Year: 2024
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Five observations about how we perceive time
As we come to the end of another year that seems to have whistled by it seems an apt moment to pause and reflect on how we, as humans, perceive time passing. I did a bunch of reading on this a few years back but it’s always struck me as a fascinating topic, not least…
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Shipped in 2024
It’s the time of year when we all look back/forwards/sideways at the things that we’ve done/will do/didn’t want to do, and the time when I indulge my perennial habit of looking at all the things that have comprised my work year (previous years: 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023). I do this as a way to look…
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Using GenAI in strategy, research and insight
Last week I ran a virtual version of the Advanced Application of AI in Advertising course that I put together for the IPA. One of the key topic areas is about how to use GenAI tools in the strategy and planning process which I think is an endlessly shifting but fascinating topic. I genuinely think that integrating…
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Learning from Formula One
There’s some interesting things happening with Formula 1 right now, and Scott Galloway wrote this week about how the sport is at an inflection point as it tries to build from the huge broadening of appeal that ‘Drive to Survive’ has given it (not least with women). As well as the obvious (fast cars, glamour, drama, exotic…
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The Lindy Effect, and the optimisation trap
A while back I read Shaw Talebi’s reflections from doing Nassim Taleb’s Real World Risk Institute course. One of the concepts featured in the course is The Lindy Effect – a principle derived from the observation that the future life expectancy of non-perishable entities, such as technologies, ideas, or institutions, is proportional to their current age. Put…
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Perspective blindness, and using AI to challenge your thinking
‘20 years after my own graduation I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliche about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper more serious idea. Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious…
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‘Good enough’ prompting
I really liked Ethan Mollick’s thoughts this week about ‘good enough’ prompting for AI tools. He references a study of Doctors using GenAI tools which revealed some interesting observations around algorithmic aversion (our hesitancy to take advice from machines when they conflict with our judgement, even when the machine may have a higher degree of…
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Do social media algorithms flatten culture?
It’s a good question. Years ago I wrote about different types of content curation, positing that there were three main types – algorithmic (we see stuff because of algorithms), professional (people who are paid to curate such as editors and commissioners) and social (we see stuff because friends/people we follow think it’s worth sharing). I added…
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The Six Types of Wealth
I have a sticky note on the wall in my office which lists the six types of wealth: Money, Time, Relationships, Health, Knowledge, and Experiences. I put it there as a constant reminder that there are different types of wellbeing and wealth, not just financial. It’s a deceptively simple but powerful way to think about…
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Tanks, innovation and transformative thinking
One of my favourite models for navigating technological-driven change (and realising the opportunity of technology-driven innovation) is SAMR, which stands for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redefinition. Drawn from education, the framework relates to the fundamental options for how new technology can enhance capability: it can be a direct substitute with no functional improvement; it can optimise and augment without changing the…