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Mike Harris's Blog

Money and Mouths

Tuesday, July 29, 2008



So I write a book for entrepreneurs based on the idea that small companies can simply and cheaply use techniques that innovation leaders routinely use at vast cost. Techniques like customer insight, branding, culture, business planning, risk management , team building.

If you know what you are doing and use the best of modern technology I say you can get great benefit from doing things that were thought to be out of reach for small companies.



So the Garlik guys say : "We need some video - a tutorial which shows customers how to get the best out of Datapatrol . It's really expensive to do it professionally but you are a bit of a video whizz aren't you? You say modern cameras and editing software let anybody produce a professional looking video for the web. Can you do it for us? It won't cost anything then will it."



Now it's true I've been playing with video (and it's predecessor 8mm cine film) for 50 years. And it's true that I bore everyone telling them how clever I've been getting all that onto terrabytes of hard disk so I can edit it all into Hollywood like epics .



But I gulped at being asked to do a professional looking video for something as important as Datapatrol - then someone pointed at find your lightbulb and murmured something about money and mouths and so we are off - Script, Camera, Lights, Action!



Sometimes business is so much fun. Watch this space to see the results.









Those whom the gods wish to destroy

Friday, July 11, 2008




The government is deeply unpopular and many put the blame on Gordon Brown and/or the global ecomony. I think there's more to it. I think there are finally many chickens coming home to roost.


There's the small stuff:


try getting a passport photo taken for a two year old (like my grandson) which meets the new regulations for size of face, position of eyes in the photo and expression What unthinking nitwit wrote those regulations?
And what about the guy asking permission to light a single candle in his fiance's birthday cake at the sumptuous new champagne bar at St Pancras and being told :
" Not without a risk assessment,which we can't do because our manager is on holiday and anyway you would probably find it too expensive because we would almost certainly need someone on standby with a fire extinguisher"

What have we done to deserve that!

Then there's the big stuff

Why do we spend so much money on getting management consultants to advise on public service reform and why do ministers take their advice so uncritically?

Either sin would get you sacked in a well managed company. Years ago we used to joke that a management consultant knew 100 ways of making love but had never had sex. There's more than an element of truth in that when it comes to management consultants in the public sector.

Why do we persist in investing in billion pound public sector computer systems when we know systems of that size almost always fail. Why don't we decentralise a bit and build lots of smaller systems - that normally works.


Why did we throw so much money so fast at the unreformed NHS? It wasn't as though the government wasn't warned. My own mantra for many years has been throwing money at a failing organisation or a failing project makes it fail faster and similar sentiments were expressed by many experts about the NHS at the time of the increased funding.

How has the government managed to demoralise morale in the NHS whilst increasing funding and salaries faster than ever before? (that takes talent!)

Why does government set so many meaningless and conflicting central targets then get surprised when people on the front line behave in strange ways trying to make sense of them?

Any one who has ever run a company would laugh out loud at the government's approach to target setting - if it wasn't so sad.


I could go on.. but it might need a book in itself.

The source of this madness ?


too much application of private sector theory to a public sector which is not driven by the private sector imperative of innovation, competition and economic value. It can't be - the public sector deals with areas whose value can't be measured economically in conventional terms.


far too much direction passed down from on high- nothing like enough left to the discretion of those who know what they are doing


political correctness and risk aversion gone way too far

Maybe we have to go deeper to find the real source.

Are all these rules, all this reliance on elitist advice and all this centralisation a symptom of lack of trust?

They don't trust us!

It certainly feels that way doesn't it?

And I'm immediately reminded of what traditional Buddhist wisdom says about those who don't trust others - that basically they don't trust themselves. Eventually we all agree with them- we agree they are not to be trusted. Sad isn't it?
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