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.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Cannes, Cliches, Communication Strategy, Corporate Evil, Corporate Gaslighting, Creativity, Culture, Fake Attitude
That image is quite the devastating, destructive viewpoint isn’t it?
And I hate it because sadly – the vast majority of people who act like this – look like me.
Male.
White.
Privileged.
On the wrong side of 40.
Now there’s a big difference between looking the part and being the part – and I hope-to-fuck I only fall into the former category – but I have seen more than a few people develop increasingly arrogant, self-righteous, binary viewpoints in a bid to convince themselves they’re still important while trying to directly appeal to others in similar situations as them, so they can feel they’re still relevant.
I should point out this post is not about the people I discussed yesterday, it’s actually about Karl Stefanovic … the the ex-presenter of Australia’s Channel 9 breakfast show who, like many older, privileged, white men like Russell Brand and Elon Musk, has seen the commercial advantages of becoming a right-wing, racist, sexist prick.
That said, it we’re being honest, this sort of behaviour isn’t exactly foreign to a lot of people in our industry – especially when I recently saw a TikTok of a female influencer who had attended Cannes and said she had been constantly propositioned by men to ‘go up to their hotel room’ within minutes of meeting them.
I have been trying to find it again but can’t – so if anyone has seen it, can you please send it to me – but that aside …
What the fuck?
Seriously, what the fuck?
I know the ad industry – and Cannes – has a reputation for some less than savory behaviour but this shit??
Fuck off! Get a life! Stop thinking you have superiority that allows you to do whatever you want, free from accountability.
We talk about AI ruining our industry, but these fuckers are doing a much better job of it.
And what’s the betting many of them have daughters …
Actually, what’s the betting many would want to kill any man who said such things to their daughters?
Which is why maybe one of the best things the industry can do for our future is to elevate character to the same level as creativity … even though – as a friend of mine said recently – that would mean all the holding companies would lose their C-Suite overnight.
Allegedly, haha.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Aspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Corporate Evil, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Effectiveness, Efficiency, Emotion, Empathy, Experience, Leadership, Loyalty, Management, Passion, Stress
Over the years I’ve written a lot about companies viewing ‘emotional people’ as problems.
Viewing them as too passionate.
Too dramatic.
Too impatient.
But the reality is, emotion means you give a fuck and I’d rather have that than work with robots who efficiently execute what’s needed without ever wishing to add, elevate or challenge the status quo.
Of course, the irony is the companies who criticise employees for caring deeply about what they do, tend to also expect their people to be disproportionately passionate and loyal about the company – but guess what fuckers, you can’t have one without the other.
Now I appreciate there are different ways to express emotion …
And when it becomes about what YOU want versus what you want the work to be – they’re very different things.
But having people who care … who deeply want to do the right thing, the better thing and the new thing … is creatively and commercialy far more valuable – let alone interesting – than having an entire department of drones. And yet in these optimisation obsessed times, companies have decided the opposite is true.
Which leads to the point of this post.
Recently I saw this clip of Robert Glasper playing Radiohead’s ‘Everything In It’s Right Place’.
In it, you witness Robert crying as he plays the piece.
The emotional impact he feels because of the piece.
It’s not ego.
It’s not performative.
It’s pure, unfiltered emotion. For a piece of music he didn’t write but feels deeply connected to.
So connected, he gives his all in performing it. To honour what it means to him and what he hopes the audience will get from it.
In many ways, it’s one of the most selfless, geneous acts you could ever witness.
Something I am sure Radiohead would feel honoured by, rather than say:
“Robert … Robert … stop being so emotional about the music. It makes us feel uncomfortable and we don’t know how to deal with it”.
Because that’s the thing … the issue of emotion is not about the person feeling it, but the people who never can.
Who are so disconnected to what they do, the only thing they value is the checklist of what has been done.
Because for them, quality isn’t the goal, it’s productivity.
People who care about what they do and what the company does, is a gift.
It’s why we have to put an end to this false narrative of them being a problem … because they provide life to what so many senior leaders destroy.
Enjoy.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Agency Culture, America, Brand Suicide, Comment, Communication Strategy, Complicity, Corporate Evil, Gambling, Planners, Reframing, Strategy
I’m a strategist so I can respect a good repositioning when I see one … however, the repositioning of gambling to ‘prediction markets’ is fucking evil.
Oh don’t get me wrong, I see the smartness in it …
I see how they’re attempting to both separate themselves from the negative associations of gambling while also making it easier for people to justify taking part by presenting it like its an investment scheme rather than a punt on hope.
I saw the billboard at the top of this post in NYC last week, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the deliberate use of words like ‘trade’ are all part of their manipulation …
Attempting to look reputable and legitimate while they steal cash from right under your nose and potentially, your future.
I was going to say it blows my mind that this shit is allowed to be so blatantly misleading, but then I read Trump and his family are big investors in the major ‘prediction market’ players – which would go some way to explaining why the President is doing all he can to ensure they remain classified as ‘derivative traders’, because if they lose that right, not only would they have to adhere to rules that stops them implying they’re an investment firm, they’d have to go one step further and publicly acknowledge what they really are: financial parasites.
But whether Trump’s involvement is real or not almost doesn’t matter, because the bigger issue is not simply these companies are allowed to blatantly gaslight, exploit and rob the public … but we – as an industry and discipline – are helping them get away with it.
So to everyone involved in this evil shit, ‘fuck you’.
Maybe you should start ‘predicting’ how long you’ve got before you’re seen – and punished – for the lies and misery you’re so happy to flog for a few dollars more.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Aspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Business, Community, Consultants, Corporate Evil
Big business increases prices/loses people for profit protection.
Small business increases prices/loses people for survival.
One gets grudgingly accepted. The other gets openly criticised.
And at a time where we ‘welcome’ humanities first ever trillionaire, maybe this is the wake-up call to start questioning both where we’re heading and what big business – and many of the Linkedin crowd – view as aspirational.
As one of my great mentors, the brilliant Lee Hill, told me when I was new in the industry and disliking/not trusting anyone who was wealthy [and he was/is exceedingly wealthy], “there’s nothing wrong with people or companies making money, it’s how they do it and what they do with it”.
That’s a question we should be asking a lot more …
… both of ourselves and most definitely of others.