Edward Melvin

Reliably posting, about once per month ® 

Hand of Henry: fixing a problem & righting a sense of injustice

Today's march on the French embassy, by Irish football fans outraged at the Hand of Henry incident, is prompted by a simple sense of injustice.

It's not about forcing a replay. That will not happen. It's about the participants feeling deeply wronged, and responding to an unfair world.

Irish football fans were wronged by the sport they love; do not underestimate how passionate people are over football, or any sport. Marching on an embassy is a misguided, misplaced (and faintly ricidulous) action to take, but it reflects the depth of feeling. Many will march ostensibly 'for the craic' and with tongue in cheek. But most want their unhappiness registered, their voice heard.

This is the difference between fixing a problem & righting a sense of injustice. The group is not marching for video refereeing. FIFA will probably introduce this or some similar method of policing this area. So the specific problem this incident highlighted will be remedied.

Righting the injustice is what the march is about, and I would suggest that instead of a march, people do their bit to make the world a little fairer and right this wrong, in their own personal way.

Make a donation, volunteer, help out at a local club or sporting event, visit someone, take a kid out with a football. Any number of activities.

Sport, and this world, can be very unfair - but this sense of powerlessness which has prompted this march is misguided. It has better uses.

330,000 people have signed up to a Facebook group - how good would it be if this group was turned towards sports / community / event volunteering?

That way, this whole unhappy episode could actually end as a deeply positive resut for Irish football.

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The Russian police are stern. Stern but fair

Russian police officer turns whistleblower and in the process validates his entire career, calling time on corruption in the force and making a public call for action by Vladimir Putin.

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#dublinbikesfail: Why government data needs to be publicly available via API

Dublin has a bike rental scheme now, delivered by outdoor ad house JC Decaux, in exchange for outdoor ad real estate on streets.

JC Decaux recently forced Fusio, a 3rd party, to withdraw their mobile app which told people where their nearest bike station was, bikes available, and other good stuff. A few feathers were spat.

Firstly, I'm surprised that people thought JC Decaux would be fine with a 3rd party using their data. They are a private concern; they exist to make money. Fusio were benefiting, by putting an app available for download which piggybacked on it. Yes, I realise that Fusio were not charging for it. But there were clear commercial benefits to them in offering a free app. They are not a bunch of hippies (warning: assumption) and also exist to make money. There are opportunity costs for JC Decaux as well.

The key point is: it looks like Dublin City Council did not understand that this was a public data project, or did not see the inherent value of making this clear in their agreements.

Metadata about the project (i.e. location of bike stations, available cycles, and free spots) should have been the property of Dublin City Council. Instead that information is obviously the property of JC Decaux.

Government bodies and agencies: please care about your data (by that I don't mean care about data protection, that's a given).

Curate, collate and make it available. If you make appropriate public data accessible via an open and well-documented API, the market will do the rest.

If you don't want to listen to me, maybe listen to Tim Berners-Lee instead, via his TED video or article on the topic. Or just have a look at what they are doing in the UK.

I haven't used those bikes yet, but they look nice and people seem to smile a lot on them. So that's good.

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Filed under  //   advertising   data   dublin   government  

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Top 10 reasons why playing CRPGs prepares you for project management

I haven't played a CRPG since finishing Baldur's Gate for the 10th time about 10 years ago.
 
But the exciting world of PM needs more people schooled in RPGs, because RPGs teach you:
 
1. Risk Assessment
2. Managing team dynamics
3. Planning & scheduling
4. Task dependencies
5. Skills development
6. Team selection & motivation
7. Contingency planning
8. Problem assessment
9. Pattern recognition
10. Effective leadership
 
I can expand on these thoughts further and at length. However, the interested audience for this post is probably ridiculously small.
 
Bah. The exciting world of PM is as badly understood as the Forgotten Realms. I cast magic missile.

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ICAN moves office: the new gaff rocks

So we've moved office here in ICAN. After several years in Malt House, we're now relocating to Warrington House, Mount Street Crescent.
 
I am trying to avoid sounding like a douche when I say that this new office is going to be good for us, our projects and our clients. It's proving difficult but there you go.
 
In short: the new gaff rocks. Big ups to Shenda & Flick.
 
More photos to come, but for now, here's a 'before' pic.

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Workshops vs. meetings: only one winner

For people who still think meetings are toxic, courtesy of perhaps 37 Signal's Getting Real (it's now 3 years old but still relevant) or the various productivity gurus on lifehacker.com, I have a suggestion. 

Just don't call it a meeting. Call it a workshop.

'Meetings' suggest a jawing session where there are some great anecdotes, maybe some shared diuretics and a bit of a laugh, before a few issues are 'explored'. We learn a little about each other. It's a nice journey of discovery. But the notes are brutal.

A 'Workshop' is a term of industry. Things are built during a workshop. Decisions are made. Ideas are sketched out, considered, discussed, and next steps decided. In short, progress is made and momentum is generated.

So the next time you call one, choose your language carefully. It affects the mindset of your attendees and what they are prepared to get done.

You can still have the coffee.

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Filed under  //   ideas   language   opinion   productivity   projects  

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The world's best restaurant: operating at a loss

This is a gigantic recipe tome from the infamous ElBulli, reputedly the world's best restaurant.

 8000 people get to travel each year to Spain, to dine at ElBulli. About two million apply.

 What's interesting about this is not the role-reversal of the diners being shipped to meet the ingredients (ha!) but the fact that the restaurant itself operates at a loss.

 Books and speaking engagements are the profitable side of the business at ElBulli.

 Was this the plan all along? Or did the 'alternative revenue stream' become the profitable side of the business? Did Ferran Adria want this model from the start?

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Online retailers: make it personal

See below - a returns label done right. Courtesy boden.co.uk. Online retailers need to personalize the experience as much as possible. Good stuff like this helps.

 Their purchase process also includes options for 'what should we do if you're not in when we deliver this?'. You can then choose to leave with a neighbour, leave in a delivery box, call me, etc.

 Thumbs up for clued-in online stores like Boden. And for favourable exchange rates.

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Project leadership & the persistence of vision.

This is the magazine stand at my local Borders. In advance of the inauguration on Tuesday, they have an Obamagazine section, as editorial teams on both sides of the Atlantic give the incoming president their covers.

 And so Obama's great project begins.

 Projects need leadership before management. Every project needs a vision, a clear definition of purpose. Management is just the science of execution. But leadership provides vision. Don't make the mistake of perfectly executing the wrong approach.

 Over a few years of project management, I've seen and led some really great projects, and some failures.

 But the key factor was nearly always the vision, not the execution.

 The next time you begin a project, before you involve people, define the vision. And make sure your people keep the vision at the heart of everything they do. Remember that the committee will never do this for you. And that if you don't have a vision for your project, someone else will.

 Want to lead a great project? Just create the vision.

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Filed under  //   leadership   management   obama   project   vision  

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ALLCAPS INVITATIONAL SOAPBOX

So here is the kind of piece I don’t really get to write any more. I wrote this for Honky a few years ago. Honky was either an infamous underground literary journal, or a good idea in PDF format which never made it into print. Ok: we did one copy. Happy Christmas.

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