Inputs and outputs

Creative lives are just inputs and outputs. You listen, watch, read, experience – that’s the inputs. Then you write, record, shape, create – that’s the outputs.  The problem of course is that there are gazillions – we might as well call it infinite amounts – of inputs: endless blogs to be perused, films to be … Read more

Book Club

Suggested agenda for our next book club meet-up:

Balance

There are many depressing things about this particular moment in history and there are many people writing about these depressing things in much more knowledgeable and eloquent ways than I would be able to.  But I feel that as someone who owns a blog it is important to write something now about what is about … Read more

With great power comes great responsibility

It’s been a choppy old couple of weeks in WordPress land. I’m not going to go back over the whole clusterfuck – there will be plenty of people writing about what went on – basically a massive spat between Matt Mullenweg (co-founder of WordPress) and mahoosive web host WP Engine. The row centres on a … Read more

When companies get bought

Just in my inbox is an email from DeployHQ – my favoured deployment tool since as long as I can remember – telling me that they’ve been bought by DeployBot. My first reaction whenever this sort of transaction happens (a couple off the top of my head: GoDaddy buying ManageWP, WPEngine buying ACF, Atlassian buying … Read more

A start page, just for me

I saw a link go up on HN the other day: An app can be a home-cooked meal – and found it really inspiring. What resonated for me was that even though this guy has obviously got some programming chops (he made a messaging app which looks pretty competent, even if it only has 4 … Read more

Oil sponsors? Twitter? Stop that, museums.

I can think of no justification whatsoever for a museum to be accepting sponsorship from an oil company in this day and age. It was embarrassing back in 2000 when I first joined the sector to see Shell / BP / Equinor / BNFL sponsoring galleries, exhibitions, exhibits and interactives. The “but the museum has … Read more

“New Year”

A picture of the sea at Bude

It’s fashionable at this time of year to do a “my past year in review” or “my plans for the coming year” blog post.  I’ve never really seen the point. The “past year in review” ones remind me of those appalling Christmas Family Newsletter things that some people seem to include in their Christmas cards … Read more

Going on silent retreat

I’ve just got back from my longest retreat yet – an 8 nighter – and as one of the most personally significant things I do on a regular basis, I thought I’d try and explain in writing what a retreat is, why it is important to me, and why it might also be important to … Read more

The promise vs the actual

So often the promise of a thing is huge and covered in bright lights; exciting and life changing and altogether wooo. Marketing does this, social media does this, and our natural response is amygdala-like: “shit man, I gotta get me one of those!“. The vision presented by the PR of The Thing is powerful. Examples … Read more