The Innovation Diaries

Friends and family are very important to us at ?What If! so every year we invite them to come hang out with us for an evening and get a better idea what the hell we really do! Last night we had 30 of our favourite people come explore our offices, learn about how we work […]

One of the most exciting areas in innovation, especially for a techno-geek like myself, is the concept of disruptive innovation; ideas that are revolutionary, not evolutionary; ideas that change the basis of competition; ideas that force followers to react. Think of digital photography, the Nintendo Wii, downloadable media, hybrid cars. But disruptive innovation can only […]

We have started a sharing group; it’s made up of people who work within the culture and people teams of some great companies. We meet once a month to share and steal ideas from each other on various topics. Last month we all met for the first time and talked around culture, its no secret […]

So you can find some loads of (we hope) great insights and posts here, but the folks from ?What If! can also be found blogging elsewhere - if you’d like to read more, check out some of the links below.
Blake Glenn tells how “Innovation is No Longer A Choice, It’s About Death or Glory”
Lou Burrows […]

Dear friends, family and supporters,
A huge thank you to you all for supporting me.  Last weekend I did the London Marathon in just over 5 hours.  I could have done it in a shorter time but at mile 14 my hips just locked and I had to walk for a few hundred meters - after […]

Minnie and I are at the Great Place to Work Conference in St Louis this week and attended the opening Key Note session today. The speakers were Laszlo Bock, VP for People Operations at Google and Jack DePeters, SVP of Store Ops at Wegmans. Both have won the Best Place to Work in the USA.
Just […]

We are very excited as this week we gained 12 new ?What If!ers, and we’ve started knocking down walls and baking cakes ready for their arrival! They come in the form of digital strategists and analysts from the agency Fathom Partners. The acquisition has happened and now the real partnership will begin as we join […]

As you may or may not know, TopDog is a real-time learning program for CEO types, where leaders learn from leaders by visiting some of the world’s most innovative companies. Last week new Top Dog Director, Michael O’Keeffe, and I flew out to San Francisco to explore Silicon Valley for the next generation of […]

I was reading an interesting piece by blog guru Seth Godin, who said that HR leaders should change the department name to Talent. This is something we did many years ago (we’re an innovation company, remember?), but recently we’ve moved onto calling it “People”. My view on talent word is that it’s superlative. But […]