Insights

Brisbane October 2006

Straight after leaving the BBC, I spent two frantic weeks delivering 22 presentations around Australia and I have to say it was one of the most exhilarating times of my life.  Some was captured and this is the Brisbane session which was ably supported and facilitated by Jodie Howlett.
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At Wharton 1

What are we looking for in new recruits and what do staff expect their companies to deliver to them in terms of learning and development?  Well Bob Zemsky pulled together a long discussion with his notion of a three-legged stool.  And the legs:  technical skills; abillity and encouragement to learn and cultural support:  being an
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Philadelphia

Once the Capital of the US, post independence, and at the heart of the Colonies before that.  The original capital, laid out in a block system in the C18th stretching between the Delaware, and Schulkill rivers could be there in tact as a monument to an historic past.  But it is there, in bits, with
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Inn at Penn

I am now at Wharton for the week.  I am staying in the campus Hilton called Inn at Penn.  It is a comfortable hotel, but  one thing struck me: that Hilton has set up an online shop called Hilton to Home where you can buy practically everything in this room.  If you fancy the alarm
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Rockerfeller Centre

I have never noticed the sculpture over the door of the Rockerfeller Centre, there alone the caption on the wall.  It reads: ‘Wisdom and Knowledge Shall be the Stability of Thy Times’   How profound and how appropriate to stumble on that en route to teach at Wharton with a future generation of CLOs.  I will
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MOMA

I was attracted to a wonderful sculpture of bits of car bodies mounted on a wall when I visited the Museum of Modern Art this morning.  It turned out to be by John Chamberlain and built in 1977.  It is called simply ‘Essex’.  Words fail me at this point!
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Observations In the Apple Store

I am blogging live from the Apple Store opposite Central Park in New York.  It is underground in a large space lit from a light well above.  Packed, as usual, with people doing email, checking stuff on the web and a few are actually buying kit.  The queue for the Genius Bar is as long
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39 WiFi Channels and Nothing Works

To parody the immortal Springsteen and look at the new world!  I turned on my laptop in my very average mid-town hotel in New York City, to discover 39, no 42, no 36, Wi Fi hot spots jumping all over the place on my Mac Wireless widget called ‘wireless radar’. Paradise, I  thought, until I
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An Inconvenient Truth

I watched Al Gore’s movie of the same name on the flight going over to the US. The irony of watching a movie on global warming from 35,000 feet was not lost on me. I had promised myself that the flight would be work, work, work; so I figured that Al Gore was justified. It
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The Leadership Pipeline

‘This is an era in which the demand for leadership greatly exceeds the supply.  Signs of this imbalance are everywhere.’ The opening lines of Charan, Drotter and Noel’s 2001 book:  The Leadership Pipeline Note the date.  Almost six years ago and the situation worse than ever! Virtually everyone who works for someone else can give
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