W. A. I. T. - wait a great way to reconsider meetings

I am sure we have all been in those meetings which have been dominated by one or two "big personalities" who feel they are the one that needs to do all the talking. Even if its on topics they are not an "expert" or otherwise in.

It can be deeply frustrating for other people in the same meeting as often they will have good or even better points of view to give that can't be brought in to the discussion.

Its a key leadership skill to be able to effectively collaborate with others and that includes spotting when you find yourself taking over a meeting and also recognising when others are better placed to answer or even lead part of the meeting. I wish others could also follow this.

Therefore, I was quite pleasantly surprised and rather pleased when I found this picture that had clearly been put up by someone who had ended up in an equally frustrating situation. Therefore it seemed only right to share it more widely with others.

Meeting SAMlabs conceptually great IoT (internet of things)

I have recently become really quite interested in the concepts around the Internet of Things and how every device everywhere and anywhere could be Internet enabled and on-line. Arguably its not a new concept, I remember when I was working at energis back in 2002 discussing over dinner about Internet enabled fridges and how they could both order items for you and also suggest meals based on what was inside. And even before then its always been bubbling around...

So, if its not really that new a concept - why the interest now you might be wondering. Well it seems like much of the technology it has come of age and the time to create such devices is here. WiFi and Bluetooth technology has dramatically improved, battery life from micro cell batteries can now last certainly many hours if not many days and processors have shrunk in terms of size and power consumption yet dramatically improved in terms of abilities.

A few years ago we had the mood light bulbs where you can change the colour based on how you are feeling (we have them now in our bathroom) and we have had the Raspberry PI as an excellent low power fully featured mini computer, and we have even upgraded our boiler to also be wireless so our thermostat is as mobile as we are. Yet none of this has felt that cutting edge or to be honest had many diverse applications, which brings me to the key topic of this post...