The topic of AI, unsurprisingly, comes up increasingly at the agency. Sometimes because clients explicitly ask, sometimes it just emerges naturally. Earlier this year, our team at Cannes heard AI echoing through every conversation, every presentation, every late-night debate. AI and LLMs aren’t just game-changing. They’re the first technology that genuinely amplifies human creativity ratherContinueContinue reading “Same but different: Where Artistic Intelligence Meets Artificial Intelligence”
Category Archives: advertising
Stuff and Things is now a Podcast
Quick version: What started as a blog has finally morphed into a book and now a limited-run podcast. Watch here: YouTube. Listen here: Spotify Longer, wordier version: I’ve been podcasting since 2008. Admittedly, with a somewhat substantial 16-year intermission. Back when I was at FivebyFive, we were the embodiment of professional fearlessness – always readyContinueContinue reading “Stuff and Things is now a Podcast”
Some lovely people have said some rather lovely things
Some lovely people have said some rather lovely things about Stuff and Things. Real people who I admire and am grateful for their kind words for my ramblings.Thank you Chris Baréz-Brown for continuing to be an inspiration and a wonderful human. Andi Catt for always being someone to talk openly and honestly to and forContinueContinue reading “Some lovely people have said some rather lovely things”
Stuff and Things – I wrote a book
It’s everyone else’s fault really. They kept telling me to write a book. So I did. Here it is. https://youtu.be/f0mVgzUZ81E Stuff and Things. The title pretty much self-completed when I started this blog thing many moons and 568 posts ago in 2007 and called it “[bluurb] stuff and things i thought you might like toContinueContinue reading “Stuff and Things – I wrote a book”
Coming soon…
I’ve sliced, smashed, squished and crushed me. Some weird stuff coming soon. Stuff and things. https://youtu.be/rUAq5gr9jyY
Look up, look ahead
While the headlines have softened a little and the rhetoric is more of a ‘soft’ recession than the self-inflicted imminent implosion of the Truss/Kwarteng aftermath, the mood music out there is still not that upbeat. Brands are still wanting to spend less. Agencies still fighting to get their share of the even smaller pie. WithContinueContinue reading “Look up, look ahead”
More room for thinking, less room for meeting.
Busy-ness is a curse. Best seen in your calendar bursting with back to back meetings. How many have a real purpose? How many even have an agenda attached to them? Does everybody invited even need to be there? The January meeting fest has begun and given me a headache. In the US there are 55ContinueContinue reading “More room for thinking, less room for meeting.”
Growth outlook: Winter is coming. Should I get my coat?
About this time of year everyone gets their crystal balls out and we all know most of it is made up and hoping rather than knowing. But what feels different this year is that universally every agency person has the same level of optimism around new business. And that level is pretty bloody low. SittingContinueContinue reading “Growth outlook: Winter is coming. Should I get my coat?”
we don’t like clients
We had a meeting last week. We were hosting, not actually part of the meeting. Just lending the Bank of Brilliant Ideas to a client to have an off-site. Much coffee and croissants prepped, we also gave each person our new notebook that has ‘we don’t like clients’ on it. It had the effect weContinueContinue reading “we don’t like clients”
48 shades of beige
Cleaning up my old notes recently, I found this from c. 2016/7 and thought it deserved an airing and quite poignant reading this today given what’s happened the last few months in my own life. I wrote it verbatim after a day out with the delivery drivers as a means of me processing the informationContinueContinue reading “48 shades of beige”
