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15 months ago I along with two colleagues took part in a Managing Successful Programmes course. Due to work commitments beyond my control, I didn’t manage to sit the ‘Practitioner’ exam on the last day of the course. I was gutted, as I’d been looking to do the course for a number of years for [...]

My gripe for today. I cringe when I hear the phrase ‘distributed leadership’. I fight back the rage building within me whenever I hear someone exchange the term ‘manager’ for the term ‘leader’. Let me be clear about this – I love the concept of distributed leadership. The world would be a wonderful place if [...]

The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge. – Elbert Hubbard In the book ‘Crowdsourcing‘ by Jeff Howe, he quotes a wonderful example of the community of MATLAB users working to solve a problem: Contestants were required to solve what is commonly called a “traveling salesman problem,” [...]

Maybe that’s why a broken machine always makes me a little sad, because it isn’t able to do what it was meant to do… Maybe it’s the same with people. If you lose your purpose… it’s like you’re broken. Hugo tells the story of an orphaned boy Hugo Cabret (played by Asa Butterfield) living in the [...]

Nothing more can I teach you. – Yoda In the early part of this millenium, I spent a lot of time teaching people to play the guitar. I’m quite knowledgable and fairly technically proficient as a guitarist, so it was with delight that I would help others in their own musically dexterous journey of development. [...]

In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. - Desiderius Erasmus It’s very easy to take on responsibility for something that you’re not able to do – you’re asked to do it, and have time; you’re interested in the topic; you once did something similar; it’s the next ‘logical’ step for your career; [...]

My name is Clareece “Precious” Jones. I wish I had a light-skinned boyfriend with real nice hair. And I wanna be on the cover of a magazine. But first I wanna be in one of them BET videos. Momma said I can’t dance. Plus, she said who wants to see my big ass dancing, anyhow? [...]

…the only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder… – Jostein Gaarder In his phenomenal book ‘Sophie’s World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy‘, Jostein Gaarder gives us a beautiful quote, and I’ve been trying to find out if it comes from him initially or from some other source. [...]

We have a local supermarket that we only visit in a food emergency. Do you have one like this? You don’t shop there regularly, as you get both better deals and better service elsewhere. This particular shop is a disgrace. It’s many years since I worked in the retail industry, but even what I learned [...]

“What’s the bravest thing you ever did? He spat in the road a bloody phlegm. Getting up this morning, he said.” – Cormac McCarthy, The Road.  It’s odd to review a book that you’re actually in the process of reading, but I’m finding this one so compelling that I don’t want to wait. The Road, [...]