It’s often said that the UK is a hotbed of invention but lacks the skills to match it with innovation. As a nation we are probably stronger in invention than innovation, however, you only have to look at a business headline that largely went under the radar a couple of weeks ago to see an…
I listened to an interesting interview recently about a new service which brings airline style ticket pricing to restaurant booking. We are all used to seeing the cost of an airline ticket fluctuating with demand. What is going on in the background in simple terms is that the airline, with a fixed supply (i.e. number of seats), …
There have been many column inches spent over the last week discussing General Motor’s decision to move from an outsourced model to an insourced model in relation to its IT. What drives much of the debate is the skills agenda and can GM manage the transition. If you look at the reasons that GM gave…
As reported by 9to5Mac the Apple ads for their Genius Bar experience signifies a new tack for Apple where by they’re advertising a non-product area of innovation. Apple is one of the leaders in the area of blending together commercial innovation and product innovation to create leverage from multiple types of innovation. Their retail experience is world-class…
In a couple of recent postings I looked at the impact of mobile network consolidation and also whether people would be willing to pay a premium for premium network performance. It will be interesting to see how the increased availablility of video calling over mobile netowrks with iOS 6 changes the market.
The UK has some great institutions which are often the envy of the rest of the world, the BBC, the Royal Mail, and the National Health Service. Sometimes as a nation we are too busy competing them to within an inch of their existence to see what we have in them. Taking the Royal Mail,…
Ofcom, the UK telecoms regulator recently published its annual review of the UK communications market. The report is 400+ pages of analysis of the nation’s usage of communications mechanisms from social networks, to mobile voice and texts, to post and face to face. It’s data rich and a great snapshot of the nation in this rapidly…
Ideas for blog posts come from many sources. While I was travelling back from a recent meeting I happened to listen to the lunchtime current affairs programme which had a discussion on the plans of the Manchester Central Library to use the £60m refurbishment programme as an opportunity to review its collection of about 1m…
Do you remember careers guidance when you were at school? If you were lucky enough to get any then it was likely bite-size in nature. You either knew what you wanted to become, or you had no idea. In which case the 10 minute chat didn’t add any depth to your decision making and the…
With the launch of the Google TV service in the UK imminent there are many views and opinions of the Google offering from a technology and functionality perspective. Many of them speculate how it’s rival, Apple, must now be racing to release its own TV offering. What is really interesting is that Apple has had its own Apple TV…