Zoom Zoom Zoom: Why video-conferences are so draining When the annals of lockdown come to be written, we will find that the pandemic, like any other great crisis, has produced its own lexicon. You can see it already: self-isolating, social distancing, herd immunity. High up among these new usages will be the teleconferencing company Zoom. Full disclosure: I was an early adopter. The [...]
Upcycling: Putting the wheels in motion Coronavirus. COVID-19. The pandemic. The Plague of 2020. I don’t know how we’ll remember this extraordinary, strange, terrible time we’re living through, but it’s certain that we will, and that it will be—has already been—transformative, for businesses and for society more generally. I’m an entrepreneur, and my business is reputation. What’s been fascinating for me [...]
Has the black swan left us with white elephants? The coronavirus crept up on us, in some ways. It began with a single illness in China in mid-November 2019, a 55-year-old in Hubei province, some records suggest, and it wasn’t until January this year that it became clear that there was an epidemic of this new respiratory disease in the city of Wuhan. In [...]
She speaks for the President—but is anyone listening? April 14, 2020 Last week a snippet of news dropped into my inbox, announcing that Donald Trump had taken time out of his busy schedule of bullish-if-confused press conferences to announce a new White House press secretary (the fourth since he was sworn in at the beginning of 2017, if anyone’s counting). Number three, Stephanie Grisham, thanked the [...]
In the brave new world, information is king March 24, 2020 Since the coronavirus pandemic struck us a fortnight ago – and that’s all it is since the World Health Organisation called it, two weeks – almost every conversation I’ve had with friends, colleagues, peers and connections has come round to the same thing: as business leaders, entrepreneurs, C-suite executives and board directors, how do we [...]
Flybe can’t blame Coronavirus for its long term failings March 5, 2020 In the early hours of this morning, Coronavirus claimed its first airline as Flybe finally bit the dust. Just as with the thousands of human victims worldwide, it is the vulnerable who are most at risk, and this was no different. They failed because they encountered multiple crises, each amplified by their failure to mitigate the [...]
Storm in a teacup as Yorkshire Tea wins Twitter February 26, 2020 The story was predictably silly: Tory Chancellor Rishi Sunak poses with a big bag of tea, and anti-Tory Twitterati say they will never drink that brand again, dropping a fair few expletives in their ranty responses to a completely imagined outrage. What have we learnt from this storm in a Yorkshire Tea cup? On the [...]
Caroline Flack’s death shows ‘cancel culture’ has to stop – and it’s up to us to stop it February 16, 2020 I was shocked to hear of the death of television presenter Caroline Flack. I didn’t know her – but I didn’t have to. There were plenty of stories dissecting her relationships, her wardrobe and her career. She had 1.9m followers on Twitter and 2.4 on Instagram, but died alone, facing an assault trial that was [...]
The government must recognise that the BBC is invaluable to ‘Brand Britain’ February 10, 2020 Perhaps it was always inevitable that an organisation defined by its impartiality would be surrounded by politics. The BBC’s licence fee is in the news once again as the government looks to culture secretary Nicky Morgan to review how the corporation should be funded once the current charter ends in 2027. At the heart of [...]
Tidjane Thiam’s resignation signifies perfect PR storm for Credit Suisse February 7, 2020 The shock resignation of Tidjane Thiam is a leadership clusterbuster. Over the last three years, Credit Suisse have had numerous opportunities to move on from the embarrassing series of revelations that have dogged their leadership. The resignation of their CEO will do very little to dispel the image of a toxic culture at the top. [...]
