Tag 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.

AI in agencies: The execution gap is widening. Start building.

I spent yesterday at the Prolific North event, courtesy of my clients at Twisted Loop. If you want a snapshot of where the UK agency world sits with AI, it’s a study in optimistic paralysis. We are all excited. We are all experimenting. But the gap between our strategic intent and our operational execution isContinueContinue reading “AI in agencies: The execution gap is widening. Start building.”

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”

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”

Should social media be allowed at work?

With employees ‘wasting’ up to a third of their day being distracted with things like social media, office chat, going online in work hours, I was asked to comment this week in Times supplement, Raconteur on whether social media should be allowed at work. What do you think? We don’t limit what our teams can and cannotContinueContinue reading “Should social media be allowed at work?”

Rebrand shakes off naff 70’s image of ‘Spritz’

Commenting in The Grocer on the revamp of the Blossom Hill Fruit Bloom (Membership required for the link – see images above). From a wine consumer perspective it makes sense as ‘Fruit Bloom’ doesn’t help you to distinguish what the product is or why it is different from the main Blossom Hill range of rose, whitesContinueContinue reading “Rebrand shakes off naff 70’s image of ‘Spritz’”