Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Culture, Curiosity, Experience, Innovation, Technology
As many of you know, I love technology.
Well, that’s not completely correct … I love gimmick, gadget technology.
Robot dogs.
Robot balls.
Robot guitars.
If it does something interesting – or something stupid – you can be pretty sure I will not only love it, but I will do my best to own a version of it. Or in the case of my Robot Dogs, a hundred of them. [Long story]
Obviously, we know the speed and rise of technology is ridiculous, but you have to be of a certain age to really appreciate it.
There was an article years ago that argued people born between the late ’60s/early ’70s were the only generation who could truly appreciate the internet’s impact … in so much as they would have been old enough to have established life prior to its emergence, while still being young enough to embrace all it offered as it became more and more everyday and mainstream.
Whether that is true, is anyone’s guess … but I know many of the things I now take for granted, were once the sort of idea that belonged in science fiction cartoons.
Now I appreciate that makes me sound the oldest man in the universe, but recently I saw 2 things that really brought it home to me. And hopefully to you.
The first is the Apple Mac Neo – Apple’s ‘budget’ laptop – is run off a computer chip found in an iPhone.
I don’t know about you, but I find that amazing.
Sure, I knew my iPhone was powerful, but knowing it can run an entire computer – albeit an ‘entry level one’ – makes me look at it with new found respect … not to mention makes me appreciate how far technology has come, given back in 1956 the IBM 305 RAMAC – a computer that needed a lorry to transport it due to its size and weight – only had 5 fucking megabytes memory.
FIVE!!!
But even that doesn’t quite capture the advancement of technology in a way everyone can relate to …
Doesn’t quite capture the computing power we take for granted every single day …
But this will.
Recently, a computer engineer got the 80’s classic video game to run on the screen of a pregnancy test.
That’s right … the screen of a device that tells you whether you’re pregnant or not, can be programmed to turn it into a video game.
Sure, they had to adapt its inner workings a little.
Sure, it is hardly the best user experience in the World.
But the reality is, this everyday device has the computing power to run an entire video game.
A VIDEO GAME!!!
But you want to know something even crazier than that?
Well, it’s not that it can tell you whether you’re CARRYING LIFE INSIDE OF YOU, which is pretty amazing in itself. Nor is it that it has more memory than the giant IBM computer above. On no … the craziest thing is every pregnancy device has more computing power than we used to land a man on the fucking moon.
Yep, a product we buy and literally PEE ON, then THROW IN THE BIN is more powerful than all the computing power we had to send astronauts into OUTER FUCKING SPACE!!!
Kind of sad that for all this advancement, we use it to doom-scroll each day.
Or worse, read this bloody blog.
And that – ladies and gentlemen – not only explains how far technology has come and how much technology surrounds every aspect of our life … but how casually we treat, use and disrespect the most powerful tools humanity continually creates.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, AI, Comment, Corporate Evil, Management, Money, Music, Technology
While this post doesn’t rely on you watching this clip first, it may help explain why I have written it …
As many of you will know, I am a huge fan of technology.
Which means, I am also a huge fan of AI.
However, what I’m not a huge fan of, are the vast majority of people behind it. Or more specifically, their reasons for doing it. And the implications we’ll all encounter because of it.
It’s because of that, I’m fast coming to the view that the vast majority of tech bros, should be called terrorist bros – hence the title of this post.
Let’s be honest, for all their expensive manufactured PR claiming they want to help society ‘win at life’, we continue to watch their hunger for power, money, ego and control wreak havoc across society through their self-interest crafted half truths, delusion and manipulation.
What makes it worse is AI can do so much good for so many people so it’s doubly sad the vast majority of tech leaders [and corporate leaders] seem to just want it for pushing profit and productivity – regardless of cost or implication on everyone else both short term and long.
Which made me think …
What if another nation acted this way? Did things that were purposefully designed to destabalise how another society functioned or operated (be it environmentally, socially or economically) for their own benefit?
Would we just accept it or see it as an attack? An act of commercialism or an act of aggression?
We don’t have to look too far to see how certain countries respond to ‘perceived’ threats that aren’t anywhere near as overt or obvious as AI. [Cough cough]. So when do the tech companies get reigned in? When do we get back to valuing substance and experience not just celebrate how fast we can get to the aggregated superficial? When do we get back to investing in people and training rather than reducing and discarding?
OK, rant over. But wouldn’t it be great if we all looked up to the values and standards of Prince rather than the culture vampires like Mikey Shulman.
Finally …
How grateful are you that I don’t drink?. Can you imagine what this would be like if I did? Haha.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Complicity, Creativity, Cunning, Management, Scam, Systems, Technology
A few weeks ago, I received this email.
I know it’s small – and blurry – so out of the kindness of my heart, let me replicate what it says:
Hi Rob, I hope this message finds you well.
My name is Thomas and I am a recruitment consultant working on behalf of a large marketing firm.
I found your Linkedin profile and was impressed by your background and professional experience.
We are currently recruiting for several positions and would like to know if you a opportunities with us. We are looking for innovative and forward-thinking people who are passionate about building the future.
I think you would be an excellent fit for this organization, It you’re ready to take the next step in your career, we’d love to hear from you.
Please apply directly through our Careers portal.
Warm Regards.
Thomas Ryan
Recruitment Consultant
I’ve got to be honest, it really pissed me off.
Not just because it was speculative.
Not just because it was unsolicited.
Not just because it was ambiguous.
But because it was also presumptuous – exemplified by the ‘book a call’ link at the bottom.
I am fed up of how lazy some recruiters are – especially as some poor company is paying them for their ‘expertise’ in finding talent – so this time, instead of ignoring them, I decided to reply to them.
So I sent this:
Hello Thomas, thank you for reaching out.
I hope you will forgive me, but I receive many of these emails so to ensure we’re both on the same page, could you let me know what it is about my experience you feel is especially relevant for the opportunity you represent?
In addition, it would be good if you could tell me a bit about the actual opportunity – from industry, to geography, to level of position.
Thank you so much.
I know, polite eh?
And why – given I was so pissed off?
Well, because I wanted Thomas to respond so I could prove he hadn’t actually read my profile and was just ‘talent farming’ … by that I mean sending out copious amounts of emails to all and sundry to see who bit so they could tell their client about their extensive search and charge their fee.
And did I get a reply?
Not exactly. A few hours later I got an email saying my response had not been sent as the email it was sent to didn’t work.
I should have known given so many of these type of emails are sent out with the sole goal of ensuring they don’t have to deal with any direct contact … however I was still pissed at the lazy and impersonal approach, so I went back to the original email to see if there was any way to contact them.
Having looked again, I realized there wasn’t any except that link to ‘book a call’.
At this point I’d decided to write a blog post about Thomas and how horrid and presumptive his approach was – so in a bid to try and find out more info on how to reach him for the content of the post, I clicked on the link and …
Well, at this point I should be showing you an image of what I found, but I forgot to take a photo, so instead … maybe this will give you a good idea of what I discovered:
Yep, I was caught in a phishing scam. Except they weren’t trying to steal my data, they were ‘teaching me’ that I needed to be more careful before I click on links sent on email because this ‘scam’ was from our own IT department.
Now I appreciate I work for an Omnicom company. And I appreciate security is rightfully very important to them and they understandably want all their people to take security seriously too. And I acknowledge I’d just demonstrated that I need to be extra vigilant because these things can – and do – happen all the time, even though it was the first time I’d fallen for something like this in my 5 years with the company. Which I will. And finally, I also acknowledge that on closer inspection, the email was riddled with little tell-tell spelling mistakes that I should have noticed … though the reality is not only did I miss them, I only saw them when I replicated the email above for legibility and corrected them for ease of reading this post.
However – and maybe it’s just me – the way they approached this ‘lesson’ feels a bit yucky.
Not because I was caught out – it was definitely an effective way to remind people to keep on their toes where company internet security is concerned – but because their approach could be read by some as a way to scare people into fearing – or staying clear – of any genuine recruitment enquiry they receive from any outside party.
Now you might think who cares, it was effective. And that’s fair.
Or you may think that couldn’t happen … but imagine you’re new to the business and have never experienced dealing with a recruiter before? Add to that the endless rounds of redundancies they’re hearing about – and most probably fearing – and let me tell you, I can absolutely see this sort of thing potentially putting someone off who is young in the industry from responding or replying for a long time.
As I said, I get why they do this sort of thing and I hold my hands up in acknowledging I was caught out by it – albeit for reasons they probably hadn’t anticipated which is namely some bloke with a blog suddenly wanted name and shame the sender for their lazy and sloppy professionalism. And it’s because of that I would like to take this opportunity to genuinely congratulate the Omnicom IT department for their devious and – all credit to them – creative way to teach an important and valuable lesson.
[As an aside, I wonder if they send similar sorts of things to different CEO’s of different Omnicom companies? Except instead of Thomas being a fictional recruiter with ambiguous job openings, he’s now a potential client with a billion dollar advertising budget he wants to talk to them about, via a ‘book a call’ link]
But for any younger person who has never been in the position of being approached by a headhunter and was caught out by this exercise – and looking at Reddit and Fishbowl, there were – let me ease your paranoia by saying should you ever end up wanting or needing to explore new opportunities and don’t know where to start, who to turn to or what to do, seek out Lea Walker or Lesley Cheng, who are both based in Australia but work internationally.
Not just because they’re brilliant humans who happen to be incredible, smart and deeply knowledgeable experts in talent, careers and roles … but because they will never send you an email that could be an Omnicom IT phishing test in disguise.
I will now never be responding to any email, let alone make the stupid mistake of clicking a link … even if its in the quest to write a scathing blog post.
Consider myself properly ‘chastised’.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Agency Culture, AI, Ambition, Attitude & Aptitude, Billionaire, Brand, Brand Suicide, Business, Comment, Communication Strategy, Community, Complicity, Confidence, Conformity, Consultants, Creative Development, Creativity, Delusion, Details, Effectiveness, Efficiency, Experience, Innovation, Insight, Leadership, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Mediocrity, Professionalism, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Resonance, Respect, Strategy, Success, Tactics, Technology
A few weeks ago, Jack Dorsey – ex-Twitter and now Block – laid off 40% of their staff.
They say this was not because they were doing badly, but because it allowed them – thanks to AI – to be even better positioned to take advantage of future opportunities.
He also said that he suspects most organisations will follow suit in the near future.
He’s not wrong … for many, reducing headcount is the ultimate commercial dream. Which got me thinking …
What will happen when every company is ‘AI’ led/driven/managed and there’s no more employees who can be ‘restructured’ to satisfy the C-Suite and/or share market?
How will companies exist when the people they once sold to, no longer have an income to keep buying their goods? How will companies compete when they all follow the same AI-led protocols, all learned from the same aggregated models and practices? How will companies build value when they’ve turned everything into a commodity? How will companies exist with ‘access per user’ business models, when AI removes the need for users? How will companies justify their price premium when they keep promoting their use of AI lets them do things for less? How will companies build trust and loyalty when everyone knows they’re being outsourced and managed by an algorithm?
One possibility is employees will suddenly be back in vogue … allowing companies to talk about how their products and/or services are now much more personal, hand crafted, and/or curated than their AI competitors. The other is – as many tech bros have suggested – we enter a world of ‘universal credit’ … except no one talks about where that money will come from and who will control the amount of money given to people.
Given there’ll be a lot less money available to be raised from taxes – as there won’t be enough people earning money from jobs – and the wealthy have an incredible ability to avoid governments taxing them appropriately, are we going to be reliant on the ‘generosity’ of the tech companies and should we feel good about that given they value power and control over a healthy society?
However none of this is AI’s fault. We’re now in a world where the obsession for short term results and/or PR headlines means everything is tactics, not much about strategy.
AI is incredible – as is its possibilities and potential – which is why when companies make a big song and dance about how they’re using it to ‘fast track’ growth and efficiencies [read: efficiencies] I can’t help but think it reveals far more about their narrow and limited thinking than the technologies.
What makes it even crazier is how the share market rewards companies for dismantling their operational structure and knowledge …
Oh I get it if you look at it in a vacuum, but not only is this behaviour often a short-term reaction – designed to boost share price at a time where bonuses or evaluations are due to take place … but why are these so called shit-hot analysts not questioning the leadership who put their company in the position of having so many alleged ‘excessive’ staff in the first place.
Because they don’t really care about anything other than the illusion of radical action.
Actions that allow them to say to themselves, ‘we were right’.
Remember Citibank back in 2008?
Forget condemning the leadership who encouraged their people to engage in a level of economic recklessness that contributed to the global financial crisis, and instead, congratulate them for firing 72,000 employees in the name of ‘efficiency management’.
As I said, I am not blaming AI for this, nor am I saying Jack Dorsey is the poster child for this attitude in management. At least in Jack’s case, he is in tech and recognises his own self interest in what he’s doing/publicising. That doesn’t make what he’s doing any better, but it at least explains his actions with more clarity than a lot of companies who have jumped into AI without seemingly realizing [or choosing to be deliberately ignorant] to the longer term implications they’re creating their own company, category and individual role.
Of course not all company leaders are like this – or doing this with AI – and I obviously appreciate it’s a competitive world out there … but to see them viewing efficiency and speed as the only levers that matter [and that is what AI is for] is pretty tragic. Add to that, many seem to have forgotten this technology is still in its relative infancy, so are basically buying into the ‘dream’ of what AI can do – as being heavily pushed by its creators/investors … which helps companies justify their heavy adoption of it, even though many of the C-Suite in those companies don’t have a clue what it is or how it works but just see the financial rewards of pretending they do … and we’re facing the very real prospect of organisations discounting or ignoring the ‘small stuff’, even though that’s what will determine if the ‘finish line’ is positive or destructive. [For more info on this, see my post about the ‘O Ring’]
As a friend of mine said, “it’s like buying a jet to do the school run”.
Mind you he also said, “beware of people selling promises they’ll never be accountable for, but will always benefit from”.
Unsurprisingly, he’s a lawyer.
In a technology firm. Haha.
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Yes, it’s Friday.
And yes, it’s the first of May.
But neither of those things are as incredible as this …
You see, on Sunday, it will be 20 years since I started this blog.
TWENTY BLOODY YEARS!
That’s before the iPhone.
And Android.
And Facebook.
And the Kindle.
And the financial crisis.
And before Pluto lost its planet creds.
AND BEFORE WI-FI WAS PUBLICLY AVAILABLE … so a very long time ago.
I still remember why I started it …
It wasn’t for any attempt for notoriety or popularity, it was more to do with survival.
You see I’d got a job that – frankly – I was woefully under-qualified for, and because it demanded so much of my time and energy to make sure I didn’t completely fuck it up, I needed an outlet for all the ideas and thoughts that were going around my head that I just didn’t feel were right for what I needed to do at that time.
Not because I was sure I was going to use them later … more because I needed to feel I was still connected to the stuff I loved while also believing that if I didn’t find a way to get them out of my head, they’d maybe be no more space left for anything new to enter my head.
And so this blog was born.
Reading through the first few posts not only reveals the times we were living in, but also the headspace I was in.
Trying to balance making sense of stuff happening around me while also needing an outlet for stuff I was feeling or thinking … which, in many ways, set the tone for how this blog has been for over 2 decades.
Which George recently described as, “the blog version of TK Maxx”.
He’s not wrong … and in some ways, I really like that.
Sure, among the almost 5000 posts I’ve written, there’s a lot of [to keep the TK Maxx analogy going] cheap and nasty shit in there … but there’s also a few ‘designer label’ gems hidden amongst it all.
At least for me.
Stuff that made me think, challenge or question stuff in ways that I had not imagined or considered before.
Stuff that ended up impacting how I did things and how I still do things.
Stuff that forced me to articulate what I believe, not just what I feel.
Maybe those posts meant nothing to anyone but me. Hell, maybe no one even read them. But while every post I’ve written reflects something about who I was – or am – those ‘self-defined gems’ have a special place in my heart because they represent a moment where I felt I was growing and learning.
It’s why I always enjoyed the comment section, because for all the overwhelming piss-taking I received, the vast majority always ‘encouraged’ me to look deeper, wider or longer at issues I’d written about. And I loved that. I loved how the people who commented always kept me on my toes … which is why one of the unexpected pleasures of writing this blog for so long has been seeing how my opinion on certain subjects has changed or evolved over the years. It’s served as a great reminder about the importance of always exposing yourself to others perspectives, opinions, experiences and standards, even if the goal of it is simply to be really sure about what you think or believe.
In many ways, that’s the biggest surprise of 20 years writing this blog.
I never expected anyone to comment on anything I wrote, because I started it just for me.
A private place to express my thoughts and idiocy.
But then Andy discovered it and he sent an email to everyone at Cynic and some of our clients announcing it and then the mayhem started.
At that point, blogging had become a big thing. A good thing. A community of people who wanted to help and contribute to what others were doing. A lot of this was down to the great Russell Davies and his iconic blog … a place that not only brought people from all over the world together, but inspired others to start writing their own as well.
It was a place that not only exposed me to a lot of brilliant people I’d never have known about without his blog – people like Gareth Kay, Paul Colman, Northern Planner, Rob Mortimer, Marcus, John Dodds, Lauren, Age to name but a few – it also brought people to my blog who helped add to the texture, lessons and perspectives I was writing about.
I will forever be grateful to Russell for that … especially as most of the people he inadvertently introduced me to, not only still exist in my life but I have met them all IN THE FLESH.
Alas the blogging community, like most things in life, has moved on with maybe only Martin and I still churning stuff out via that platform. [Well, he curates, I churn] And while technologies advances allows strategists to be even more connected in even more ways, the energy of the community is not the same as it was back in the early days of blogging.
Now it feels more aggressive.
More sharp elbows and self publicizing.
Wanting the spotlight on them rather than the work they do.
But then, the industry seems to value those who talk about the work more than those who actually make it … which kind-of highlights why the industry is in the state it finds itself in but refuses to acknowledge.
Emperor’s New Clothes anyone?!
Screenshot
That this blog is 20 years old blows my mind. I never thought it would last that long, mainly because I never gave much thought about how long I’d be writing the thing. It’s not always been fun – when I was receiving a lot of anonymous hate that resulted in me deciding to stop allowing comments was definitely a low point – but all in all, the whole experience has been pretty glorious.
In many ways, this is one of the longest committed relationships I’ve ever had.
And one of the most successful, hahaha.
The fact there are some people who have been reading it for almost as long as I have been writing it, is madness.
Have they no taste?
Have they got nothing better to do?
Or maybe they’re stuck in prison and this is part of their ‘sentence’.
The good news for them is there’s no way this will still be a ‘going concern’ in another 20 years … at least not in terms of how regular I’ve been writing posts for the past 2 decades. Not because I am running out of things to say [albeit Andy said I have only ever written 3 posts and just keep re-writing them in different ways] but because I’ll be – hopefully – doing other things with my life.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll always be grateful to advertising … it has given me a life I never could have dared to imagine … but I am increasingly spending more and more of my time working and collaborating with artists and I feel that’s where my future may be. Not because I don’t love what I do, but because I find their definition and expression of creativity even more interesting, challenging, open, provocative and progressive than where our industry is choosing to head.
But that’s not going to happen yet. Hell, it may not happen at all – I could get fired by all the artists tomorrow for all I know – which is why for the time being, I’ll keep happily juggling my two ‘lives’ while churning out daily blog posts at the same time.
Sorry, hahaha.
That said, the point of continuing this blog is different to what you may think and why I originally started it.
Because while it has helped me grow, learn, make new friends and even help build my professional reputation [which is hilarious when you read some of the stuff I’ve churned out, like this!] … it delivers something that is even more important to me.
Connection to my family.
I know … I know … that sounds weird-as-fuck, but what I mean is this:
A few years ago, Jill said that while she rarely ever reads my blog, when she does – she can hear my voice because of the way I write.
Put simply, how I write is how I talk … so when she reads my posts, it feels like I’m with her.
And she liked that.
Add to this that I’ve shared deeply personal and important moments in my life – from getting engaged to getting married, to Mum dying, to becoming a Dad, to getting Rosie – and Bonnie – to saying a tearful goodbye to Rosie, to moving from Singapore to HK to China to America to London to New Zealand [so far] … which means moving from cynic/WPP to Sunshine to Wieden+Kennedy to Deutsch to R/GA to Colenso [not to mention all the other highs and lows that have impacted or been introduced to my life over this period, be it death, covid, friends, family, health, books, chaos, and/or multitudes of weird, wild, crazy shit] … and this blog is no longer just a place where I rant rubbish, it’s a place my family can have me close even when I’m no longer here.
That means a lot to me.
Not because I want them to need me, but because I like knowing they can access me should they ever need me.
Or if Otis ever wants to introduce me to whoever becomes important in his life.
It’s why I’m going to keep writing it and why I’m going to move it to a free domain again, to make sure it always stay up … because what originally was a place just for me, has become a place that offers connection to the most important people to me.
And with that, I want to say a big thank you to everyone who has ever visited or commented.
Whether you meant it or not, you’ve given me far more than I ever imagined or hoped for.
Thank you. Love you. Grateful for you.