Paul Taylor

Latest Writing

  • LinkedIn Vs Twitter: Which Is Best?

    LinkedIn Vs Twitter: Which Is Best?

    The older I have become the more I have realised that the best things that have happened in my life have had little to do with judgement, planning and forethought – and everything to do with random chance and connection. As I write this I’m coming to the end of a three week trip to… Read more

  • Techno-admin, Microtransactions and Designing For Humanity

    Techno-admin, Microtransactions and Designing For Humanity

    Techno-admin: a pervasive phenomenon, whereby we customers are forced into infuriating, confusing, absurdly time-consuming and bleakly unrewarding tasks by a machine We are all techno-administrators today. The average person has about 100 passwords to keep track of, a spiralling number of emails to scan, file or delete, and a dizzying array of notifications and alerts vying for… Read more

  • The Law of Propinquity And The Work From Home Dilemma

    The Law of Propinquity And The Work From Home Dilemma

    In our post-internet, post-social media, post-covid world, does physical proximity still have value, particularly when it comes to creativity, innovation and discovery? The law of propinquity states that the greater physical (or psychological) proximity between people, the greater the chance that they will form friendships or romantic relationships. Other things being equal, the more we see people and… Read more

  • The Growing Bureaucratisation Of Life

    The Growing Bureaucratisation Of Life

    Many organisations , without realising it , act as inhibitors of creativity. Rules and protocols are put in place – often for very good reasons – that preserve the status quo.  Over time, organisations develop a set of social norms – ‘the way we do things around here’ – that either promote innovation or quell it. Our colleagues generate… Read more

  • Are You A Positive Deviant, A Negative Deviant, Or Just Plain Boring?

    Are You A Positive Deviant, A Negative Deviant, Or Just Plain Boring?

    Even if your customer satisfaction scores are upper quartile. Even if you’re a favourite with your regulator. A crisis can be waiting around the corner for any organisation. You can’t regulate a toxic culture and you don’t build trust with a consumer standard. If you really want to know what’s going on in an organisation… Read more

  • Fix The System Problem, Not The People Problem

    Fix The System Problem, Not The People Problem

    The phrase ‘shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic’ is believed to have been first used in 1969. It featured in a Time Magazine article that quoted a priest decrying petty internal changes at a time when the Catholic church should have been concentrating on the erosion of its moral authority. Since then the idiom is… Read more