Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd. Bertrand Russell
Fear
January 11th, 2008Are we ever going to change?
October 26th, 2007Because the scientific evidence seems to be consistently and increasingly clear that we really need to.
Work and blogging
October 25th, 2007I am sure this is a well documented problem, but I just got this from our Communications department:
“There is no reason why you cannot keep a personal blog in your own time, but we would ask that you did not mention who you work for on this. The same rule applies for social networking sites. There should be no discussion of (my employer) affairs on blogs/social networking sites. We have a blog that you are welcome to feed your thoughts into, email your content…”
Well now I know!
I posted this in my lunch break BTW 😉
Poetry
October 18th, 2007Benjamin Zephaniah is one of my favourite poets. I have some very well worn cassettes at home containing readings by the man himself. He lives in Stratford, home of the Olympics in many respects. I wonder what he thinks of the Games? I’d like to find out. Wonder how could I do that? He’s also a novelist but I’ve not read any of his novels. Maybe that will be next.
Top tech totty
October 15th, 2007Hedy Lamarr has to be near the top of the list it seems. I think I’d agree. More about her here. Uh oh, the pee cee police are coming down the corridor already.
The Secret People
October 9th, 2007They have given us into the hands of the new unhappy lords,
Lords without anger and honour, who dare not carry their swords.
They fight by shuffling papers; they have bright dead alien eyes;
They look at our labour and laughter as a tired man looks at flies.
And the load of their loveless pity is worse than the ancient wrongs,
Their doors are shut in the evenings; and they know no songs.
G.K. Chesterton
Tremendous Ukulele covers
October 5th, 2007I’ve gone ukulele mad 🙂
First, one of my favourite songs. Well, I grew up listening to John Peel after all.
Second, some very amusing northern nuances!
Eleanor’s character description
October 5th, 2007Eleanor did “show and share” at school this morning.
She read out her character description, written exactly as follows.
Well done Eleanor 🙂
Tuesday 2nd October
Mrs Jolly
Mrs Jolly was the caretaker of the school.
She had a ginger cat who loved fish.
She was very cind and allso help full.
Mrs Jolly was getting very old.
She was determined to retire.
Mrs Jolly new that she was a witch but nobody else new that she was.
The end.
Ukeleles and Morricone
October 2nd, 2007From Ben Hammersley “The Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain channeling Morricone. The vocals at the end convey deep ownage“. Thoroughly enjoyable!
Ouch!
September 26th, 2007Long meeting today, on the back of an IOC Project Review, about telecommunications. I’ve decided to call the problem that is ‘defining the marketing rights of a London 2012 telecommunications partner’ in a technologically converging World a very thorny bush. A Mordor type of bush, one made of “great writhing, tangled brambles”. A real bugger to prune 🙂
The Project Review, BTW, was very useful. Much progress on aligning all of our planning priorities across technology (venue technology, results, IT systems (both admin and Games), t’Internet, telecommunications and information management, etc).
B*llocks!
September 25th, 2007We had a presentation at our weekly staff meeting from Emma Harrison today. I liked this a lot! Key messages:
- HR, finance and legal and the ‘forces of evil’! Keep them all in careful perspective
- Everyone is a leader, management is only a badge, don’t be afraid to lead
- Don’t be afraid to say so if you see something that you think isn’t right
Wonderfully iconoclastic streak in her philosophy! I’ve been reading her blog which I like a lot too. I’m a fan, definitely 🙂
I can well imagine, if you are one of the ‘forces of evil’, you might regard the presentation as trivial, a distraction from the serious issue of running a business. Maybe I would too, if I was running a business. But it seems to me what she’s really saying is that her measures of success are different – that the really important things are community, support, openness to growth and change, and just plain listening to one another. And that these things satisfy the deepest human needs to be loved, understood, accepted and forgiven. The problem with the forces of evil is that they tend to forget these qualities, or at least wrap them up in outputs, matrices and processes. The difficult balance is attaining these qualities AND making money. She’s perhaps lucky to have found something that offers both.
If you can tell me where the bit in italics is from, I’ll buy you a beer and listen. Very carefully 🙂
Blood in the water, again
August 1st, 2007More on Freedom’s Fury.
Sochi made it
July 5th, 2007So Sochi made it. Good for them. Some of the people who helped us, helped them. Winning formula, no doubt very bankable 😉 I have met with several people from Sochi and I have no doubt they will do a great job. VANOC folks seem intrigued with the idea of working with the Sochi folks. But the Sochi OCOG (another SOCOG perhaps) has a lot to do and will need to be very careful. I also rather liked this post though I must say the idea that there ought to be logic in the IOC voting process is pure romance at best.
Linked-in vs Facebook
July 3rd, 2007This Dave Winer comment is interesting. I like Facebook. I have never really liked Linked-in.
VANOC – who next?
July 3rd, 2007At VANOC in the Project Review meeting with IOC technology. Quite a lot of talk about the next winter city. My money is on Sochi. We’ll all be round the TV watching the announcement tomorrow.
Vancouver
July 2nd, 2007Just heading out to run through technology budget stuff with some of the Vancouver team. And hoping that the shenanigans in Glasgow don’t have too much of a ripple effect on check-in at Heathrow. I am leaving lots of time though 😉
Walled gardens…
June 30th, 2007… don’t work!
Atos Origin Workshops
June 27th, 2007In workshops with Atos Origin Major Events all this week, focussing on 3 areas:
- The Responsibilities Matrix – the breakdown of all responsibilities between the key partners in delivering the 2012 technology programme
- The IT Master Plan – which needs to be carefully aligned with the overall planning schedules
- The Help Desk – so that the many people using technology systems at the Games have somewhere to go if things go wrong and need fixing
There is a real focus on actually operating the Games, which is refreshing.