Job advertisement: Exceptional Executive Assistant/ Professional Support

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I am currently advertising for someone to work at the core of my team, based out of Sydney. I’m advertising online, through word-of-mouth, and it makes also sense to put this on my blog too. Please do pass this on if you know anyone you think may be interested. Blog readers are encouraged to apply! Special talents in online tech, PR, research, consulting processes etc. will have ample scope for application. Full job ad details below.

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Leda Bella Dawson is born

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Leda Bella Dawson was born on 12 August 2006, exactly on schedule. We often forget what a miracle life is. One of the great things about becoming a parent is you are confronted with the extraordinary fact of two people’s genes being combined, growing for nine months inside a woman, then suddenly emerging as a perfect human being. All of the instincts necessary to feed and grow are there from the beginning. Experiencing the lifeforce of a new human is a wonderful reminder of the miracle of life.

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Here are more baby photos for those interested.

We’ve had lots of interest in the name, so read here for the story of Leda.

We’re all back at home today, so back to work, and perhaps a pick up from my recent lack of blog posts, but that will be balanced with helping take care of my gorgeous daughter…

Babies and blogging

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Any day in the next couple of weeks I will become a father for the first time. I’ve been told countless times that it will change my life, but I think I’ll have to experience it to understand… My wife and the soon-to-be mother is the adorable Victoria Buckley. She is an extremely talented jewellery designer, with a shop and fabulous collection of pieces that draw on many inspirations, including fairy tales, myths, and legends. Victoria’s landmark outlet is in Sydney’s Strand Arcade, with clients worldwide, and exports to top-end retailers in the US and elsewhere on the cards. It’s been very interesting to me that Victoria’s and my work, while they may seem to be very different, are actually highly aligned. Archetypes, meaning, and communication are common threads in both of our work, and we find much to share in insights between our businesses.

I will soon enough find out how becoming a father impacts my blogging. I have never been quite as active a blogger as I’d like, with urgent work commitments daily often coming before my desire to blog on interesting things I’m seeing or doing. However with the Future of Media Summit now out of the way, and baby on the way, I’m deliberately creating space for myself, so it’s possible that between changing nappies and earning a living I’ll be able to blog a little more than I’ve been able to so far this year. Writing a blog post is a nicely packaged, manageable task. I doubt Trends in the Living Networks will become a baby blog, but expect a few references to babies along the way…

Launching Future Exploration Network

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I have just established a new organization, Future Exploration Network, which will be the home for a lot of the work I do from now on. This is very exciting for me – the culmination of over 10 years of developing my thinking on business models and creating value for clients. The firm will focus on helping clients think about the long-term future, and what that means for strategy and actions today – this has been a significant piece of my work over the last eight years, particularly applying scenario planning methodologies in new ways. For this venture I’ve teamed up with Richard Watson, who is a fabulous trend-watcher and thinker. While a lot of his work is in driving the trend-watching group Now and Next, he’s also established organizations such as Global Innovation Network and Free Thinking. We’ve worked together on a number of projects, including a major scenario planning project for a large bank, and found that our skills are very complementary. Richard helps people stretch their thinking into new places, while I help take the insights we uncover to build pragmatic strategies. However the core of the model is moving beyond us and our support team to draw on global best-of-breed thinkers to deliver projects for clients. Together we can access many of the top people around the world, tapping our networks to create unique services. Rather than trying to cover all issues, we are focusing on four key themes: the future of global business, the future of technology, the future of media, and the future of financial services. Obviously meaty topics, but ones we have spent a lot of time on over the years. I’ll act as chairman of the new organization, as we build it over time, and continue to use my existing firm Advanced Human Technologies for some of my more traditional consulting work. We intend to generate a lot of interesting content along the way, so a fair bit of our work will be visible – I’ll keep you posted. Content includes a Future Exploration blog that includes posts from myself, Richard, and others, so this is likely to become a good one-stop shop for views on the future, especially – for now – on media. I’ll post about our initial venture on the future of media soon.

Keeping on blogging and serialization

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Apologies for the lack of posts over the last week. I’d like to intersperse the serialization of the Seven MegaTrends of Professional Services paper with more current and informal musings, but it’s not always easy to do. This week entails 30 hours of flying time (a chunk of which later today), with pretty much all the rest of my waking hours spent with clients at an executive retreat and then an in-house conference. Blogging is a top priority for me, but ultimately top of the list is doing my client work to the best of my abilities. Now that the most intense week of the year (so far!) is out of the way, I’m sure I’ll dig out a bit of time to blog. I’ll never compete on frequency with the most prominent bloggers, however I’ll do what I can to keep it reasonably consistent.

The serialization of the white paper has been an experiment, prompted by the suggestion by leading blogging expert Billl Ives when we last caught up for lunch in Boston last year. It makes a lot of sense, in that it keeps a steady flow of content in the bite-size chunks that people look for in blogs, it enables people to focus or link to specific ideas or information rather than the whole paper, and it’s certainly search-engine friendly. Yet during the period that the article has been serialized, I’ve felt that it’s dominated my blog, and possibly given it too much of a formal feel rather than the more casual commentary that characterizes blogs. I’d love to hear back any thoughts on whether it’s been good or not to serialize the paper in this way. I will definitely do it again, with an article on The Six Facets of the Future of PR up next, though I think I’ll stick to smaller series rather than the 12 or so that the MegaTrends paper has been sliced into, and I’ll consider further how to incorporate chunky content into the blog.

Any blog is an experiment which evolves over time. There’s plenty more I want to try, but for now I’ll just endeavor to keep the flow reasonably regular. A lot of what drives me is that there are so many interesting things I see that I’d like to share with others. Doing my bit to help get the best things to float to the surface…

Welcoming a busy and fun year ahead!

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Back from a fabulous holiday in Thailand, and straight into an array of very interesting – and time-consuming – client work. Blogging is central to who I am, but clients ultimately have priority. I’ll try to make sure I maintain my target of 2-3 posts a week (or sometimes more), but do expect a little variation along the way…

I just thought it would be worth sharing some of what I have on the agenda for 2006. Advanced Human Technologies is continuing to work with a variety of major professional and financial firms on enhancing their client relationship initiatives. Through this year I will be focusing substantially on applying social network analysis (SNA) approaches to a variety of topics. In the near future CNET will be releasing a study I’ve done in collaboration with them on how influence networks affect the success of major technology purchasing decisions. There are some fascinating results, and I expect the report to prompt my influence network work to be developed and applied in a range of directions. As research leader for client connectivity for the Network Roundtable, the leading body of expertise on SNA, I’m currently engaged in a round of studies with major firms on what drives the success of their high-value client relationships. Other areas I will be applying SNA approaches to include creating value in industry assocations, and fostering cross-border innovation. In addition to all this, I will shortly be setting up a global organization studying the future of business, with a kick-off event mid-year on the future of media. More information on all of this before too long. In a word, plenty on my plate, but all great fun! I look forward to sharing details of what I’m uncovering along the way, and hopefully interacting with you at some point in the year. Happy new year!

On holidays!

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I’m about to head off to Thailand for two weeks with my wonderful wife Victoria. I’ve been to Thailand a fair bit over the years, but it’s first time for Victoria, and we’re going to two places I haven’t been before: Hua Hin, a resort area a few hours drive south of Bangkok for some relaxation, then Chiang Mai in the north for some exploration. So this blog is now officially on holidays – back mid-January! Have a fabulous New Year and start to 2006!

Best books of 2005

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BOSS magazine has named Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships as one of the best books of 2005 in its December issue, out today. Always nice to get positive feedback! If you haven’t got hold of a copy of the book yet, feel free to download the free chapters.

Round-world book speaking tour

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I’m just about to embark on a quick round-world trip to promote my new book Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships 2nd Edition. I’ll be speaking about the book, client leadership, and how to “lock-in” your clients to some great groups along the way. Full details and registration information is at www.ahtgroup.com/schedule.htm.

Dates and organizers:

San Francisco: KM Cluster, September 27

Seattle: Company of Friends, September 29

Boston: Company of Friends, October 4

Toronto: HelixCommerce, October 6

London: Managing Partner Forum, October 10

Hong Kong: Hong Kong Knowledge Management Society, October 13

The feedback on the new edition has been extremely pleasing. The new chapters in this edition – Chapter 6 on implementing key client programs (which is available for free download) and Chapter 9 on leading relationship teams – as well as the updated section on technology in client relationships, seem to have particularly struck a chord with major professional and financial firms. As a result I’ll be fitting in various client work on my travels. Firms are recognizing that the work they put into enhancing their capabilities at client relationships will be amply repaid.

I hope to see you along the way!

Book Now Launched!

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The second edition of Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships is now out, with the Global Book Launch in New York in late June a big success, despite storms that evening. It will still take another couple of weeks before it’s in bookshops outside the US, but it’s available from online booksellers. Two free chapters are available from the book website. Chapter 1 provides the high-level treatment of the idea of knowledge-based relationships, and the critical new theme in the book of professional services leadership. Chapter 6 is entirely new to this edition, covering how to develop and implement key client programs. Further book launch events or workshops are scheduled or in planning in Sydney, London, Hong Kong, San Francisco and various other US cities in the fall – see my global schedule for details as these are finalized. Please let me know if you have any thoughts or feedback on the book, and in particular further examples of leading practice in the field – I’m very interested to hear from you.

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