A tradesman does their work as a means to an end whereas a craftsman does their work from a desire to do the job well for its own sake. Which are you or are you a bit of both?

Data Mining, a hi-tech buzzword for many years, is about excavating useful patterns which are hidden deep in your data to give you valuable insights you could not otherwise find. I was looking for a data mining tool in the same broad price bracket as Excel but which was also robust and did not require you to be a mathematics genius to use it. Surprisingly I managed to find a product which exactly met my needs!

Here is an excellent web link plus two great books which address the question which diagram or chart should I use to best communicate different types of information visually. With at least 40 types of diagram and new ones/variants constantly being invented this is a hot topic!

One of the most useful aspects of Microsoft Excel is its ability to quickly slice and dice customer data from live systems to identify important trends and behaviors which can inform strategy. In this article and screencast I share a 7-step plan, illustrated with a worked example, for Instant Customer Analytics using Excel.

I am always on the lookout for good simple visualisation techniques to support change management. Chris Collison has introduced me to The River Diagram - a great strategic tool for moving a community of groups forward via common initiatives and best practice sharing.

Brainstorming is one of those things which some people believe is natural and easy - they are wrong! There are 7 things which will make your team brainstorm go brilliantly .... and 6 things which will absolutely kill it. Find out what they are here.

I thought it might be useful to provide a single page link to the full collection of videos and animations I have posted on Vimeo over the last year. I upgraded to Vimeo Plus which allows me to publish videos in HD and also to view the videos very effectively on the leading smart phones.

In an excellent article in The Observer, Keith Stuart argues that the reason video games are so popular is not because we are simply escaping reality but because the best of these games provide us with valuable experiences in learning, autonomy, authority, feedback and risk-taking. This argument also resonates with a book I am reading "Reality is Broken" by Jane McGonigal.

Mark Dowds, from Brainpark, is a leading thinker and practitioner in the emerging area of Workforce Democracy - an innovation which is beginning to radically change work places by replacing 'command and control' with self-organisation. I invited Mark to write a short intro on the subject as part of my "Think Differently" series because it resonates strongly with Bioteams.

I wrote an article on the use of simulation technology in the field of "Sales Performance Optimization" for The Effective Executive Magazine for the May 2011 edition. They have very kindly allowed me to offer a free PDF download of the paper to bioteams.com readers.