Cultivated: how good ideas become the value they should

Sign in Subscribe

A man called Obvious

A man called Obvious

One of the most useful business books I know is about eighty pages long, was first published in 1916, and spends a remarkable amount of writing on tinned peaches. On Obvious Adams, learning to see, and five tests for the obvious.

Sitting next to Nellie

Learning & Practice

Sitting next to Nellie

Jim Rohn reckoned you're the average of the five people you spend most time with. Mine are my wife, three sons and a motivational speaker on YouTube. On learning by proximity, and why a chair is cheaper than a course.

The tongue of the woodpecker

Climate & Creativity

The tongue of the woodpecker

Leonardo's to-do list included working out the tongue of the woodpecker, and popping to the stationer's. On keeping a catalogue notebook, the one place where thinking is allowed to be unfinished.

The wrong thing, beautifully done

The wrong thing, beautifully done

Be effective first at achieving your purpose. Then be efficient — because there's little joy in making the wrong thing faster. All you've done is reach the wrong place a little sooner.

Most gates open

Most gates open

A story about an old gate in Lancashire, workplace assumptions, and how easily we accept rules, norms and ways of working without checking whether they're actually locked.

Nobody warns you about life after the startup : startup is a story

Climate & Creativity

Nobody warns you about life after the startup : startup is a story

I left a company I'd helped carry from barely making payroll to an exit — and standing at the bus stop in the rain, I felt strangely bereft. This is about the emotional arc of a startup, the messy middle that turns out to matter most, and why so many founders feel restless and lost after the exit.

The Danish Beer Debrief

Learning & Practice

The Danish Beer Debrief

A flopped afternoon workshop in Copenhagen turned into the best lesson in teaching I've had in years — given to me, generously, by the person at the front. On what actually holds a room, and the craft of helping people learn.

How to Get Your Talk Accepted (Not Just Submitted)

How to Get Your Talk Accepted (Not Just Submitted)

Reviewers spend their evenings wading through submissions that read like a form got filled in because a form needed filling in. This is how to avoid being one of them.

In Praise of Badly Formatted Word Documents

Learning & Practice

In Praise of Badly Formatted Word Documents

My early career was in software testing – and a useful thing the craft gave me had nothing to do with testing software. On what your work leaves behind, and why writing things down is how you find the thread.

How I Manage What I Learn

Learning & Practice

How I Manage What I Learn

Collecting isn't learning. A personal knowledge system — Capture, Curate, Crunch, Contribute — for turning what you read into what you do.

Let them eat PowerPoint

Let them eat PowerPoint

A field note on the deck that becomes the point. And brioche.

The Skills You Learn on a Market Stall

Learning & Practice

The Skills You Learn on a Market Stall

What trade skills, commercial awareness and practical judgement can teach us about turning ideas into value.