What is a view? “This is the glory of business travel” According to Rob Norman, Chief Digital Officer of Group M, and he travels a lot, so if anyone should know Rob should know, the glory of business travel is doing your own ironing.  He posted a video (which is strangely mesmerising) of himself ironing…

Non, je ne regrette rien. No, I have no regrets.  How many of us can truly say that? According to recent research in the US by Allianz 32% of Americans regret major choices in their lives. Topping the regret charts according to the research? Ignoring your health; neglecting to exercise; giving up on a romantic…

As we waved Team GB off on the way to Rio were you thinking what I was thinking? “Good luck, hope you do well, but I don’t really expect you to bring back as many medals as London 2012”. Team GB defied my expectations.  The best accumulation of medals in 108 years.  A spread of…

“We are the urban elite.  We live inside an echo chamber.” Creative genius Dave Trott in Campaign.  Telling us off for surrounding ourselves with people who look and sound like ourselves. What’s to be done?   More women in the boardroom. Even the best companies in our sector aren’t anywhere near equal in gender mix…

2016 is 25 years on from the publication of Douglas Coupland’s iconic novel Generation X.  So that generation, the generation of young people, just entering the workplace in 1991 and characterised by Coupland as doomed with lousy jobs and a general attitude of bitter cynicism,  is all grown up now and in fact running business…

There’s a robot reading our emails.  It’s there for our own protection.  After all who wants to have to resend an email when they’ve forgotten to actually attach the promised document?  It is our little virtual personal assistant.  This notification comes up if you write, in the body copy of the email on Outlook, “I’m…

We clearly still need a Glass Lion. (The Cannes Glass Lion recognises work that implicitly or explicitly addresses issues of gender inequality or prejudice, through the conscious representation of gender in advertising.) Of course we do. It’s not enough. We need more action.  We must all decide whether we think women should be depicted as Objects or…

Newsbrands have done well in the shortterm out of Brexit with sales and subs going up.  Consolidated sales are finally being considered for the medium.  Here’s a related world with potential other learnings for the category. Printed book sales are up – are there lessons for printed magazines and newsbrands publishers? Printed book sales are…

“It’s kinda messed up”   “It’s like gross to see”   “I don’t like seeing that”   “Cover your eyes, cover your eyes”   These are the reactions of a bunch of kids when shown ads featuring the objectification of women according to Madonna Badger of the campaign:  Women not Objects.  A campaign directed at…

Empathy is a finite resource, according to HBR’s Adam Waytz.  If I am empathetic towards you today, I will have less empathy towards my friend at dinner this evening. If you take on board one colleague’s problem over lunch, you’re going to be less ready to shoulder the burden of a team member at teatime.…

James Wildman, CRO of Trinity Mirror says they are. He writes that research has uncovered prejudice in agencies: “Printism can be defined as: “The preconceived opinion not based on reason or actual experience of the print medium; bias, partiality, unreasoned dislike, hostility or antagonism towards, or discrimination against, print – accelerated by those closest to it…

The Great Wall of China is the only man made structure visible from space; a penny dropped from a tall building can kill a man; men think about sex every 6 seconds; we only use 10 per cent of our brains.   Millennials have the attention span of a goldfish.   All commonly held popular…