Earlier today I moved The Samurai website onto the SocialGO social networking platform.
Until certain technical changes take effect, www.the-samurai.net is in limbo – and so is .
For the time being, please address your emails to .
Please accept my apologies for this inconvenience.
The Regnite programme runs from Thursday 21 October 2010 (or Thursday 28 October 2010) to Thursday 20 October 2011. The location of the five workshops is Bristol, United Kingdom.
Read the short version with key information
Independent consultants face an increasingly uncertain future as the landscape changes on a daily basis and budget cuts render consultants’ business models obsolete.
The old demarcation lines that separated one consulting discipline from another have all but disappeared. Digital consultants are helping clients transform their corporate cultures. Technology-centred companies are providing innovation consultancy services. Social media consultants are advising clients on CRM issues. The professional services marketplace has become a free-for-all.
The notion of distinct private, public and third sectors has been rendered meaningless as social entrepreneurs establish community-orientated bars, volunteers step forward to run village shops, and government organisations outsource more and more public services provision to Serco, Capita and the rest.
The forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review is triggering further pessimism and uncertainty in those of us whose livelihoods will be adversely affected by the curbs on the use of consultants that will inevitably be imposed on providers of public services by UK government.
The Reignite programme is intended for all types of consultant, including:
These creations include products, services, customer experiences, ventures, institutions, organisational cultures and structures, work practices, buildings, environments, social protocols, and community amenities.
“Business people don’t need to understand designers better. They need to be designers. That makes them better business people.”
Theme: Design thinking, services design, innovation and entrepreneurship in the creative industries.
Location: Haarlem, The Netherlands (a short hop from Schipol Airport)
Date: 14 September 2010
Speakers include: Adrian Hon (Six to Start), Oliver King (Engine), Scott Belsky (Behance.net), Ross Zietz (Threadless), Paul Graham (Anomaly London), and Roland van der Vorst (They).
Learn more: www.creativecompanyconference.com
Chris Corrigan has asked me spread the word about the next Art of Hosting retreat. Several people I know have taken part in previous retreats and benefited greatly from them, so I’m very happy to pass on the details.
Here’s news of another inspirational event – this one convened by Nic Turner, managing director of Limited Nowhere, and co-author of The Way of Nowhere.
Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant is a best seller written by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne. The book evolved from an article published in the October 2004 issue of Harvard Business Review.
“Stop benchmarking the competition. The more you benchmark your competitors, the more you tend to look like them.” W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, authors of Blue Ocean Strategy
Michelle James, CEO of the US-based Center for Creative Emergence, has published a short article that presents seven powerfu tools for navigating the unknown.
I am summarising them here, as they are highly relevant to those engaged in whole system innovation and change.