Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Business, Conformity, Corporate Evil, Corporate Gaslighting, Culture, Delusion, Humanity, Management, Perspective, Professionalism, Relationships, Relevance, Social Media, Technology, Toxic Positivity, Transformation
I’m back. I know, how terrible.
Which is why I have some good news for you, because I’m going to be away again in a few weeks. So you only have to endure the pain a little longer before you get ANOTHER reprieve. I know, I’m a Saint.
That said, I had a wonderful time, especially at State of Social in Perth.
Meg – the founder of the conference – has created a truly special event and like StratCon in Berlin, there’s a bunch of stuff other conference organizers could learn from them that would benefit audiences and the industry at large.
Anyway, I’ll be writing about that later, so shall we get the pain of me being back over as quickly as possible?
So as many of you know, I love tech.
Not just the practical stuff, but the ridiculous.
Robot dogs.
Robot rabbits.
Robot balls.
Robot guitars.
Hell, I even bought a, errrrrm, robot mother once.
My house is almost fully automated.
My car is filled with the sort of optional extras the engineers only come up with as a joke.
And don’t get me started on my history with smartphones.
And yet, despite my addiction to stupidity … I totally appreciate there are downsides to technology.
The scrolling,
The timewasting.
The interruption.
The distractions.
And that’s before we get to the blood-pressure inducing annoyance of hearing every fucking company try and claim they’re in the tech/AI space just because they use ChatGPT to write their Linkedin ‘thought leadership’ social landfill bollocks.
So, it’s no surprise we’ve started to see the backlash …
People fighting against companies outsourcing jobs to AI.
Society pushing back on the serving of AI slop.
Companies balking at the prices being charged for AI access.
Investment firms questioning the long-term viability of AI industries.
And then – at a much lower level – shoppers increasingly choosing dumb-tech over high-tech.
You know what I’m talking about …
Products that strip back their functionality to their bare essentials:
Cameras that only allow you to point and click.
Tablets that only allow you to read your books.
And phones that only allow you to make and receive calls and texts.
Will this result in bringing the tech giants down?
Probably not … but as I’ve written before, if the Tech Bros carry on their current path and hoodwink companies into outsourcing their entire operations to AI under the guise of increased profits and efficiency, who the hell will be around to buy the products they make or advertise?
But I’m going off on a tangent because when I was in NYC, I saw this …
Now, I don’t know about you, but a phone that gives you whatsapp, maps, uber ‘and more’ … is the opposite of a dumbphone.
Maybe it could be defined as the ‘night-out phone’.
Or – at a push – the ‘bare essentials’ phone.
But it sure-as-shit isn’t a dumb-phone …
That is unless the term ‘dumb’ is being used to describe the people they want to buy it and then maybe they’re onto something. Except, one look at their website and you realise they really believe what they’re peddling … which suggests whether it’s the tech bros or the idiots, we’re doomed either way.
Have a great day. Hahahaha.