Journal

Say something clear. Back it up. Stop.

Notes on evidence, memory, AI and how organisations make decisions.Subscribe via RSS.

  1. The Best Strategy Tool Might Be the One That Says: Here Are Your Options.

    Agency strategy doesn't need an AI oracle. It needs credible options informed by previous decisions, performance data and the limits of what is known.

  2. Somebody in Another Office Has Already Tried That.

    A multi-office agency's competitive advantage depends on whether its teams can share relevant experience without losing context or breaching client boundaries.

  3. Your Client Doesn't Need Another Dashboard. They Need an Explanation.

    Agencies have plenty of performance numbers. The harder job is explaining what changed, why it matters and what the team should consider next.

  4. The Independent Agency Doesn't Need to Build Its Own Holding Company.

    Independent agencies can compete through connected experience and better client work without imitating the technology ambitions of global networks.

  5. The Number Is Not the Explanation

    A dashboard can tell you what moved. It cannot, by itself, tell you why.

  6. The Handover Document Is Usually Too Late

    If the important context only gets written down when somebody leaves, most of it has already gone.

  7. An Inbox Is Not Institutional Memory

    Email is excellent at preserving messages. That doesn't mean it preserves what the organisation learned.

  8. If a Principle Can’t Change a Decision, It’s Decoration

    Most company principles sound good and change nothing. A useful principle should help settle a real argument.

  9. Decisions Without Rationale Become Traps

    Knowing what was decided is useful. Knowing why it was decided is what makes the record valuable.

  10. Google Solved Retrieval. It Didn’t Solve Understanding.

    Search got very good at finding information. That is not the same thing as preserving what it means.

  11. AI Summaries Are Seductive. That Is the Problem.

    A clean summary feels like understanding. Sometimes it is just compression with confidence.

  12. Institutional Memory Without Evidence Is Just Folklore

    If an organisation remembers something but cannot show why, it does not have institutional memory. It has a story.

  13. Privacy Has Gone to Hell

    Privacy used to mean not collecting things you had no business collecting. Now it mostly means paperwork.

  14. When good enough is good enough

    Never search for perfect. The important questions become much more Silicon-Valley-ish

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