The Observer reports in “Nurses' co-op to bid for NHS work”, by Nick Mathiason on Sunday November 13, that throughout the country doctors and dentists are beginning to form themselves into employee-owned co-operatives in a bid to win contracts from National Health Service commissioners. But they are finding it hard, as there appears to be a bias towards giving work to mainstream businesses’.

The Jack Welsh approach to change management

At recent Institute of Directors lunch for 600 business leaders in London Jack Welch, former head of GE and voted the most respected business leader of all time, when asked about the relative importance of right values versus making the numbers said:

No but some of it is of dubious quality

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales created a stir when he admitted online that the entries for Bill Gates and Jane Fonda were “a horrific embarrassment” and “nearly unreadable crap”.

Your PC could be sending spam and you don't even know it

According to Newsweek (November 7, 2005) an incredible 60% of all spam is estimated to come from so-called zombie computers. These are usually home PCs hijacked without the owners knowledge.

Home-shoring is replacing off-shoring

Matt Keating, writing in Phone home for The Guardian (Saturday October 15), reports that “Virtual call centres” (aka home-shoring) where staff work from home over the web can save employers significant infrastructure and accommodation costs and also keep workers happier.He also notes some of the management challenges in keeping the remote workers connected with their employers.

Harvard now says VoIP is strategically important

A very interesting article appeared in September's Harvard Business Review (Vol. 83, No. 9) the significance of which may not have been fully appreciated. The article, Using VoIP to Compete, explains "Voice over IP" in laymans terms and concludes:

i,Team

The famous science fiction writer, Isaac Asimov, forecasted the coming age of Robots with a series of entertaining stories involving dilemmas around the concept of the Three Laws of Robotics. Asimov's work was brought to the big screen in the recent block-buster film starring Will Smith “i, Robot”. But can these laws also be applied to teams?

The real agenda in boring meetings: football, food and underwear

The UK guardian, Saturday September 24 reports that business meetings in the UK have become so boring that most participants totally mentally check out. However apparently this has an "up-side" as it stimulates the participants creative thinking – a bit like being in the shower or out on a long walk!

Government should look to Open Source for civic engagement methods not just for its software.

Demos, an influential ThinkTank, have published a 77-page report (PDF) 'Wide Open - Open source methods and their future potential' by Geoff Mulgan and Tom Steinberg with Omar Salem.

"Fascinating lessons we can very readily learn from the most successful living systems on the key characteristics needed to operate a highly effective organisational team”. I am delighted to announce that, in collaboration with Robin Good, I have developed a new audio-visual presentation entitled "How to fix the three killer problems in your teams without any extra technology".