Optimistically sceptical and anti-hype: where I’ve landed on AI

AI various apps on a phone

I’m gradually tidying up this blog, tweaking formats, setting up redirects and updating meta descriptions.

Reading old posts about developments I once supported – where colleagues now live – feels a bit like going through photos from yesteryear. My enthusiasm for social media in older posts is especially striking. We did some great things on Twitter back in the day. And didn’t I love it.

Things change. The enshittification of the internet is real and multi-layered.

And as AI advances into so many aspects of our lives, I hold more nuanced views about tech today. On balance, I’d say I’m optimistically sceptical. Or maybe sceptically optimistic.

Either way, I strongly support good tech, while pushing back against the bad bits. There is plenty to think about every day.

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Working from home ‘debate’ should step out of the 1980s

1980s typewriter

Here we go again…

It’s like the last five years never happened.

Nigel Farage’s recent ‘have a go Britain’ speech included a snippet on working from home that will land badly with many because of its failure to recognise the realities of modern life.

Weirdly calling for an ‘attitudinal change’ (whatever that means), his speech to Reform supporters said:

“People aren’t more productive working from home. It’s a LOAD. OF. NONSENSE. They’re more productive being with other fellow human beings and working as part of the team.”

Many of his applauding supporters looked like they hadn’t worked in many years. I’ll come back to that.

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McSweeney’s resignation statement eases the heat, but spin culture holds on 

Number 10 Downing Street

After days of pressure on the government, Morgan McSweeney’s exit as Number 10’s chief of staff felt inevitable.

As resignation statements go, it made a fair attempt to own his part in a scandal that could still engulf his boss.

It admits his role in advising the Prime Minister to appoint Peter Mandelson as US Ambassador, acknowledges the damage caused, and owns the failure.

It stands up well against a political culture that too often denies responsibility at all costs, even when the evidence screams otherwise.

Other parts of the statement – included here and in full below – landed less well though.

Statement on Morgan McSweeney's resignation which is also available online here https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c74wd01egvyt
Statement from BBC online https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c74wd01egvyt
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Why late payments hurt agency growth, and what we do about it

Pay me

Celebrating success matters for small teams. We’ve had plenty to celebrate at Distinctive recently, as we take on new clients, win recognition and build a team spanning from Cornwall to Gloucestershire.

We’re part of a wider success story of a growing independent agency sector employing more than 230,000 people and contributing billions to the UK economy. It’s a diverse, resilient, vibrant industry that doesn’t ask for handouts, and innovates in the face of huge challenges. 

There’s plenty to be confident about in 2026. But it’s not plain sailing. And I want to write here about the worst part of agency life that impacts almost every business I know, including ours.

Step forward, late payments. A silent drain on time, energy and momentum. It’s a tricky topic to cover, and I’ve reflected on posting about this for months.

But spending Saturday morning at month end drafting emails to chase for payment pushed me to write something on LinkedIn. This post expands on those thoughts.  

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The collaboration challenge: how places can keep moving through chaos

Chaos images - front cover of Spectator and Economist magazine.

A fast start to the year makes it important to find time to make sense of events and what they mean for us.

Headlines scream chaos at us. Donald Trump’s statements this week alone – on Greenland, threats of increased tariffs, slurs against NATO troops and peace boards with Putin – are enough to make the head spin. And maybe that’s the point.

We can’t know what this means for the global economy, security and the values that many world leaders seemed to share until recently.

Canadian PM Mark Carney’s incredible speech at Davos highlights a ‘rupture’ in these values. His call to other ‘middle countries’ to become beacons in ‘a world that’s at sea’ resonates. Canada’s response to Trump’s aggression – on taxes, investment, defence spending, and closer partnerships with Europe – seem hugely impressive set against the trivia served up here.

Could it be a defining moment? If you have 15 minutes, I’d recommend watching it.

The rupture Carney speaks of has been a long time in coming. Now it’s here, addressing it feels like the biggest collaboration challenge of my lifetime.

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Britain isn’t broken, but Jenrick shows that politics is bust

Broken Britain flag

If you want to know what’s wrong with British politics and the media’s relationship with it, Robert Jenrick’s bumpy landing at Reform UK offers a solid starting point.

“It’s time for the truth. Britain is in decline,” he said on Thursday, after arriving late to announce his defection to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK from a Conservative Party he once aspired to lead.

Opportunistic, noisy, and clumsily handled, his announcement and the media reaction to it neatly sums up the Westminster bubble’s failure to look beyond personalities that increasing numbers of people can’t stand.

It farcically followed Jenrick’s sacking from the shadow cabinet after Conservative aides found a draft speech announcing his defection lying around before he had a chance to use it.

This was the ‘irrefutable evidence’ of Jenrick’s disloyalty Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch cited when confirming Jenrick’s sacking on social media.

Jenrick went silent for hours. Badenoch scuppered Farage’s plan to publicly welcome him to an ‘insurgent’ party which increasingly resembles a failed old guard that Reform’s leader eagerly sets himself against. 

And the media lapped it up.

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