Category Archives: thought leadership

The Olympic logistical super fun times with AI: why I traded Claude’s sass for Gemini’s brain

Expectation: A seamless Olympic dream.
Reality: Standing at a snowy border in Switzerland, staring at a sign that says “Müstair, cunfin” and wondering where on earth the bus is. 🚌❄️

Planning for the most spread-out Games in history was a trip. Between the “Milano shuffle,” soggy venue burgers, and an official website that had the urgency of a sloth, I had to outsource my brain to Gemini.

We traded AI sass for actual intelligence, bypassed the Milano Centrale madness, and found a “secret” bus stop thanks to some very kind Americans.

Moral of the story? AI can give you the map, but you still have to be the one to jump off the bus. Literally.

Key Takeaways: CMO role and Customer Focus

The Richmond Marketing Forum in London recently kicked off with a fabulous keynote featuring Naomi Walkland, CMO of Motorway, Jessica Myers, Chief Customer Officer of The Very Group and Rosie Hanley, Marketing Director at John Lewis. Having been surrround-sounded by political debates in the media where debate has been re-framed as shouty, aggressive, finger-pointing, talkingContinueContinue reading “Key Takeaways: CMO role and Customer Focus”

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.”

From driveway envy to driveway curiosity

We’ve been doing a bit of consultancy work into the high net worth (HNWI) and the ultra HNWIs in the second half of this year. One of the areas that always comes up is ownership and role of cars. It used to be quite easy, but change is happening fast. Here’s some thoughts. Oh andContinueContinue reading “From driveway envy to driveway curiosity”

it’s a fantasy world full of deviants…

Way back in 2006, there was a thing called Second Life. And web 2.0. And every agency person and marketer I knew was falling over themselves to do something. Anything! I recall many presentations explaining what it was all about and trying to act like I knew what I was talking about while being bemusedContinueContinue reading “it’s a fantasy world full of deviants…”

A chat with a man in the sauna and Elvis

This photo was taken almost a year ago. A lot has happened since then – maybe I’ll get to that in time – but it feels the right time to start back on getting things right again.  A few years back, I had a chat with a bloke in a sauna at the David LloydContinueContinue reading “A chat with a man in the sauna and Elvis“

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”

the evolution of a deck

It seems in our world, decks have become our currency. It used to be the black and white Art Director scamp was the most revered ‘product’ in an agency and in meetings. Today it seems it’s the deck. Whether that’s right or wrong is another thought for another day. I work in Keynote because IContinueContinue reading “the evolution of a deck”