Alastair Ross Goobey – sad loss of an inspirational business leader and CEO

Sad to report on the untimely death of Alastair Ross Goobey.

Alastair Ross GoobeyAccording to Property Week he will be remembered in the business world for championing ideas on corporate responsibility and governance that were unpopular at the time but are now part of the UK Combined Code which governs the management of public companies.However whilst CEO at Hermes Pensions Management he was an inspiring leader. Not only did he get to know each and every one of the 300 staff by spending time, almost every day wandering the floors engaging in conversation, they felt they could talk to him without fear or intimidation (a rare thing in the City). He also delegated responsibility down through the corporate hierarchy encouraging those with talent and ambition to develop their potential. I think many CEO’s could learn from his ‘management-by-walking-around’ approach.

I remember many interesting and entertaining conversations with him over lunch in the staff canteen. He had a very dry sense of humour, and I remember being asked to  track down images of sheep and lemmings for presentations to fellow fund managers. My colleagues and I had fun imagining their impact on the audience.

The way he dealt with challenge of leukaemia was typical of his tenacity, grit and good humour, which only increased the respect and admiration of his colleagues. The fact that he beat the disease against high odds for so many years is testament to his amazing positive attitude to life. During over a year of intensive chemo and radio therapy he only missed three days from work.

A former colleague quoted in The Times remembers how Alastair never sought the high financial rewards that other colleagues in the fund management industry received: “I just think I missed out on the greed gene.”

The Independent newspaper has a good summary of his achievements.

Rasheed Ogunlaru and his Zest for Business

One of our partners at the Business & IP Centre is Rasheed Ogunlaru who delivers a regular workshop called Boost Your Business.

“It will help you develop the three keys – vision, belief and action – to success, confidence, balance, fulfillment and growth in your life and business. Creative, motivational and practical, it’s ideal for anyone running a business or wishing to. It will enhance your success and performance whether you’re a sole trader, entrepreneur, manager or small business owner.”
I was fortunate enough to attend a previous session and got a lot out of it.

zest-bookNow Rasheed has got together with Nicole Cohen founder of the Marketing Gym to produce a book A Zest for Business which shares the recipe for starting, succeeding and avoiding the pitfalls of life as a small business owner. It highlights that vision, planning, belief and action and staying the right side of the law are the key ingredients to success and the key areas where most businesses fail.

The launch of the book is taking place in the Business & IP Centre on 27 February from 6 to 8pm.

The authors have also launched their own blog which looks really good.

The Google Generation’ – no good at researching on the web

The launch of the British Library and JISC commissioned report ‘Information behaviour of the researcher of the future’ has sparked significant debate in cyberspace, which is excellent news. Here is a link to a 35 page pdf of the full report: ‘Information Behavior of the Researcher of the Future’

Here are links to a selection of comments:
arstechnica.com

informationweek.com

svextra.com

marketingpilgrim.com

arcagility.wordpress.com

blog.searchenginewatch.com

Globe and Mail – 24 January

methainternet.wordpress.com

The Observer, 27/01/2008, p.12, John Naughton

Joanne Jacobs

Latitude

21cif.imsa.edu

The Keyword blog

http://21cif.imsa.edu/blog/?p=15

Intelligent Agent

Panaramio for the outside and inside view of the world

Panaramio must represent one of the ultimate Google Earth mashups. How often when using Google Earth to ‘visit’ a place have you wanted to see what it looks like on the ground or even inside the buildings there?

For example if you zoom in on our new neighbour the Eurostar station at St Pancras all you see from above is the beautiful shed roof designed by William Barlow. However if you look at the Panaramio page you can look inside the building through photos taken by contributors to the service.

Adam Welber - London St. Pancras railway station
Adam Welber – London St. Pancras railway station

Egypt ‘to copyright antiquities’

One thing I have learnt from my exposure to the subject of copyright since joining the British Library is to quote an expert, “it’s complicated”.

Which makes me wonder how the Eqyptians plan to implement this new international law.

According to the BBC news website, Egypt’s MPs are expected to pass a law requiring royalties be paid whenever copies are made of museum pieces or ancient monuments such as the pyramids.

Zahi Hawass, who chairs Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, told the BBC the law would apply in all countries.

sphinx with copyright logo  Pyramids and Sphinx Retroactively Copyrighted

Secrets of a successful entrepreneurs

I have been listening to yet another thought provoking show from Peter Day. This time it is from his GlobalBiz show on the BBC World Service.

He was visiting the BridgeClimb experience in Sydney, Australia, and talking to its founder Paul Cave.

He talked frankly about the importance of customer complaints to his business and how he aims to continuously improve and grow their service. One of his biggest challenges was to change staff attitudes so that when they receive a criticism or a suggestion, it is seen as a positive thing. He wants them to celebrate when they get feed back of a negative nature, because this allows them to work out how to change and improve their service to address those comments.

He also outlined his secret to becoming a successful entrepreneur; “You need drive thrust, vision and follow through.”

Most business take a lot longer, the pockets need to be deeper than expected, and you need to be very very resilient. You have got to have an enormous determination, an obstinacy to proceed in order to make a business happen.

Also the subject is best taught by ‘pracademics’, and that some of our best entrepreneurs are not polluted by education. Many of our professions, particularly law and finance are about reasons ‘why not’.

Finally, entrepreneurs have the ability to see around a corner, when there isn’t a physical way of doing so. They sense what is there in a way that many of us are unable to do.

paulcavellow.jpg

Virtual world 0 – Real world 1

On Saturday I was fortunate enough to be able to attend what is considered to be the local derby of Arsenal vs. Tottenham Hotspur at the shiny new Emirates Stadium. After a slow start it turned into a very entertaining match for the 60,000 fans of both teams. Just after half time Arsenal scored the first goal of the match and the whole stadium erupted, to the extent that I could feel the stand shaking beneath my feet. Such a visceral experience came as a surprise.

On the way home through the new St Pancras station I was musing on the continued popularity of live entertainments, both sporting and music, when my thoughts were rudely interrupted. It was the screeching sound of Punch emanating from a Victorian style booth, surrounded by an entranced crowd of children and parents.

Here was another example of old technology (according to Wikipedia, Punch and Judy date back to the 16 century) still being popular with today’s generation of internet and video consumers.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILKiSXUYq9o]

Real Web 2.0 Benefits by Richard Wallis

One of my favorite presentations at the Online Information 2007 Conference was Real Web 2.0 Benefits by Richard Wallis Technology Evangelist at Talis.

He started with the most simple and yet comprehensive definition of Web 2.0 shown below.

round_corners.jpg

In case you hadn’t worked it out from his slide, the answer is Web 2.0 applications are identifiable due to their ’round corners’.

He also ran through quite a few live internet demonstrations which is always a brave thing to do in front of the critical Online audience.

Finally he showed what has to be my current favourite library related video on YouTube. It shows a mediaeval monk getting assistance from his ‘help desk’ to overcome the  challenges presented by the brand new technology of the book from his trusted scroll.

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ]

When Things Start to Think by Neil Gershenfeld

This is one of my favourite non-fiction books which I reviewed when it came out but have updated.

When Things Start to Think by Neil Gershenfeld – 1999

When Things Start to Think coverThis amazing book by Neil Gershenfeld the director of the Center for Bits and Atoms at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was so futuristic when it was written in 1999 that we are still waiting for many of his predictions to come true.

The book was written while Gershenfeld was the co-director of the Things That Think project at the MIT Media Laboratory. Here he was exposed to futuristic technologies on a daily basis and so gained an insight into the world of technology to come.

For example if you think the current state of computing is pretty advanced, what about a computer in your shoe that can communicate intelligently with others ‘wired’ footwear when you pass by on the street? Or the printer which produces three dimensional ‘printouts’ which will be your personal desktop factory.

My favourite chapter concentrated on the future of the book (surely a topic close to many of our hearts). He describes an electronic book containing around twenty or so pages of digital paper ‘printed’ using computerised ink. The text and images can be refreshed from the inbuilt memory or downloaded from the internet. The pages are fixed on the page and don’t disappear when the power is turned off. The real challenge for the technologists is to produce a page that has the readability as existing printed text. Gershenfeld spends several pages detailing just what a fantastic medium the ‘old’ technology of the printed page is for acquiring information. A book can contain a vast amount of information, you can jump to any page almost instantly, your can read it in the poorest of light, it needs no power and it is remarkably cheap when produced in large volumes.

I like the way the books is written in a chatty non-technical style with lots of clear and simple explanations, which is a rare ability in a technologist. Also, despite having seen quantum leaps in computing in over the years Gershenfeld realises there is still a long way to go before computers can be regarded as intelligent. Humans shouldn’t have to adapt to computers – it should be the other way around. For instance does your computer even know when you are sitting in front of it, let alone what kind of mood you are in, or how hungry or tired your are.

However I believe that Gershenfeld does fall into the scientists traditional mistake of thinking that we will reach a kind of technological nirvana. He fails to note examples from history where scientific developments have been abused to the detriment of humankind. For example, on the one hand we have nuclear power and genetically engineered medicines but on the other nuclear bombs and chemical warfare.

Jimmy Wales talks Wikis at Online Information 2007

I am just starting to catch up from the week that was Online Information 2007 and will be creating a few blogs from my notes.

First of all was the keynote speech ‘Web 2.0 in action:free culture and community on the move’, from Jimmy Wales of the Wiki Foundation on Tuesday 4 December

Jimmy WalesWikipedia is a registered charity which cost $1 million in 2007 and forecasted to cost $2-3 million in 2008 which is amazing considering it is now the 8th most popular website in the world. Even in Iran it is the 14 most popular.

It has expanded to over two million articles in English, but has over six million in total.  It has 14,000 articles in Hindi. But when you consider that there are 280 million Hindi speakers, it still has a long way to go.

Jimmy said that Wikipedia will remain true to encyclopaedia base and not include articles which you would not expect to find in a general purpose publication.

Minority interests are covered through the development of Wikis such as the Muppet Wiki with 15,000 articles and Wookieepedia (yes, Star Wars is the topic here).

For me the big story is the development of Search Wiki – an open source search engine will all decisions in the public domain. Fast Company Magazine in the U.S. described it as “Google’s worst nightmare”