nothing to Hide’Jotting – Anatomy of a Search Engine
I wonder if there is an alternative reading in which they did not make a conscious decision to be 'evil'?
Read MoreJotting – Anatomy of a Search Engine5 reasons I will be celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee
It becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.
Read More5 reasons I will be celebrating the Queen’s Platinum JubileePseudo-Profound Bullshit
In this context, we do well to reject the bullshitters of this world, but we do our understanding a disservice if we are sceptical to a fault.
Read MorePseudo-Profound BullshitAt A Journey’s End
I have a thesis of which I am proud, and a marriage to my beautiful wife Halaina — who has been a constant source of love, joy, and support as I laboured in the archives.
Read MoreAt A Journey’s EndThey Are Teachable
One of History's lessons is that once a group is deemed unteachable they will be placed in the category of an ever present threat to the preferred social order.
Read MoreThey Are TeachableHugo: Or, There and Back Again
Time again at a premium, I mused on my latest quest for minimalism. In doing so I realised that I was creating as many problems as I was solving.
Read MoreHugo: Or, There and Back AgainResponse — Sitting with Ambiguity
Sit with ambiguity, but be aware of when a seemingly circular conversation is enhancing a definitional understanding and when it is just a group of individuals unable to comprehend ambiguity hoping that a drawn out conversation will nail down the problem.
Read MoreResponse — Sitting with AmbiguityHow I Write — Long Form Research
From time to time, I contemplate how I publish. Mostly because I like 'the elegance of a refined workflow'.
Read MoreHow I Write — Long Form ResearchTeflon Leadership
Those who rise to the top jobs, do so not because they are better leaders or have fewer blots on their copybook — it is because they are better able to shrug off criticism and weather the blistering attacks that are directed at all holders of public office.
Read MoreTeflon LeadershipMoxie and the Server
To determine if the statement is 'true', we don't need to poll everyone — only to understand the category of the statement.
Read MoreMoxie and the ServerThe Linux Paradigm
In science, a paradigm is a model or pattern — a typical instance or exemplar. But in rhetoric, my chosen field, it is an example or guide as to how one should behave.
Read MoreThe Linux ParadigmPower and Control: Tech Billionaires in Politics
Don't worry about the populist, worry about what comes after them. And what is coming seems clear: Billionaires of the 2.0 revolution.
Read MorePower and Control: Tech Billionaires in PoliticsSanta Fe Emergent Engineering 2021: Niall Ferguson
Freeman Dyson famously wrote that “A good scientist is a person with original ideas. A good engineer is a person who makes a design that works with as few ideas as possible. There are no prima donnas in engineering.”
Read MoreSanta Fe Emergent Engineering 2021: Niall FergusonPolywork, A New Professional Network
I have often thought that an individual is far more than their job title or pay scale. Which means that even in a professional networking context, your portfolio of experience should also include your experiences.
Read MorePolywork, A New Professional NetworkFourth Way – Living in Harmony with our Online Presence
Instead of these three paths, the Fourth Way seeks to provide an alternative in which a student can seek to find a sense of mastery while still living their everyday life.
Read MoreFourth Way – Living in Harmony with our Online PresenceMy Copy of The Times
When we cut each other off from access to knowledge, we may preserve our copyright, but we run the risk of endangering our copy's posterity.
Read MoreMy Copy of The TimesLife is Long, Access is Short
If not accidentally lost, your data can vanish in other ways: the community project shutters, a company goes under, or the subset of services you use are axed.
Read MoreLife is Long, Access is ShortA Peer’s Tube
Winter Ink PeerTube will allow for the documenting and preservation of videos to which I can link in my ongoing speculations about life and art. Links, and the content they reference, which are permanent and will always work. A necessity to promote the adoption of individually-owned and controlled sovereign spaces which enable an open and healthy web.
Read MoreA Peer’s TubeIntellectual Warehouse
While access to information is now relatively more widespread than in the past, the modern paywall can often prove to be as much of a hurdle to access as the price of manuscripts was in yesteryear.
Read MoreIntellectual WarehouseThe New Cathedral Door
Does it truly safeguard that which is dangerous and true while restricting that which is dangerous and false, and does it arrive at this determination through a process of deliberation; or, does it merely replace one arbitrary determination for another about that which is dangerous.
Read MoreThe New Cathedral DoorJotting – Protect Duty
While I am not keen on the idea of self-policing, lest we go the way of some American states, I do wonder if society may not be better able to protect its citizens if its citizens were more involved in that self-same protection. Be it physical, intellectual or cyber.
Read MoreJotting – Protect DutyScribble, Scribble, Scribble
Anyone who has attempted higher degree research, will know that after a while the process becomes more a question of will power than mental acuity.
Read MoreScribble, Scribble, ScribbleJotting – WHO
Lightblub Moment ON FRIDAY, APRIL 30, the WHO quietly updated a page on its website. In a section on how the coronavirus gets transmitted, the…
Hail, Lobster!
The moment when left leaning popular culture overreached itself and instead of fascist shaming a once obscure academic into silence, brought back into popular use what had long been taboo and empowered the very thing they thought they were destroying.
Read MoreHail, Lobster!Bitcoin’s Dirty Little Secrets – Political
In praxis, the result for Bitcoin is that the ideological claims for a decentralised, government free, anonymous currency has given way to the ‘worse-is-better’ ideology of why most people seem to be dumping cash into crypto: to get rich and live the capitalist high life.
Read MoreBitcoin’s Dirty Little Secrets – PoliticalTool Time
Consider that a UI should assume the user doesn’t have a high level of software experience, nor is willing to learn how to use the command line to undertake some level of personalisation.
Read MoreTool TimeBitcoin’s Dirty Little Secrets – Environmental
I have long been concerned with the negative human impact on our environment and while I am some way off from thinking the world is on fire, it is clear that business as usual is going to leave a decidedly lessened planet for our children. Thus my spotlight on the ecological effects of our choices is slowly widening and most recently has taken in cryptocurrency.
Read MoreBitcoin’s Dirty Little Secrets – EnvironmentalA Mastodon To Call My Own
Mastodon allows you to run your own server which means you have "absolute control over your own voice on the web, not subject to anyone else's rules or whims. Your server is your property, with your rules."
Read MoreA Mastodon To Call My OwnHow I Publish – Back to the Future
A few months back I gave a short sketch of how I publish online. But today is back to the future as I return to WordPress.
Read MoreHow I Publish – Back to the Future100 Days of Muse & Reason
Well, I have reached the end of the 100daystooffload.com challenge and the numbers are as follows: I began the challenge hoping it would improve my…
Contribution Manifesto
In the spirit of a benign dictatorship, my determination of quality contributions will be both objective and subjective. No offence is intended, but as offence is a social construct, taking it is at your discretion.
Read MoreContribution ManifestoCopying Old Masters
For the better part of 400 years, the production of art in France was largely controlled by artistic academies. With the first official academy being…
Virus From Below
The history of the world, for a long time, was the history of great people. Mostly great men. It focused on singular individuals and seldom…
I Saw The World End
I went up to the hillside and took a panorama view of the city and found the whole city on fire. - Kiyoshi Tanimoto,
Read MoreI Saw The World EndSerialisation
Whether pre-prepared or thought out during serialisation, it provides for a short or medium content format which addresses a long form topic.
Read MoreSerialisationThe Ability To Ignore
Since the earliest days of our evolution on the savanna, our visual and aural senses have been attuned to ignore content.
Read MoreThe Ability To IgnoreLate Abroad Again
As the contagion bit hard, Pepys chronicled the flight from the city, mostly of doctors, lawyers and merchants. Then as now, only those with the financial means to do so can seek refuge in seclusion.
Read MoreLate Abroad AgainArt as Background
Turner was something of a privacy advocate. In the 1841 census he rowed a boat into the Thames so he could not be counted as being present at any property
Read MoreArt as BackgroundSelf-Gaze
It is possible to find a subjectivity and objectivity of the written word and know I am on the right track, even if my work is temporarily out of fashion.
Read MoreSelf-GazeWedding Feast
In the tradition of my family, and the civilised everywhere, I will be planning the meal starting with dessert, working through the main to the entree.
Read MoreWedding FeastFinding Confidence
While the fool is wise who opens not his mouth, the quiescence of the thoughtful is a loss for society. This is particularly the case when it comes to social media and blogging.
Read MoreFinding ConfidenceArmada
The history of the Spanish Armada is a call to take care on our journey home. Although we may feel mauled by the day, we can salvage most of what we have.
Read MoreArmadaFinding Time
Find a trigger which helps you to get in the frame for writing, leverage the power of habit and set your inner candidate to the task.
Read MoreFinding TimeThe Case for Listenership
In some senses this is very apt, as on social media we are too often prisoners in a system providing emotional support to other prisoners.
Read MoreThe Case for ListenershipBeware Generalisation
A writer can fall into the trap of imagining because 67% of respondents to a survey support X, there is genuinely wide spread support for the proposition..
Read MoreBeware GeneralisationSupporting Evidence
My weekends are usually spent cloistered away in my study, working on one project or another. My fiancée laments I spend too much time tinkering…
Tranquility Reflected
Day 83 of the 100 day challenge and I have drawn a total blank. I have faced writers block before, but often this has been…
Nibbled By System
I am a simple man who fears being nibbled by system. I like things I can see and touch. In the technological realm, I like…
Easy To Use
I learn today that Jules-Albert de Dion took the chequed flag in the world’s first motor race, the Paris–Rouen in 1894. Sadly for Jules-Albert, he…
Emotional Contagion
Emotional Contagion is the phenomenon of feeling what it appears someone else is experiencing. Art abounds with examples of this, where a painting, sculpture or…
The Giant’s Causeway
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck, lived in an age in which titles were grand and letters and diaries were even grander. In a time…
To CDN Or Not To CDN
As the great bard made a Prince of Denmark once say: To be, or not to be, that is the question:Whether ’tis nobler in the…
And I’m Feeling Good
Today was a day of relaxing. Well, it started in mild dismay looking at the stock markets, descended into a frustrating morning fighting the dragon…
Site With Less Byte
This has started me on my own quest for a lighter footprint in my publishing platform. To that end, there is much tinkering to do.
Read MoreSite With Less ByteThe Shape Of Things That Are
Though conclusions drawn from data may be offensive, we should be slow to take offence at data. Even if it contradicts our deeply held beliefs.
Read MoreThe Shape Of Things That AreShape of Things to Come
A striking feature of Wells' book is the way in which he prefigured 'cancel culture' in the thinking of his fictional social scientist.
Read MoreShape of Things to ComeFête Nationale
I could not let July 14 pass without a nod to that most French of occasions: Bastille Day. A celebration which marks both the anniversary…
Five Stages of Autonomy
At this stage, employees, whether remote or in an office, enjoy true autonomy. The Nirvana Mullenweg and Co. are in search of for their businesses.
Read MoreFive Stages of AutonomyGothic Reprieve
Musing on how the building I passed was the very antithesis of the Gothic, I found myself recalling some of the majestic architecture of the past.
Read MoreGothic ReprieveSpot the Gorilla
For me, this can become frankly as depressing as, to quote Blackadder:
getting an arrow through the neck and discovering there's a gas bill tied to it.
Read MoreSpot the GorillaSkepticism and Wonder
In the vast ignorance of a society absent of sceptical enquiry, evil festers and spreads, like the coming of night, and all foul things come forth.
Read MoreSkepticism and WonderDoomsday Clock
The concept of a clock was chosen because it implies that unless we stop the seconds from ticking down, the hands will inevitably reach midnight.
Read MoreDoomsday ClockTo Federate, But How?
It also raises questions about cross posting to other platforms, such as Medium, which are the natural hunting ground of avid readers.
Read MoreTo Federate, But How?Losing Readers?
While I am not a popularity junkie, it is more gratifying to know one is writing for a large than a small audience as I write to try and assist others.
Read MoreLosing Readers?Cartographic Escapism
Hogwarts was not only the best but, if you didn't read the text carefully and skipped whole sections of Goblet of Fire, the only wizarding school.
Read MoreCartographic EscapismA Change Management Primer
Knowing this only shifts the problem from 'how' to 'when'. In other words, at what speed should the change management take place?
Read MoreA Change Management PrimerA Land of Chilly Riverways
To a man weened on 'beautiful one day, perfect the next' descriptions of his adoptive land, it comes as a shock to find it so chilly a dull earache begins.
Read MoreA Land of Chilly RiverwaysOde to a Yoghurt Pot
Bellowing preconceived ideas with ever increasing volume is seldom a path to organisational success and Vedic happiness.
Read MoreOde to a Yoghurt PotLacklustre
Today… what can I say about today… it was nothing out of the ordinary, very lacklustre indeed. Neither terrifying nor exhilarating, sad nor happy, downcast…
How I Publish — Version 3.0
Avid readers, and those who accidentally stumbled in searching for something else, will have seen deliberations on whether or not to switch platforms.
Read MoreHow I Publish — Version 3.0Finding Flow – Basics
Musing the topic, three ideas immediately spring to mind, which is a suitable number for the 100 Days challenge.
Read MoreFinding Flow – BasicsTime Capsule I
The novelist saw more clearly the differences between fact and fiction. That notions of a 'better world' tomorrow is a fallacy of the doctrine of progress.
Read MoreTime Capsule IDown the Rabbit Hole
Not a nice, cosy little hole, you understand. Rather a long and seemingly unending one. After you've fallen down it, you never know where you will come out.
Read MoreDown the Rabbit HoleLeading From The Front
Plato wrote of cardinal virtues and their importance in the character of a good city. It is tempting to pickup this theme in regards to leadership.
Read MoreLeading From The FrontRed Tape Is Fun
As a child, the sense of being tested vexed me much. This persisted into early adulthood, as I steadfastly continued to avoided administration.
Read MoreRed Tape Is FunA Novel Approach to Music
I share Gilmour's puzzlement that more authors don't team up with musicians to add another dimension to their audiobooks.
Read MoreA Novel Approach to MusicThe Base Camp of Everest
I have to stand on the shoulders of giants or, more specifically, tinker with the work of others to accomplish the end result desired.
Read MoreThe Base Camp of EverestCircular Conversations
I seem to recall a time when life was filled with good conversation. The kind of talks in which minutes melted into hours.
Read MoreCircular ConversationsLabours of Love
As the saying goes, 'God is in the detail' and only by finessing the little things does the overall project take on a majestic form.
Read MoreLabours of LovePoint Of No Return
Ever a man to love a bit of tinkering, the blogging process has also proved to be as much a technical as a mental exercise.
Read MorePoint Of No ReturnConfessions of a Platform Junkie
Having perused and discarded a number of options (Medium, Tumblr, Squarespace and Jekyll), I am now caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.
Read MoreConfessions of a Platform JunkieThe Problem of Over Correction
While many will cheer and even demand over correction, given the 'historical injustice,' many questions remain unanswered.
Read MoreThe Problem of Over CorrectionThe Struggle is Topic
There is no dearth of ideas, but each was pondered and rejected in turn as the research involved exceeds the allotted time for this daily challenge.
Read MoreThe Struggle is TopicThe Void
I love to give back to those who give so much to me, but sometimes this sucks all my powers of concentration. This is the height of mental indigestion.
Read MoreThe VoidThe Over Consumption of Doubt
For the ancients, doubting was the end of a lifelong quest for truth. For moderns, it has become the beginning rather than end of speculation.
Read MoreThe Over Consumption of DoubtPeasants’ Revolt
Much the same could be said for the current protests. Eventually the people will leave the streets and things will largely go back to how they were.
Read MorePeasants’ RevoltLetterheady
One superb example of the genre is the business letterhead of Nikola Tesla - after whom the car company is named. Stunning share by Letterheady.
Read MoreLetterheadyThe Power of the Snub
Declines in sexual activity seem to owe more to 'the introduction of the iPhone in 2007 and the global recession of 2008' than fear of contracting Aids.
Read MoreThe Power of the SnubCompeting Thoughts
Today was a day in which, if you’ll forgive this writer a reification, my thoughts have been battling in my mind. The main cause is…
Damnatio Memoriae
Memory is more than the activity of an individual. It is an object, in so much as a statue or inscription reminds passers by of a person or event.
Read MoreDamnatio MemoriaeMedia Archipelago
Pushing back on unorthodox views has given rise to 'wrongspeak,' 'the things we believe to be true but cannot say,' creating a Media Archipelago.
Read MoreMedia ArchipelagoThe Better Part of Valour
Obama made sure to bring together the past with the present. Memory stalking the impatiently advancing future. Into the party marched the honour ghosts, the…
Cold Calling Students
While the line between a Socratic acceptance of the limits of our knowledge and genuine ignorance is blurred, academia's financial rapacity knows no bounds.
Read MoreCold Calling StudentsModern Pocket Boroughs
Yet for all the antics, there was a certain honesty about such naked corruption. Votes were sold and it was clear who was buying them.
Read MoreModern Pocket BoroughsInto the Jaws of Death
One of the most memorable photographs of D-Day was taken by Chief Photographer's Mate Robert F. Sargent and aptly titled 'Into the Jaws of Death.'
Read MoreInto the Jaws of DeathUpdating My Plank
As a man who loves his technology, one thing I enjoy reading about is how others use theirs. There is a small degree of voyeurism…
The Case of the Dangling Toad
Combining powdered toad with the excretions and serum made into lozenges and worn about the affected area, drove away the contagion and drew out the poison.
Read MoreThe Case of the Dangling ToadTake Notes, No One Is Watching
End to End Privacy requires providing users with encryption everywhere they don't control. This is a promise a platform needs to uphold.
Read MoreTake Notes, No One Is WatchingLetters of Note
Today I pay homage to one brilliantly penned piece by WSC, from an age when they both inked and blotted.
Read MoreLetters of NoteMental Indigestion
Much as I wallowed in the majestic minimalism of how I publish, I now find myself revelling in a new minimalism of how I read.
Read MoreMental IndigestionParliamentary Privilege
Sidestepping Trump's wounded pose and Twitter's egregious claim of the moral high ground and an interesting question about politics and speech emerges.
Read MoreParliamentary PrivilegeProportionality in Pursuit of Justice
Specifically put, proportionality isn't a one way street in which the power of the state is neutered to the benefit of an individual.
Read MoreProportionality in Pursuit of JusticeDistributism
To replace a People's Republic network with a Democratic Club network isn't necessarily an improvement because it only prefences one centralised solution over another.
Read MoreDistributismThe New Commons
As our forebears strove for the aspiration to vote, the mortgaging of our data for access to services requires us to strive for the aspiration to privacy.
Read MoreThe New CommonsGrey Eminence
Sadly, for our attempts to hold power to account, the 'what' is lost to the political 'how,' with which side wins becoming the benchmark for 'account.'
Read MoreGrey EminenceContemplating Content
Though a visual man, I have grown tired of the flickering images of social media where unlimited filters and effects cannot cover the dearth of thought.
Read MoreContemplating ContentSo I Could See Further
In the main, scholars, developers and researchers cite those who have gone before, without whose work their own product would be much reduced.
Read MoreSo I Could See FurtherA Day of Rest
If I seek a day in which I am not on duty, and politicians are merely flesh and blood, should they too not be allowed a moments reprieve?
Read MoreA Day of RestAirbrushing Memory
With digital services often serving as our memory, to remove content from personal drives is to airbrush our memory.
Read MoreAirbrushing MemoryPlease keep scrolling
Perhaps this is the heart of my distaste for much social media: it is designed to halt my thinking and focus my attention, not impell me to think on.
Read MorePlease keep scrollingA Marvellous Idea for a Blog
I didn't have the time to write you a short blog about historical analogies, so I wrote about something else.
Read MoreA Marvellous Idea for a BlogDead Certainties
The key is to avoid reading events falsely, which inevitably leads to politics shaping what we think is true.
Read MoreDead CertaintiesCode is Speech?
A point to remember when next your private moments are leveraged to improve a marketing algorithm. The unintended consequence of code is speech.
Read MoreCode is Speech?Language Defect: Privacy
The issue is not can they keep my data safe from an unauthorised third party, but can they keep my data safe from their algorithms.
Read MoreLanguage Defect: PrivacyCentralising the Decentralised
The only prevention is to discourage the banning of alternative views and instead engagement in rational discourse.
Read MoreCentralising the DecentralisedMarshal Your Argument
Like a genre in publishing, a work forms part of an existing discourse and this creates certain ground rules for how words will be read and ideas conveyed.
Read MoreMarshal Your ArgumentHow I Write – Technology
At first, my thinking rebels against the act of concentration. A day spent being pulled in a myriad of directions does not for a focused mind make.
Read MoreHow I Write – TechnologyHow I Publish — Version 2.0
My quest for a publishing platform which was both elegant, unencumbered by endless plug-ins and left me alone with my text, brought me to write.as.
Read MoreHow I Publish — Version 2.0The Cloud of Unknowing
The question today, for whom do you write? Perhaps to improve your scribblings; perhaps to attract a general audience; or perhaps it is for posterity?
Read MoreThe Cloud of Unknowing‘Good night, and good luck.’
This causes something of a paradox. I thought I would have to take a leave pass to not write today, yet pondering this has caused me to write today.
Read More‘Good night, and good luck.’So this is how privacy dies…
To be a part of a society which doesn't take these choices means the most meaningful solution is to look at ambient as well as personal privacy.
Read MoreSo this is how privacy dies…Gakyō Rōjin
A compelling aspect is the way in which Hokusai's work burgeoned as he aged. An unconscious reaction to feeling we are yet to realise our potential.
Read MoreGakyō RōjinEndurance Through Renewal
I came across a stone bench that appeared to be very old. Carved into an ancient looking wall, dappled in moss, thick creepers wound across its surface.
Read MoreEndurance Through RenewalThe Pied Piper of Zoom
In a sense, our online privacy is much like a child, vulnerable to the world and easily spirited away by a platform which offers ease of connection.
Read MoreThe Pied Piper of ZoomThe Perfect Moment
Though it is not clear if this is the poet or the urn speaking, what is clear is that the passage seeks to transcend visual value.
Read MoreThe Perfect Moment‘Oh, the humanity!’
The past, which comes flooding in, transports us to a moment which is both frozen in time and animated by our thinking. 'Oh, the humanity!'
Read More‘Oh, the humanity!’Catharsis
At times, writing alone is not action enough to free my thinking from its melancholy trends. In such times I turn to that most lyric of the muses, Euterpe.
Read MoreCatharsisMay the Third be with you
It is fitting these memorial days are side by side because a central theme in the Star Wars saga was the freedom of peoples to live according to their need.
Read MoreMay the Third be with youOne Hundred Days…
My writing efforts are usually months in gestation. Thus I am out of the habit of a daily journal. #100DaysToOffload should fix that.
Read MoreOne Hundred Days…‘I’ and ‘Me’
The notion that the 'significant symbols,' found in the harmony between the projected and received understanding of the gesture which transports meaning between employee and manager, are not fixed, but are subject to continual recreation allowing infinite flexibility when assessing project planning.
Read More‘I’ and ‘Me’No One Is To Blame For Misbehaviour
Variability in people leads to variability in the anticipated behaviour. In this context there is always a degree of unpredictability in behaviour.
Read MoreNo One Is To Blame For MisbehaviourLeadership: A Human Encounter
In the postmodern age, we are surrounded by more heroes than in a Homeric epic, with football players, life guards and even movie stars being thrown into the mix.
Read MoreLeadership: A Human EncounterPatagonia Traditional CSR, Strategic CSR or CSV
CSR only has a limited connection to the business while CSV is 'integral to a company’s profitability and competitive position.'
Read MorePatagonia Traditional CSR, Strategic CSR or CSVThe City of Love
One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn’t exist. Stephen Hawking There is an old adage, the…
Constantine: Divine Emperor or Christian Saint?
Chrysostom argued against the notion of men being elevated to the level of gods as such men had not been able to restore their kingdom after death.
Read MoreConstantine: Divine Emperor or Christian Saint?Alexander’s Invasion of Persia
“It is one of the paradoxes of history (and of historiography) that this king… should have been handed down finally in history as an enigma.”…
World View – A Graph
As I often get quizzed about different world views, one rainy day I threw this together. While I acknowledge any attempt to encompass the myriad…
‘God is Dead’
I know I know… you don’t need to shout it I am not so superannuated that I am deaf to your cries. Months I can…
Age, Evil And A Better World
Age hit me the other day. To be precise it hit my right hamstring. It was cold and I got up too quickly. These were…
Is this what Warhol meant?
In 1968 the doyen of pop art, Andy Warhol, said: ‘In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.’ Broadly speaking there are two…
Company Men
In Calcutta a statue was erected to Lord Bentinck, Governor-General of India. Its inscription bears citing at length as it is testament to the moral…
The Minnow, The Whale And The Deep Blue Sea
Who controls the past controls the future.
Who controls the present controls the past.
Read MoreThe Minnow, The Whale And The Deep Blue SeaMadmen Raging Against the Sacred
The Fourth Crusade veered from its original aim, the reconquest Jerusalem, and ended in the sack of Constantinople; earning for itself the ignominious title of the crusade against fellow-Christians.
Read MoreMadmen Raging Against the SacredTruth and Beauty
Never before in the history of the world has so much information been so easily accessible. Name virtually any topic and a quick Googie or…
Old Soldiers Never Die
Peter de Noronha wrote ‘Old Soldiers never die, they only fade away, which has now been commuted to, they never die but only get slightly…
Climate Change, Political Stagnation
The satirical ‘Yes Prime Minister’ quipped about international organizations: Hacker: But surely we’re all committed to the European ideal?Sir Humphrey: [chuckles] Really, Minister.Hacker: If not,…
Life of a Whirlwind
This oft quoted phrase has gone from the everyday, through the forests of cliche and emerged in the sun lit uplands of meaningless twaddle.
Read MoreLife of a WhirlwindThe Lions Roar
After entering a score of passwords, and wrapping tinfoil around my head to ensure the CIA were not tracking me...
Read MoreThe Lions RoarWhat’s so interesting…
If the good Lord was not disposed to prevent this scene in the first instance, he was unlikely to extricate me in the second.
Read MoreWhat’s so interesting…