🖋️ LongForm
Want to reduce the noice and just focus on things with a little more meat - the this category is for you. Like so much on this site we have a ‘WIP’ as i take some out - and put some in - but safe for at least starting in 2026.
Plenty Of Time Is Not Always A Good Idea
This didn’t make it to my blog until now - because only now am I moving through my ‘Drafts’ …. enjoy.
Early morning flight. Alarms set … up and awake well before the time … so grab a cab earlier than planned.
After arriving earlier at airport … we are first in line at check in desk … which hasn’t yet opened.
After check in … we are first in line at security desk … which hasn’t yet opened.
After security check … we are first in line at coffee station .. much needed. (Thankyou for being open.)
Sitting down with plenty of time … relaxed.
Announcement just made … plane is delayed. Because of course it is. They are never delayed if you are running late.
Us vs Them OR Us and Them OR Us + Them
Interesting thread over on LinkedIN from my friend 🔗 Dave Wilt - who started on the track of ‘vs’.
🔗 Corporate Identity Politics. (It was kind of about Sales and Marketing alignment - a problem which was a problem long before I started out in business. You would have though by now we might have fixed it? But no.)
Anyway - about half way through I managed to pivot the thread to 🎵 Music … mainly because the core topic just gets talked about - and IT IS NEVER FIXED - so … ‘BORING’.
From the thread …
You might notice that the original song was called ‘Us and Them’, while the tour and film is called ‘Us + Them’.
“It’s not a mistake. It’s a subtle modification. The original ‘and’ was not necessarily inclusive. It was highlighting one or the other. The power of ‘+’ sign is additive. It drives home the idea of being united. Together.”
It’s a small and very important detail. It’s language.
If you want to read the newsletter I was going to write about … ‘🖇️ Rewriting History’
Heathrow Is So Special … And Not In A Good Way.
The bag and its contents (not always the same - but pretty darn similar) has flown ‘in cabin’ all over America, to and from Mexico, down to New Zealand, around New Zealand across to Oz and back, then returning to America through Hawaii and onwards across to London … not a single problem.
Terminal 5, Heathrow … 45 minutes stood at security analyzing and rescanning that very same bag three times. Some items thrown away … like a small bottle of perfume, creams etc. Some items packaged up and in around 48 hours you can go online - pay the ransom fee and have it shipped to an address in the UK .. good job we had one.
They wanted to confiscate the medications .. no we don’t have the prescriptions with us, but if someone dies are you prepared to accept the consequences?
In the end, one small bottle of perfume thrown away was the most expensive item, but maybe 10 others also disposed of … several other bottles packaged up into a plastic bag … in the next couple of days, we can log on … pay the ransom and have the balance shipped to the UK address. It was totally unclear why;
- some items were destroyed
- others were repackaged to be sent ‘home’
- whilst others were given to me, so I could travel with them … Jax couldn’t
I asked if we had checked the bag, would it have been ok? No problem at all sir.
And then I just couldn’t resist. Can you explain why all of these containers are a problem … after all, they are all below the publicised amounts allowed. Oh yes sir… that’s not the problem, there are just too many of them. So, I went in to ask … where do I find the regulation that describes the total number off containers am I allowed?
Blank looks.
“Leave it John”
Adding insult to injury … get to the gate and told that it is a full flight … ‘that bag’ needs to be checked in.
People: Cody
He was (is) a lovely man. I had to lean in to hear what he was saying. So I did. Our conversation continued and he apologized for his speech. No apology necessary, but he had identified that it was hard for me to hear (loud place aside), he was also a little ‘croakey’.
He explained that he had had cancer.
Cancer of the throat.
Three times.
He was diagnosed in 2017. The doctors recommended he have surgery. He went through the surgery and ‘radio’ and ‘chemo’. “Let’s see” they said.
A year later in 2018, the doctors did a PET Scan, and found ‘some more’, so they recommended he have surgery and ‘radio’ and ‘chemo’. “Let’s see” they said.
A year later in 2019, the doctors did a PET Scan, and found ‘some more’, so they recommended he have surgery and ‘radio’ and ‘chemo’. “Let’s see” they said.
He got his clearance a year later in 2020, and as I write, it is 2023. Finally he is three years clear.
He is such a positive, focussed, alive person … despite not having eaten solid food for 5 years. Despite having to grind the pills he needs to take daily into a powder before he can swallow them. Despite having lost so much of his throat where the surgeon had cut and cut and cut … to remove the cancer. Despite having had his vocal cords so damaged that the raspy, quiet speech is now his voice. Despite no longer having any of this teeth left because of the radiation therapy. Despite all of this and so much more … like going through all of this totally alone.
His positivity was absolutely awe inspiring.
No ‘poor me’. No ‘why me’. No ‘sad face’. Just happy and grateful to be alive - and alive he most certainly is. Living life as much to the full as he can as he put it.
—
All of this resonated deeply.
My cancer diagnosis was January 2021. It was identical. Both of us were ‘T2, stage 4’, with three significant differences.
- I did not have surgery. My doctors said it was inoperable.
- I was in New Zealand, not the US. They told me that I didn’t have time to get back and ‘start all over again’.
- I was not alone. 🔗 I had Jax by my side every step of the way.
As of now, it looks like we beat it … having got my two year clearance just a few weeks ago.
That said at the time, hospitalized twice, in the first visit, Jax was told to be prepared for me ‘not to make it’. I was warned that everything that Cody is experiencing could be me plus, needing a cane to walk, maybe even a wheelchair. For me, I have essentially blocked this all out (my way of coping), so this served as a massive wake up call … a bigger one than I experienced when I walked into a new doctor who looked past me waiting for ‘John’ … expecting to see me hobbling in at best. Or another doctor here in the US who knew my background from the advance files that he had received and was stunned that they hadnt operated and ‘looked this good’.
Sure I have side effects, some of which I am told will be with me for the rest of my life, but compared to Cody … so insignificant that I shouldn’t mention it. I tend not to, but sometimes people ask.
“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, ‘Wow! What a ride!’”
💬 Hunter S Thompson
.. I try, but ain’t nothing compared to Cody who is doing just that … in Spades.
This is a story from my occasional series ‘🖇️ Travels Without Charley’ - my small ‘homage’ to John Steinbeck. The names are changed to protect the innocent, but they are all true and based on conversations I have had with people that I have met around the world … and who’s story resonates.
This particular one - more than any other in the published (and unpublished) series - resonated more than any other.
Why Large Organizations Often Fail To ‘Innovate’, Where ‘Tiny Companies’ Succeed.
Context
Over on LinkedIN, a friend of mine shared a post by Phil Morle 🔗 on whether institutions / corporates can be founders. I wrote a long reply which caused LinkedIN to barf and reject my reply, which in turn caused me to publish two separate pieces; 🖇️ Don’t Trust The Silos. and 🖇️ Friends Don’t Let Friends Use Silos To Publish Their Thinking., neither of which are pertinent to understanding the flow of this ‘reply’, but I wanted to highlight why this isn’t a reply on the post.
In Summary
I asked ChatGPT to summarize the post. 🖇️ In 200 characters AND 200 words … not by usual gorgeous style 🤣 - but not wrong.
My Reply
The piece was good and I wanted to add my two cents, since on initial read I found it confusing. My interpretation of the core premise is to better understand some of the reasons behind why large organizations often fail to ‘innovate’, where ‘tiny companies’ succeed.
The confusion I had started in the title of the piece, ‘Can Institutions Be Founders’ … which extended into the piece itself.
Confused because IMHO, founders are people and whether an organization is big or small, new or old, innovative or staid … they are not people, though they are made up of people … and processes, strategies, plans …
… yes … AND … the organization doesn’t allow the founder to behave like one.
PayPal, to randomly choose an innovative start up, was an organization with a large number of subsequently famous founders that went on to start many other successful innovative companies that changed the landscape of business. The founders were/are people. It is people that are the innovators. The startups, the organizations are the vehicles that enable that change.
One of the great unspoken truths of the start up world is that despite our worship of the individual, we ignore that they don’t do it by themselves. They have an idea and build a company made up of many people to realize their vision. The team all contribute to the organizations success. Don’t look to me to document the traits of a great ‘founder’, plenty of places to check that list, just to say that an organization can allow those traits to soar and create … or they can kill it.
Jobs, Gates, Ellison … insert your ‘hero of choice’ … are great at what they do/did because of their original vision, their leadership, their focus, their tenacity, their communications, their sales ability and so much more … but none of them succeeded without their team to realize their ambition.
In other words .. it is the Organisation that delivers the vision.
So the real question is why does it more often than not, take an organization called a startup to deliver those transformative innovations rather than an existing organization? (Yes - there are exceptions.) Remember Gates and Ellison seperately out innovated IBM, Jobs, Xerox, FinTech startups are leaving Banks and Financial Institutions in the dust, Bezos destroyed the bookstores … it’s an epidemic .. but we associate the founders name with the innovation and success .. and forget that without the team of people they assembled they could never execute.
With that caveat out of the way, arguably Ellison could have joined IBM and … with an instant team, and finance ‘ready to go’ would likely have failed. Bezos could have joined Barnes and Noble … and failed, the Collison brothers could have joined Citi .. and failed, Jobs … you get the picture.
They would have failed, not because they didn’t have what it takes, because clearly they do, but rather because because the organization would have clipped their wings.
Why?
The topic has been very well studied and reported on in a book called 🔗 Zone To Win by 🔗 Geoffrey Moore possibly more famous for 🔗 Crossing The Chasm
In the pages of ‘Zone To Win’ you will find a pretty solid analysis of why established organizations fail to innovate. Turns out the first job is to identify what kind of innovation we are talking about …
… and build from there.
(Interesting to note that when we talk about ‘innovation’ our minds automatically jumps to what Geoff describes as ‘disruptive innovation’ on the left in the diagram, but there are also ‘sustaining innovations’, which tend to operate inside those large organizations.)
Meanwhile, the founders build their organizations in their own image, make their own rules, and relentlessly drive their vision over years … sometimes to the frustration of people inside this companies who have their own ideas as to what could happen. For example both Marc Benioff and Tom Siebel are Oracle alumni that had the vision of ‘software for sales’ respectively (not respectfully) creating Salesforce and Siebel. A vision that at the time was not shared by Larry, so they left. Subsequently LJE became a believer having been an early investor in Salesforce, launching NetSuite and eventually buying Siebel.
In the end, I don’t believe that Phil and I are that far apart in thinking. His summary of the seven people traits are not wrong … but hand in hand with that goes the need for the organization to not just support the fledgling initiative but to actively defend it from the cuckoos who inhabit the rest of the organization.
.. and a framework to unpack the challenge and work out what an organization can do about it.
If there is interest I can expand a lot further, but for now, if you have got this far, THANKYOU. What do you think?
Please throw in your two cents below and let’s see if together we can make a buck.
📸 The Nixon Tardis and My First Indian Food In Three Years
I was very happy to be going out to eat my first Indian in over 3 years (long story). In fact I was so happy that I took pictures. I took a few actually - but sharing this one in particular because of the Tardis and Dalek.
My First Indian In Three Years - Right Beside The Tardis
It seemed odd at the time, but I didn’t investigate it until just now - turns out it is famous!
Who knew?
Friends Don’t Let Friends Use Silos To Publish Their Thinking.
🖇️ I wrote a related piece yesterday.
This one takes the thought a step further, because it’s not just original posts … but also replies.
As so often happens to me these days .. I start to reply to a message somewhere in one of the interweb’s silos … you know where they are in control - not you … even down to how long your message should be … because … you know ‘they’ know best. When that happens, I start a new post on said silo .. where there isn’t a character limit .. but I find myself doing that less and less … because why do I want to give my original thinking to a silo that stores undifferentiated commodities like bulk chaff? That’s why I don’t write ‘content’ …
But these days there’s even more reason not to use the Silos for being the prime origin of your IP, your work, your thinking.
🖇️ The short ‘case study’ just yesterday is all about the problem.
My next post started as a reply to a very good LinkedIN post .. and is a prime example of the ‘too long’ problem. I’ll link to here when it is finished.
Don’t Trust The Silos
To those paying attention, this is old news … but recording it now because I think it is an excellent lesson as to why you should never … ever … trust a Silo. It’s theirs. The stuff you put there is theirs. Even our’ handle is actually ‘theirs’.
Case in point …. in 2011 Jeremy Vaughn created @music over on the ‘site formerly known as Twitter’
Fast forward to 2023 and the child king who now own said site took @music for himself … and as far as I can see kept all Jeremy’s followers.
Caveat … I don’t actually ‘know’ that .. but I do know that @music was set up in 2011 and today has 11 million followers. The ‘new’ handle @musicfan counts less followers than one of my old Twitter accounts - and I spent no time building a following over there.
The ‘at’ music account
The ‘new’ ‘at’ musicfan account
I used ‘at’ not ‘@‘ because I don’t want to link to them - but you have enough information to go see for yourself if you have interest.
That Old Argument That AI Won't Replace ‘Whole’ People
I agree with Matt on this one - and then go on to explain why I disagree. Trust me … it will make sense.
[🔗 Birchtree](birchtree.me/blog/chat got-still-hasnt-taken-all-those-jobs/)
I continue to think that these generative tools are good for augmenting certain workflows, but replacing whole people is going to be very unusual. We’ll see, though.
💬 Matt Birchler
I would agree - but that isn’t what is going to happen.
If you have thirty people in a department’ and AI makes you 10% ‘more efficient’ - a company now only needs 27 people.
Repeat.
Across all departments, Across all companies. Across all industries.
Of course some departments are going to be more affected than others. For example If you are working on a help desk where your job is to answer questions in a call center … well - firstly, that 10% estimate is going to be a lot higher. So - what do you think is going to happen?
Apple Pay can’t beat Visa and can’t touch PayPal for popularity
I expected more from William Gallagher. And myself for that matter.
Please Read Comments Before Spending Time Reading This.
I could have deleted it - but leaving it as a reminder to be more careful.
Podcast.Philpin.Com Is A New Place For An Established Podcast.
It’s been in hiatus for a while now - but getting ready to start again. AND YET - despite being in hiatus - turns out it has a ‘global ranking’ in the top 3%. Really? What the hell are the other 97% doing? And who are ‘ListenNotes’?
As an example comparison - Core Intuition is in the top 1%. (Now THAT makes sense.)
All this to say that if you used to follow my podcast - know that it is now in a different place - so do please subscribe. It can be found here.
Interesting side note …. There are a LOT of People First Podcasts - and even with the hiatus - apparently still doing better than most.
Side Note: The image featured on the cover art is by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash here
David Merfield and Blot Once More Deliver. Simple Solution - but QUITE BRILLIANT
Blot Delivers. Again.
🖇️ Back in 2020 I wrote this. Then just a few days ago 🔗 I asked again … this time I also pinged David.
The nub?
How it would be really useful when on a public page on a blot site - e.g. this one - to be able to have a single click that takes you to the file in dropbox - which you could then edit and save, so updating the site.
The current method is to take note of whatever the content is - open up dropbox and navigate to the file, which may - or may not - be as easy as it sounds. For me - because of how I structured my dropbox - it is generally a pain in the neck.
No More.
Thanks to David I know have a bookmark that he wrote for me.
Now I can click on that book mark and voila - there is the dropbox file.
Let me know if you would like the code.
Just One Story From The Aftermath Of Maui
I wouldn’t call Avi Ronen a ‘friend’, we met a few times on Maui, he being one of those musicians that call Maui their home. This is his post on Facebook.
—
Our house is gone All the beautiful memories All my guitars over a hundred All gone lines of truss rods standing Like sad soldiers my amps pedals
All the custom guitars I’ve build and kept All the acoustic guitars that KP made for me all gone I’m so devastated beyond words We’re safe my girls are great stronger than me I’m so sad Our town looks insane it’s so horrible Everything gone The only thing that’s left in lahaina town is my shop still standing I don’t even know what to do next I’m so devastated So many lives lost in our town The damage is absolutely insane Looks like an atomic bomb blew up in lahaina It’s so sad heartbreaking Sorry I had to share this I want to wish peace and love to everyone we are so heart broken over our sweet town My house all the memories And all my guitars so heart breaking
🌺
Idris Elba and I Have Something To Talk About.
Idris Elba Says He Was Held at Gunpoint After Trying to Intervene on Man Threatening Woman
True story. So was I. A little over 30 years ago … South of Market in San Francisco. (Just in that one sentence you have more information about my story than the linked article tells you about the Idris story)
AND I wasn’t even intervening on an argument - I was just ‘hanging’ with my friend.
There were three of them, one with the gun, one watching while the third put his hands into my pockets looking for (I assume) money or a wallet. He found nothing. I don’t know why because the wallet was there. Finding nothing, the one with the gun looked at me intently, staring me down. It seemed to last a lifetime. And then he nodded to his two buddies and off they sauntered. No words spoken. No need.
I have had on occasions shared this story with small groups of people - generally when people start going on about how they won’t travel to x or visit y - after they have just heard about some violence in said location … which IMHO is just ridiculous - and why I share it. That said, I have never shared my story in writing, on a blog, into Social Media. For a start - who would be interested? After all, nothing happened. Then nothing happened in the Idris story, where the key point of the piece was …
“He pulled out a gun, stuck it right in my face.”
and
Elba didn’t elaborate on the actions he took to talk the man down, or what happened to the woman after the encounter. But given that the actor is able to recollect the instance, the situation seems to have been quelled.
That’s the story - and that qualifies for an entry in 🔗 Entertainment Weekly, The NME, The Daily Mail and hosts of other places
What Makes News? I sense a pattern.
🎥 Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, 2023 - ★★★½
Not a big fan of Tom - but for whatever reason I do eventually watch all the Mission Impossibles - but this is the first I had seen in a theater for years ... The story is what you might expect - but not always expected. Glad I managed it on the Big Screen before it disappears into 'Streaming Land'.
The Antidote To Worldcoin
and then there is this ….
… she’s talking about Sam Altman
🔗 You can read the whole piece by Molly here, which includes substantial thinking on the challenges of decentralized identity.
The cryptocurrency industry is rife with projects that embrace the idea of “progressive decentralization”: beginning out as a highly centralized project run by a small group, but promising to eventually turn over control of the project to a DAO. Few ever follow through,10 but it is a convenient way to stave off criticism.
💬 Molly White
In my same ‘reading session’ this piece from my friend Alan Mayo : The Reasonable Future: Identity 2.5 appeared. He concludes;
Some of the world is hell-bent on achieving Identity 3 Decentralization and, ironically, this is not going to happen anytime soon. With our current proven technologies we have all the building blocks to build sophisticated Identity solutions that provide a good customer experience and good security. That is where we should be spending our time, rather than dreaming of an impossible future.
💬 Alan Mayo
The Antidote?
Stop listening to people who are playing both sides of the ‘Business Equation’ - even better … stop acting on their recommendations. Altman isn’t the only one.
This is a 🧶 People First post - to see others in the series, click here.
🎥 The School for Good and Evil, 2022 - ★★½
It is clear that the key to enjoying a movie is to start with the lowest possible expectations, I didn’t even want to watch this … but then I did. Not a great rating from yours truly .. but 2 1/2 stars is 2 1/2 stars more than it was going to get. Special shout out to Sophia Anne Caruso who I thought was excellent.
Shoutout to the Wonderful People at Panic.
I have used Transmit to connect to my servers for years. N’er a problem until a couple of weeks ago.
I didn’t think I had changed anything - but did my usual checks ….
- what have I done wrong … nothing I could find.
- what has changed - a couple of things - uninstalled apps
- switched off Firewall.
Still no connection.
I pinged my hosting provider - Siteground.
They could access from their end no problem.
Asked me to try accessing via a different network, so tried by camping on the phone.
Straight in.
Back to my usual access - nothing.
Their conclusion was something about my network provider.
In my case it’s Spectrum and I just shivered at the thought.
So, first I contacted Panic, to see if they had any ideas.
Longer story shorter …
Ran some diagnostics and sent to them - and they asked me who was hosting my servers … told them.
And then in an email this morning ….
Out of curiosity, can you change the connection type to FTP with TLS/SSL? From my own SiteGround servers, I know that helps.
… and BOOM. Working.
This bear ain’t technical - so I have no idea what strange magic this is and why suddenly everything is different, but suffice to say … WORKING.
Thankyou Panic.
🎥 Oppenheimer, 2023 - ★★★★½
Stunning. 🤯 … if you’ll pardon the pun. Wanted to see it - and couldn’t fit the IMAX experience in to the schedule, so will go again next week. Not for me to review this movie - far more qualified and interesting people than me to read on that front - BUT - it is as good as you have been told.
Two thoughts beyond what yours truly has so far read.
1] I knew Robert Downey Junior was in the movie and just did not recognize him. He must surely be up for a best supporting actor nomination.
2] I did not know Tom Conti was in the film - and there he was - playing Einstein. For me, not a logical choice, but having scene him - GREAT choice.