I Learnt

We have just come back from a family holiday to Bodrum in Turkey, staying at the Parkim Ayaz Hotel.

I recently went to a weekend of weddings that bent tradition - sticking to some and tweaking others.

AI about to be disrupted with a move to local compute - your phone, your computer - driven by a swarm of agents.

My daughter bought her first car this week and it was far from a smooth process.

The littlest thing can have a big impact.

Yesterday my daughter was offered her first “real” job when she graduates in the summer.

One of the key questions at the start of the book “Unreasonable Hospitality - the Field Guide” is around defining what the word hospitality means.

Sometimes the way you frame a question can make all the difference.

Would you enthusiastically hire someone again for a role?

Software development is moving from the era of the craftsman to the era of the flat pack.

I have recently been on the look out for a simple journaling/note capture application.

There is currently an explosion of creation, triggered by AI opening it up to those who previously didn’t have the skills to do it.

This blog has seen a recent up-tick in views and that would normally be a good thing.

At the recent MCPConference in London, one of the members of a panel made the statement “MCP is not just an API wrapper”.

In a recent podcast Marc Andreessen makes a an observation that

I am not a fan of baseball and I will not be wearing a yellow tuxedo.

Knowing the type of conversation you are having can change the way you interact with others and the outcome of the conversation.

The type of motivation you use can make a big difference on whether you will achieve your results.

I rarely use Google Search now.

Amazing things happen when you focus on the one rather than the many.

It is easy to fill your day with stuff and feel guilty when you take a step back just to pause and think.

We often use the terms “to-do list” and “checklist” interchangeably, but they actually serve very different purposes.

I recently joined another call through CTO Craft about leading engineering with a vision.

I was recently driving around the M25 when Google surprised me with a route suggestion.

I am in the UK and my Internet connection is provided by Virgin Media - there I have admitted it.

What if code libraries in future contained no code?

It is very easy to resort to asking “Why?”

What tools are missing from your toolbox?

Health is not my area of expertise but it is something I definitely need to work on.

I recently joined a call through CTO Craft (thoroughly recommended) about the path a CTO cal follow to becoming a founder.

We’ve all been there: debating a single word in an email or spending ages coming up with the name of a project or even a variable.

A decision as simple as which tool to use can shape the culture of a department or an organisation.

Imagine being able to describe the property you want to buy rather than being limited to what the site allows you to filter on.

In the 1990s I went on a walking holiday to the west coast of America and came across the photographs of Michael Fatali.

AI is not only an assistant, it is an amplifier.

Sometimes you come across a website that is simple and just works.

Last year I took an excellent mobile photography course in London.

I came across the work of Richard Rowan by accident.

My daughter is at university and phoned me up saying they had a power cut in their flat.

Wouldn’t it be nice to pull out the key ideas and action points from a book you have just read or are considering purchasing?

The garage that services my car encourages people to book their services through their website.

Sometimes a thought comes to you and you want to capture it quickly but it is not always obvious what is the best way to do that.

Are you too close to something to see how to make it better?

I was chatting to a colleague and he mentioned how he had written some code and expected it to work first time and was surprised when it didn’t.

20 years ago on the 11th December 2005 I had just got up and was walking down our hallway when there was a massive explosion and it literally felt like the whole roof had been lifted off and landed back down again.

In my first “real” job I was definitely thrown in at the deep end on my first day and it changed my career.

Seth Godin asks If someone with more skill and dedication took over your work, how many ways could they make it better?

Could the history of YouTube indicate the path that AI is going to be follow for the generation of applications?

Sometimes you come across a video that brings back memories.

I have tried lots of different ways to track tasks, or have a to do list, and they have all failed at some point.