Frying AI No massive revelation here (my cat provides as much insight when she sneezes), but Stephen Fry is very good with words.  If you haven’t read his speech on AI, may I suggest you make a brew, switch off all notifications, and start reading. And I mean properly read. Maybe even do so twice.  …

Using our limbs to help save brains The UK arm of Watch Me Think (21 of us) are each walking 22 miles for Dementia UK on 26th September. This is your last chance (ahem) to donate to this great charity. We’re up to GBP 5.6k in donations already. I’m super proud of the team. And …

Who are the (most) chosen ones?  Kantar have published their latest Brand Footprint reports. These show the most chosen brands globally and regionally. Hats doffed (damn it), because the reports are actually very interesting. Can you guess the global top 10? And there are 20 brands capturing the attention of the so called ‘Boomers’. Sparkling …

A-aye or A-nay? Erm, oh dear. Turns out that if you describe your product as using AI, it lowers a customer’s intention to buy it. The Taco Bell Distinguished Professor of hospitality business management at Washington State University (yes, that really is their title) said: ‘In every single case, the intention to buy or use …

Grab some popcorn… A lil’ while back we shared Mark Ritson’s article on Liquid Death neglecting product.  But now Will Poskett has entered the chat. And he thinks Ritson is wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong some more: “In short, product differentiation and innovation are very limited in the commoditized bottled water category. Yet despite these …

File under: Must listen to I love Sam Conniff’s work on the Uncertainty Experts. And his talk with Neil Perkin on becoming comfortable with uncertainty is quite possibly my favourite thing since the recall email function. A few (ok, lots of…) highlights: Untangling the facts  Using the example of 2 news articles about the same …

Much ado about consumer groups The learnings from our ‘You are not your consumer’ event last month continue – this time we focus on consumer groups. Good, bad, indifferent? See what our speakers had to say. What can we help you with today? In the US, consumer experience is getting worse (again). And it has …

London calling – are you listening? More from the excellent event we had in May, this time featuring some of the things we took away on listening. Lots of people in the room that day have since told me how much they loved this from Avi Kluger: “The quality of the listener dictates the quality …

What happens in London… We had a grand old time with 260 of you at our ‘You are not your consumer event’ a few weeks back. I promised some sneak peaks of the talks in The100, so let’s start with getting stakeholder buy-in on understanding people. “Fixing culture starts with calendars” Meetings, bloody meetings. Bruce …

Should we bin empathy?  By the time you read this, I’ll hopefully be on a beach just outside of Barcelona, taking a breather after our ‘You Are Not Your Consumer’ event in London yesterday. I always love organising our conferences, but I also really enjoy it when they’re over 😂  I’ll share clips from the …