Month: June 2026
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Technology, inflection points and cascading impacts
In the late 19th Century sharpshooter Annie Oakley was one of the most popular acts within Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Annie would demonstrate her skills performing tricks like shooting the flames off candles and her grand finale, shooting the end off a lit cigarette held in the mouth of a brave volunteer from the…
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On Getting Older, and Building Meaning
Every so often an essay or post comes along that when you read it, your only wish is that it had come from your brain and your keyboard. Packy McCormick’s Riding the Leopard was one such post for me. If you missed last week’s edition, this account of a talk which Packy gave at The Mountain event in…
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AI and the OODA Loop
Most AI use today is open-loop. People prompt, get an output, use it, and move on, meaning that each interaction is consumed the moment it’s produced. Last week I wrote about AI as compounding capability in the context of agencies and operating models, but it’s a principle that has much broader application. Getting value from AI and…
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The New Agency Operating Model
I recently ran a morning session at the ICOM World Meeting in Porto on the new operating model for advertising agencies. ICOM is the global network for independent agencies and the room was full of agency founders and leaders from markets around the world. A big part of the session focused on a scenario modelling exercise where…