#322 – RED FLAGS? THEY ARE ALL RED FLAGS – MALCOLM PEART

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That’s a Red Flag!” goes the cry from some when something amiss is recognised.  However, many project participants don’t realise that their Project sails through a sea of flags and that, on some occasion, the flags can be read as red by somebody at some time.

In a similar nautical vein the Roman writer Ovid once poetized “The man who has experienced shipwreck shudders even at a calm sea“.  While written some 2,000 years ago it is as true today as it ever was and a reminder to us all that risks lurk everywhere.  Some risks may not be identified, let alone assessed and may go unnoticed until they strike.  We need to be aware and vigilant and avoid a complacent belief that a risk register is the be all and end all. Continue reading

#320 – EMAIL @50 YEARS – BLESSING OR RISK – MALCOLM PEART

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Email is 50 this year…its Golden Anniversary!  It ‘happened’ in 1971 when Ray Tomlinson, the late computer engineer and first user, sent a transmission to himself utilising two independent computers…a revolutionary innovation at the time.  The content of that primordial message is long forgotten and the same may also be the fate of many of the ~300 billion emails that are sent almost every day by the estimated 4 billion users around the world.  Communication is said to bring us together or set us apart and email is no different. Continue reading

#316 – INFORMATION UNDERLOAD: DEPRIVATION OR ATTENTION DEFICIENCY – MALCOLM PEART

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We obtain information through learning to become, hopefully, knowledgeable and this is achieved through the communication of data.  This communication is achieved through our five senses despite a belief by some in a mystical third-eye and the gifts of telepathy and ESP.

Mankind’s communication abilities depend on sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell.  This basic toolbox of senses has been augmented, or some say ‘lessened’, over millennia through education and the evolution of culture and technology as our civilizations rise, and eventually, fall. Continue reading

#315 – VALUE OF COMMUNICATIONS: DOLLARS AND SENSE – MALCOLM PEART

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Man measures time by happiness or sorrow, tranquility or torture.  The one is past and gone so quickly that is seldom seized and savored while the other turns the hours into days and the weeks into years”.  This was written by Major Pat Reid in “The Colditz Story” and, while it comes from a time of internment at a dark time in history the same is true today.

But what has this got to do with the value of communication?  Communication today is faster, cheaper and more available that at any other time in the history of mankind.  Despite ever-increasing speed and bandwidth and accessibility today’s communication often leads to frustration and time can stand still while we wait for decisions and agreement while enduring argument and misalignment. Continue reading

#313 – INFORMATION UNDERLOAD: DEPRIVATION OR ATTENTION DEFICIENCY – MALCOLM PEART

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Information Underload; Deprivation or Attention Deficiency

We obtain information through learning to become, hopefully, knowledgeable and this is achieved through the communication of data.  This communication is achieved through our five senses despite a belief by some in a mystical third-eye and the gifts of telepathy and ESP.  Continue reading