Spring clean your mind

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is an example of what happens if you do not spring clean your mind. The ugliness becomes so important that it takes physical shape.

It is time to spring clean your mind. I believe that we have a duty to use our lives and minds for the better. That we are here to make at least a little bit of the world a better place. We will not be able to be innovative and…

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Innovation arenas and outsourcing

Sometimes, innovation arenas are need - fast

Innovation arenas — where innovators, entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs collaborate across boundaries to create magic — have become an important ingredient for successful innovation. All enterprises are part of complex value chains. There is only so much improvement and innovation that can be done by a single actor. These innovation arenas…

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Heraclitus was wrong about innovation

Democritus laughing and Heraclitus weeping, with a globe

Heraclitus was wrong when he declared that “the only thing that is constant is change“. Change is no longer a constant, because the rate of change has changed. More importantly, change is not a constant because we have renewed our view of change and innovation. 

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Privacy lost can never be regained

Inside one of the prison buildings at Presidio Modelo, Isla de la Juventud, Cuba - no privacy here

Recent events have reminded us that privacy lost cannot be regained. After the hacks of the Democratic party, with the GDPR coming up as one of the biggest challenges in our industry privacy has become a hot topic. The surveillance society keeps gaining momentum. Both little brother and big brother…

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Black hat innovation

A black keyboard, the favourite tool for black hat innovation

Sometimes, it might seem as if black hat innovation out paces white hat innovation. Whenever there is innovation or invention there is also misuse. As a colleague once put it: “where there is encryption, there is also decryption”.

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Legacy systems, a definition

Legacy systems come in many forms, here a Data I/O Model 29B

When we want to replace software systems, we often start calling them legacy systems. Sometimes we call legacy after we have made the decision to switch. Sometimes legacy is used as a pejorative to precipitate change. Keep reading for a discussion on a definition of legacy systems.

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Switcher’s curse and legacy decisions

These dolls have been cursed with switcher's curse maybe.

Switcher’s curse is about conservatism in a world of constant change. There are many fallacies and biases which cause us to stick to legacy decisions. Switcher’s curse is a a fallacy that causes us to switch when we should stay. Keep reading about the challenges of legacy and how to…

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Security backlash in the henhouse

The flock is surprised. A chain link fence blocks their access to the front yard.

I had a grand plan, but something happened. I was going to automate my little hobby henhouse. I created a video and a blog post where I reached out to all of you for support. And you responded: you sent me comments and blog posts. Henrik Söderqvist went as far…

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When cloud services disappear

A can of fermented baltic herring - all you have left when your cloud service disappears?

When Nest decided to brick all Revolv devices they gave us a strong reminder: sometimes cloud services disappear! When the once search giant Altavista petered out, no one cared and few noticed. The users had already moved on to Bing, Yahoo or Google. Perhaps a few young people reacted, reminded…

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Fail fast applied

Casimir Artmann in a meeting room

When I wrote about the fail fast fallacy, Gene Hughson and Casimir Artmann replied on their blogs: “the need for design” and “fail is not an option“. We decided to create a video together to get a more lively discussion going. Gene asked us how well our joint video was…

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