Last week I talked about gamification - and whether it could be used to help improve productivity If you weren't thinking about it then, I hope you are now - Ambient research suggests that game-based learning will grow from $1.5 billion in 2012 to $2.3 billion in 2017.  This is important.  I am regularly int  touch with productivity centres around the globe

We've heard quite a lot about 'gamification' recently - especially in the context of online learning. I read the term many times before I sought to understand it ... so I thought some of you might be in the same boat and would appreciate an executive summary'. If I'm right (after several minutes of research),

Recently a colleague was bemoaning the fact that he had taken a bad decision.  When I questioned him about the decision, and about the outcomes, I formed the view that he had taken a 'correct' (or sensible) decision given the information he had available at the time. As an example, consider the decision to make

For about 10 years now wage increases in Germany have not kept up with the development of productivity, by a long stretch" said European Employment Commissioner Laszlo Andor in an interview with German newspaper Welt am Sonntag recently  This, of course, makes Germany highly competitive compared to other European states. Is this a problem? Is this unfair?

When we make changes to (try to) improve productivity, we subsequently measure results and assess impact.  (Or we should if we want to evaluate our own performance and impact.) However, in many complex situations, we cannot be clear that what we have done has resulted in the changes we observe.  What would have happened if

In my recent discussions with PAPA (the Pan African Productivity Association), the topic of the Ebola virus came up.  Just as Africa seems to have recovered from the great HIV/Aids crisis (having largely got the 'epidemic' under control), the continent is hit by another great health problem - likely to have severe implications for those

Well, I’m here in Mauritius and I’ve been having an interesting time. I spent a few days with the Board of PAPA (the Pan African Productivity Association) discussing the productivity status and opportunities in Africa. Many of the productivity centres and champions are working under a range of funding, cultural and political constraints but there

The 'something in the air' i refer to in the blog title is ... ME.  As you are reading this, I should be in the air (if I'm not waiting at an airport terminal) en route to Mauritius. Those of you who follow this blog know that I make this trip regularly - I have

Big Data in 'in' - its a fashionable topic, its 'cool' and exciting.  But is it useful? What are the applications where it will 'make a difference' - on a global level. Well, I've been doing some work in Agri-business recently.... and one useful trend has been to make data available (on yields, prices and

I have been doing a little work recently in relation to productivity and performance measures.  The thought struck me after trying to construct appropriate measures for a particular organisation in a particular situation that the measures we use are not as important as the fact that we use measures to track progress against strategy and