undermanager (Page 2)

What are you working on?

Notes and links - 28th June 2026

"Consulting giant Accenture is trying to figure out how to stop non-technical workers from blowing through companies’ AI token budget on trivial tasks like converting PDFs to presentation slides" The Tokenpocalypse Is Here: Companies Are Scrambling To Stop Spending So Much on AILeaked audio from Accenture says

Walking Slow

I've embarked on another pointless, slow and unmonetisable project. I call it Walking Slow although that is a bad name. I always find that the most poignant things on YouTube are those street scenes from 50 years ago, 30 years ago, 20 years ago, NOT THAT LONG ago.

A screen grab saying 'FINDINGS' and an episode title

For 41256/41233/4764 fans

Findings (may not work)

A video screengrab. A man with head bowed and the caption 'be lucky'

I posted to TikTok every day for a year and I learned nothing

Actually, that's not true. This is what I actually learned: 1. Find a topic, 'a niche', you'll probably have to experiment a lot to find the one that works. Then - only post about that topic. Experiment a lot to find the style/tone/approach

Notes and links - 21st June 2026

"On the pitch, much was amateurish: penalty spots were painted in the wrong place, some games finished ahead of time, and the identity of some of the goalscorers remains unknown. Argentina’s captain, Manuel Ferreira, left halfway through to sit his law exams, and the US midfielder Andy Auld

A screengrab of the 'date your mate' website with the headline Ditch the swipe. Pitch your mate'

PowerPoint is people

I try to keep my eye out for examples of the general absorption of 'presentations' into culture. PowerPoint parties were my previous favourite example. This is now the best one: Date My MateThe global movement bringing real-life connection back to dating. Friends pitch their single friends using

A desktop shot from above with various post-its with a playlist written on and some desk detritus like die and a watch and a mug

Inching towards a breakfast show

I've been experimenting with early morning streaming on YouTube. Just a camera pointing at my desk and a soundtrack of 6am appropriate tunes. At some point I'll work out how to integrate a microphone and then I'll also annoy you with news and sport.

Notes and links - 14th June 2026

Is this true?: "attention-harvesting advertising is the only software business model that works at scale for consumer services" From: "This reality about the consumer market is a lesson that Silicon Valley has to re-learn every decade or so. Consider Dropbox, whose founder, Drew Houston, is

The London Review of TikToks - 13th June 2026

@beachboyz2men The incredible photo archive that was nearly sent to a landfill. Special thanks to Gary Leonard for access and help digitizing the slides, and to the Huntington Library for assistance with research. ♬ original sound - beachboyz2men Constraints! @bifa_film Low budget, big ideas. Peter Capaldi talks creativity and constraint on

Looking down on a desktop with a watch, a cup of tea, a track list written on a card and a tiny printer with the text 'just making a tea'

Now featuring a tiny printer

(From about 10 minutes in)

An old mobile phone with the word 'Hello' on the case

Hello subscribers

This is my blog. It sits on a platform called Ghost and, in my head, you're all reading it via RSS, in your newsreaders, and it's the early 2010s. This, of course, is wrong. In fact many of you are reading it via email, especially since

Headline that says 'So you've got to do some marketing'

Three tips to get you going

I was asked for some tips on how to start a marketing/advertising project. Here are three: Don't say brand The first problem you'll find is that marketing is full of impenetrable jargon. That's not a bad thing in itself, jargon can be a

An early morning mix with Poem/1

Notes and Links

Notes and links - May 31st 2026

Jess Cartner-Morley on fashion: Posh Grandpa is fashion’s new main characterThe latest character dressing trend may be a little silly but there’s an off-kilter pleasure in its mellow, vintage vibeThe GuardianJess Cartner-Morley

Tides of Sound

Fantastic 30 mins from Radio 3 "At the crest of Japan's economic bubble, in the spring of 1991, a radio station unlike any other began broadcasting from satellite into homes across the country. St.GIGA carried no news, no commercials, no DJs. Instead, it offered an unbroken

A hand holding a label saying 'constraints make you interesting'

Opinion Show

Constraints make things interesting

This is a saying stolen and adapted from the splendid Paynter people. I talk about it in the Do Interesting book. And I've been thinking of it because I've been reading Inside The Box by David Epstein. It's about the fact that freedom doesn&

Earlies

Plausibly meditative

I've started waking up unaccountably early. 5am most days. Not deliberately, I just wake up. And it's not a bad thing, I enjoy the mornings so I get up. But then I find myself at a loose end. It doesn't feel like reading time,

Presenting

Public speaker

I miss doing presentations. Standing up and presenting stuff to people I don't know. Pre-COVID I did them a lot and I used to really enjoy it. It was an opportunity to think about things, to craft an argument and to see how it landed with real

MJQAM

The prophet speaks

I spend a lot of time on YouTube watching old Modern Jazz Quartet concerts, as a quartet and as individuals. This is one of my favourites. Milt Jackson, just a few months before he died at 76.

EBCB

"I think I deserve a long holiday"

Because of the cafe book and blog I get a lot of emails, journalists etc wanting me to comment on or decry the closure of a cafe by rapacious landlords. This, from London Centric, is almost always the story of what's really happened. "We do a lot

On the connection with an audience

From Stephen Colbert

Seeing the board go up for added time

Seeing the board go up for added time | 4764A plastic Paw Patrol football, elephants have names, big up the corporate gangAcast

Notes and links - 24th May 2026

The most London pic of 2026 EY retracts study after researchers discover AI hallucinations This is a good way to talk about your product: "It’s not champagne but it has dignity, and is full of flavour." Beware if you're using LLMs for qual analysis: https:

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