Sir Rob's Insights

From Pneumatic Tubes to Autonomous Agents You track a package from a warehouse in another country to your doorstep in real time. You get a stock quote that is accurate to the microsecond. This seamless, instantaneous flow of information is the invisible engine of our modern world, a utility as fundamental as electricity. We take it for granted. But the journey to this point was not a straight, predictable line of progress. It was a series of surprising leaps, chaotic rebellions, and counter-intuitive shifts that repeatedly redefined the nature of work itself. The story of information systems is not just about machines getting faster; it's the story of how we have systematically tried to overcome the friction of the physical world. It’s a century-long quest to externalize memory, automate reasoning, and ultimately, make human effort more impactful by making the systems that support it more intelligent. The Evolution of AIS This article explores the five most counter-intuitive and im...

The Hidden Gap in Your Strategy It’s one of the most persistent frustrations in business: a brilliant, high-level strategy conceived in the C-Suite that somehow dissolves into a mess of misaligned projects, wasted resources, and missed targets by the time it reaches the frontline.  This chasm between ambition and reality is the " Strategy-Execution Gap ," and it’s the root cause of most strategic failures.  It’s the reason why groundbreaking initiatives often end with a whimper, not a bang. The Strategy-Execution (Vision-Reality) Gap But what if bridging this gap wasn’t about having a single, perfect plan?  What if it was about mastering a few counter-intuitive truths about how organizations actually work?  The most effective strategic analysts—the ones who consistently connect vision to value—operate from a playbook that looks very different from standard business school theory.  This article will distill five of their most powerful, non-obvious insights. Cultu...