Yesterday I was reacting to the way a health agency minimized a terrible problem by presenting data in a misleading way, and I framed it as predictable behavior by a bureaucratic system. While I may find the charts fascinating, this is a terrible way of introducing people to the healthcare challenges of people living in…
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Northern Disclosure
When big, complex, bureaucratic systems know they have a problem, they try to fix themselves. This results from a mix of motives. There is a natural impulse to improve the system for the benefit of end users. There is an equally natural impulse to avoid the intervention of outsiders in the repair of internal system…
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What’s News With You?
Sometimes the most astonishing aspect of news isn’t in the headline or the fine print, it’s the priority we give to certain stories. Last month I was in Victoria, the capital of our third biggest province. On the front page of the daily paper I read that an octopus had attacked a bald eagle in…
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Business Strategy – It’s Not Tiddlywinks
We often produce strategic plans for clients, despite the clients being uncertain about what strategy is and how it differs from other kinds of planning. Illustrations are often drawn from either sport or war. From the perspective of a former rugby player, there is little difference. What sport and war have in common is a…
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