Ged Carroll

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  • AI state of the union H1 2024

    The AI state of the union H1 2024 post came about as we had a number of trends starting to come into view. To paraphrase Charles Dickens the AI state of the union H1 2024 represented both the best of times and the worst of times in generative AI.

    https://flic.kr/p/YBaAb
    Astro Boy | George Oates

    Is the current state of AI analogous to the dot com boom?

    In this respect, discussions around a dot com type boom around generative AI are less helpful. The dot com boom didn’t have the same naysayers at the time, aside from what would be now called edge lords worried about money. Like with all economic cycles they would eventually be proved right, but not until we had broadband and shopped at Amazon.

    Culturally, we are in a very different, darker place and aren’t riding an economic boom. I have tried to lay out some of the nuances in the themes currently driving AI discussions.

    I have broken this down into three themes and a focus on Japan.

    • Vendor knife fight
    • Trough of disillusionment
    • Synthetic data
    • Japan focus

    Right let’s get into The AI state of the union H1 2024.

    Vendor knife fight

    The AI state of the union H1 2024 sees generative AI being added to products and business plans, in a similar way to being web-enabled in the late 1990s. Spring Apps estimated that there almost 58,000 AI companies.

    Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta increased their investment in generative AI to $106 billion during the first six months of the year. In addition, Meta is looking to leverage the open source model of software development to drive progress in its Llama model. This echoes, how the open source model and software like Linux, MySQL and PHP were used during the dot com boom and the move to web 2.0 to provide greater efficiencies and possibilities.

    Some applications such as Adobe Creative Suite has become much more powerful thanks to adding generative AI. Alphabet has finally had generative AI companies parked on its front lawn. Open AI joined Perplexity in providing a search product.

    Apple came up with Apple Intelligence that provides a platform and front end for a mix of generative AI models. Microsoft has Co-Pilot that it has been selling to enterprises.

    Financial institutions have led the charge to try and get productivity gains such as JPMorgan’s IndexGPT and the continued automation of back office processes.

    Meanwhile in China, Baidu’s ERNIE has attracted almost a million developers looking to use the generative AI platform in their projects.

    Trough of disillusionment

    The enthusiasm for generative AI hasn’t managed to drown out dissonant voices. The number of objections are diverse.

    Business issues

    Morgan Stanley in a research report quoted a large pharmaceutical company CTO who abandoned the use of Microsoft Copilot in their organisation. The crux of the argument was that they weren’t seeing the value. Presentation creation was described as middle school level. Pharma companies tend to use PowerPoint as a publishing platform rather than a ‘presentation tool’ with data rich busy slides, so I can understand why Copilot became unstuck.

    It isn’t only ‘high-end’ knowledge work conducted by large corporates that is underwhelming. McDonald’s is withdrawing generative AI systems deployed at its drive-thru restaurants due it not working as planned. A Gartner survey of IT leaders indicated that McDonald’s wouldn’t be alone with nearly one in three generative AI projects to be scrapped in 2024.

    That might not be such a bad thing as businesses are currently in a process of experimentation, so long as the lessons learned are captured and internalised.

    Goldman Sachs have pivoted over a matter of months from being bullish about generative AI, to being concerned that the return on investment for generative AI may take far too long.

    Societal impact

    • What if speed isn’t the goal? The process of reading isn’t only about the ability to parse information quickly but also affects other aspects of human thinking and behaviour. There are clear benefits for certain groups of people including neurodivergent and second-language learners. But it also poses a risk to close reading skills which impacts developing or improving existing skills. Secondly, the generative AI can miss key facts from a document, given up as speed is prioritised over nuance and accuracy.
    • Knowledge collapse – By mediating access through AI tools moving forwards, due to the model’s focus on the centre of of the distribution of its data set. Restricting access to the edges is likely to cause harm to future innovation, human understanding and cultural development outlined in Peterson’s paper AI and the Problem of Knowledge Collapse.

    Technology-specific issues

    • Environmental impact – like web 3.0 and the crypto economy, generative AI requires a lot of energy to run high performance data centres. This means that Open AI is losing money hand-over-fist paying for computing capacity from Microsoft at a significant discount.
    • Model collapse – the relative lack of human-made data and the rise of synthetic data used in training generative AI systems is likely to lead to a rapid degradation in those models, indicating a ceiling on amount of progress that generative AI based on LLMs is likely to make.

    Synthetic data

    Synthetic data is probably one of the most difficult subjects to write for AI state of the union H1 2024. On one hand, you have Mark Ritson’s endorsement of synthetic data based on what we saw from B2B marketing generative AI startup Expenza AI. Ipsos have also got some credible interesting offerings that seem to be based on the provision of synthetic data.

    Is it any good? A lot depends on how the LLM is trained and the way it’s being used in terms of what you want to achieve. As with any tool, it can be useful for the right jobs. The MRS Delphi Group gave a range of feedback on the way it should be used, some of which seemed to contradict each other. We don’t know how accurate a picture the LLM is creating, what is being called algorithmic fidelity.

    Until concerns about algorithmic fidelity is addressed sufficiently well; marketers would be wise to exercise a degree of caution.

    Japan focus

    https://flic.kr/p/8NhqHK

    I have included Japan in my AI state of the union H1 2024 post for a few reasons.

    • Prior to the current exuberance about generative AI; Japan was doing really interesting things using different parts of AI including fuzzy logic and software agents. The Panasonic rice cooker that cooks rice that’s perfect for your preference. Error correction for video and audio playback, from CDs to Blu-Rays. Complex camera programme algorithms including image stabilisation. Sophisticated non-playable character behaviour in computer games. There has even been synthetic singers like Hatsune Miku and virtual influencers.
    • If Star Trek influenced the flip phone, the smartphone ( think the tri-corder, especially when used with the likes of Oxford Nanopore‘s products) and tablets (on Star Trek’s next generation), then cyberpunk and Japanese anime have influenced AI in a similar manner. Elon Musk and Sam Altman would fit right in as villains in the Ghost In The Shell series.
    • Finally, even though Japan influenced cyberpunk based on William Gibson’s experience meeting Japanese students, it has a paradoxical relationship with technology. For instance, the Japanese government recently stopped using 3.5″ floppy disks. Ancient crafts are still highly prized and Japanese brands like The Real McCoy’s and Grand Seiko who provide premium manufactured goods to artisanal standards.

    Matt Alt has put together a good overview of the policy and cultural context for generative AI in Japan. It’s less of a clear cut issue than the Japanese body politic seems to believe. The Japanese government believes that its population is likely to view AI positively because of anime plot lines. While Atom Boy is a positive example there are lots of negative examples in the Ghost In The Shell franchise alone. There is also a tension between government aspirations for international exports of increased amounts of media content.

    There are also concerns about existing AI relationships in Japan exasperating existing societal problems, like virtual girlfriends or boyfriends.

    Here’s more of my AI-related posts.

    More information

    Big Tech groups say their $100bn AI spending spree is just beginning | FT

    Open Source AI Is the Path Forward | Meta

    JPMorgan Unveils IndexGPT in Next Wall Street Bid to Tap AI Boom | Bloomberg

    Mistral NeMo | Mistral AI | Frontier AI in your hands

    Meta won’t bring future multimodal AI models to EU | Axios

    Defense AI startup Helsing raises $487M Series C, plans Baltic expansion to combat Russian threat | TechCrunch

    Baidu – World No. 1? – Radio Free Mobile

    Welcome to Canva, Leonardo!

    Move Slow and Make Sure Everything Works | Spyglass

    How Apple Intelligence’s Privacy Stacks Up Against Android’s ‘Hybrid AI’ | WIRED

    Goldman Sachs on AI: GEN AI: TOO MUCH SPEND, TOO LITTLE BENEFIT? Tech

    AI has a climate problem – but so does all of tech – Decoder with Nilay Patel

    Remarks at the SASE Panel On The Moral Economy of Tech

    AI and the problem of Knowledge Collapse – Andrew J Peterson

    McDonalds removes AI drive-throughs after order errors – BBC News

    Nearly one in three genAI projects will be scrapped | Computerworld

    The problem of ‘model collapse’: how a lack of human data limits AI progress | FT & Axios | 1 big thing: AI’s brain on AI

    Benedict Evans | The AI summer

    Synthetic data is suddenly making very real ripples | Marketing Week

    Synthetic data is as good as real – next comes synthetic strategy | Marketing Week

    Launch of Ipsos PersonaBot, a groundbreaking AI-powered solution to enhance segmentation research | Ipsos

    Using synthetic participants for market research | MRS Delphi Group

    The role of Synthetic Respondents in ‘Human-centred’ Research — Some Random Nerd

    Synthetic survey respondents: A revolution in research methods or the worst idea ever? | Glasseye

    Japan declares victory in effort to end government use of floppy disks | Reuters

    Postmodern orientalism : William Gibson, cyberpunk and Japan : a thesis presented in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand by Leonard P Sanders

    Japan, the “most AI friendly country in the world” | Matt Alt’s Pure Invention

    Japan goes light on AI regulation to court investment | Nikkei Asia

    Arts Workers Japan Survey: 94% of Japanese Creators Concerned About AI | Anime News Network

    AI Girlfriends: Why Concerns Grow In Japan | The Japan Reporter

  • Zynternet + more things

    Zynternet is a portmanteau made up of Zyn and internet. If you’re reading this internet is self-explanatory, the Zyn in question is tabacco-free Skoal bandit type nicotine pouches. Zyn comes in a tin and has various flavours.

    https://flic.kr/p/86d7JH

    According to journalist Max Read, the Zynternet is a kind of 90s to early 2000s sports obsessed ‘lad’ type culture; but in the 2020s. There are shades of ‘white van man’ in there as well.

    a broad community of fratty, horndog, boorishly provocative 20- and sometimes (embarrassingly) 30-somethings–mostly but by no means entirely male–has emerged to form a newly prominent online subculture.

    Hawk Tuah and the Zynternet | Max Read

    Despite Read’s definition defining it as a 20 to 30-something thing, the subculture seems to bleed into 40-something Dads and draws on creators like Barstool Sports. They’re less extreme than the Andrew Tate acolytes. They care more about sports and professional golf than they do about current affairs and politics. But they’ll be voting Republican. They like college sports, sports betting, light beers and Zyn nicotine pouches.

    The culture has grown prominent on the laissez-faire Musk era Twitter.

    Zynternet stretch

    It would be very easy to point to the Zynternet audience and draw parallels to the ‘proles’ of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four. And then go down a dystopian k-hole.

    I’ll leave the last words to David Ogilvy for those despairing about the Zynternet:

    You aren’t advertising to a standing army; you are advertising to a moving parade. Three million consumers get married every year. The advertisement which sold a refrigerator to those who got married last year will probably be just as successful with those who’ll get married next year. An advertisement is just like a radar sweep, constantly hunting new prospects as they come into the market. Get a good radar and keep it sweeping.

    David Ogilvy

    TL;DR if you’re not reaching the zynternet, you’re probably not doing political marketing properly. More related content here.

    Hawk Tuah and the Zynternet | Read Max.

    ‘Hawk Tuah Girl’ has our attention. Next, she would like our money. | BusinessInsider

    How the Right Won the Hawk Tuah Girl | Slate

    ‘Hawk tuah,’ the Zynternet, & the bro-vote; plus, cowboys are having a moment | It’s been a minute on NPR

    Business

    Destructive investing and the siren song of software • Apperceptive and Goldman Sachs on AI: GEN AI: TOO MUCH SPEND, TOO LITTLE BENEFIT? (PDF)

    Consumer behaviour

    Changing Trends Due To Japan’s Ageing Population – Tokyoesque

    28% of Britons say the outcome of general elections has little to no impact on them personally | YouGov

    Culture

    Architect I.M. Pei never wanted a retrospective. How Hong Kong got to host one at last | South China Morning Post – iconic despite not teaching or having a theory, just by doing. What’s fascinating about the Hong Kong exhibition is how it looks to address the ‘Chineseness’ of Pei. The discussion goes somewhat along the lines of ‘Yes he had Chinese ancestors, but did he write or speak Chinese?’. We know that he at least wrote Chinese.

    The Vogue Archive — Google Arts & Culture

    Design

    Longevity by design | Apple – interesting whitepaper on how Apple designs in reliability and physical resilience

    A massive Lego theft ring was busted by the cops | Quartz – any form of value that can be resold will be taken

    Energy

    Generative AI is a climate disaster | Disconnect AI

    Finance

    Li Ka-shing’s CK Infrastructure considering secondary listing overseas | South China Morning Post

    EU ends Apple Pay antitrust probe with binding commitments to open up contactless payments | TechCrunch

    Gadgets

    HP is ditching its bait-and-switch printer DRM — but only for LaserJets – The Verge

    Can Samsung’s new Galaxy Ring smart device help its China comeback? | South China Morning Post

    Health

    David Beckham is ‘strategic investor’ in Hong Kong’s Prenetics to set up IM8 health brand | South China Morning Post – IM8 will focus on “cutting-edge” consumer health products, the Nasdaq-listed Prenetics said, without divulging the financial details of Beckham’s investment

    How to

    Marcus Byrne – Midjourney prompts

    Innovation

    Walmart delivery drones being shot by Americans | Quartz – only in America

    Japan

    Dami Lee on Akira’s Neo Tokyo.

    Luxury

    Content or couture? Balenciaga’s 30-minute dress becomes the flashpoint of the season | Vogue Business – “It feels a little like a fast fashion iteration of haute couture,” says Victoria Moss, fashion director of The Standard, of the swirling mass of black nylon. “This feels at odds with what fashion at this level should be, which is exquisitely made pieces that somewhat justify their extreme pricing.” She adds that many invest in couture to have garments perfectly fitted to their bodies — and made to last for years.

    “Is it beautiful? That’s debatable. Is it impressive? Not really. Is it brazen? Absolutely. Is it a meditation on the creative process? Maybe. Are we bored of these kinds of gimmicks at Balenciaga? Clearly not, as Demna’s work continues to be both a lightning rod and a conversation starter. “Call it ‘pret-a-polarize’,” says fashion journalist and ‘Newfash’ podcast host Mosha Lundström. “To my eye and understanding, I see this look as content rather than couture.”

    Why Peter Copping Is a Good Choice to Lead Lanvin – Puck

    Materials

    A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything From Smartphones to Missiles – WSJ

    Marketing

    In Singapore, McDonald’s new metaverse unlocks perks for Grimace NFT holders | Trendwatching – while crypto and NFTs were seen as a flash in the pan by western marketers, they seem to have had a deeper longer-lasting resonance in Singapore.

    Opinion: Why Oracle Advertising Is Really Shutting Down | AdWeek

    Playbrary – by national library board of Singapore. It uses text based games (think Dungeons and Dragons) to introduce Singaporeans to classic books

    With AI-generated videos, Cadbury’s helps Aussies and Kiwis celebrate sporting volunteers – production-wise it is Jib-Jab vs. generative AI

    Media

    Paramount CEOs Say ‘Business As Usual’ After Merger, As Layoffs Loom – Business Insider

    Lonely Planet exits China, sparking nostalgia among netizens | Dao Insights

    Online

    Google considered blocking Safari users from accessing its new AI features, report says – 9to5Mac

    How Influencers and Algorithms Are Creating Bespoke Realities for Everyone | WIRED

    OpenAI Faces More Lawsuits Over Copyrighted Data Used to Train ChatGPT – Business Insider

    U.S. says Russian bot farm used AI to impersonate Americans : NPR and DOJ seizes ‘bot farm’ operated by the Russian government | The Verge

    The trouble with age-gating the internet – POLITICO

    Retailing

    Fast fashion frenzy: 62M Zara items on Vinted reveal the paradox of recommerce | Trendwatching

    Security

    Japan declares victory in effort to end government use of floppy disks | Reuters – yes stories like this are funny because ‘modern’ Japan with its flip phones, fax machines and floppy discs are an anachronism. But there’s a few other things to consider. There might be issues in terms of investment a la the NHS and critical systems that for whatever reason can’t be ported on to modern systems (like the problems had with security based on ActiveX).

    Dumb systems also have security benefits, you can’t steal nearly as much data on even a compressed floppy disk as you can on a USB stick.

    How Apple Intelligence’s Privacy Stacks Up Against Android’s ‘Hybrid AI’ | WIRED

    Defense AI startup Helsing raises $487M Series C, plans Baltic expansion to combat Russian threat | TechCrunch

    Software

    Interesting use cases for generative AI in China which sounds like a plot line from Ghost In The Shell.

    Baidu – World No. 1? – Radio Free Mobile – is Baidu ERNIE really the number one generative AI service? It depends on if the numbers are true. 14 million developers, 950,000 models within the eco-system

    Alphabet Shelves Its Interest in HubSpot (GOOGL, HUBS) – Bloomberg

    Technology

    China plays down importance of lithography tools in semiconductor challenges – Interesting report from Taiwan’s DigiTimes semiconductor trade magazine: China seems to be deliberately playing down the importance of lithography tools as it identifies the challenges for the development of its semiconductor industry in a recently published dossier.

    Telecoms

    Starlink Mini is now available for anyone in the US to roam – The Verge

    Tools

    Cassidy | The AI Workspace for your team

    Wireless

    Germany orders ban on Chinese companies from its 5G network | FT

    Switching from Google Photos to iCloud will soon be a lot less painful – The Verge

  • May 2024 newsletter – no. 10

    May 2024 newsletter introduction

    Welcome to my May 2024 newsletter, I hope that you’re looking forward to the spring bank holiday, unfortunately if like me you’re in the UK – then that was the last public holiday before the end of August. This newsletter which marks my 10th issue. I wasn’t certain that I would get to a tenth edition of this newsletter.

    The number ten has a high amount of cultural symbolism from the biblical ten commandments to the ten celestial (or heavenly) stems during the Shang dynasty that marked the days of their week. There were corresponding earthy branches based on 12 day groupings. While the stems are no longer used in calendars they still appear in feng shui, Chinese astrology, mathematical proofs instead of the roman alphabet, student grading systems and multiple choice questionnaires.

    New reader?

    If this is the first newsletter, welcome! You can find my regular writings here and more about me here. 

    https://flic.kr/p/2pEXND8

    Things I’ve written.

    • I wrote a comment that struck a bit of a nerve about being asked to do a project ‘for my portfolio’.
    • Omakase and luxury futures. In the face of all the changes facing the luxury sector, is the answer learning from the Japanese tradition of omakase?
    • April marked the 20th anniversary of Dove’s campaign for real beauty. I took a slower approach than the LinkedIn hot takes to reflect on its legacy.
    • Shutting down – when always-on becomes detrimental.
    • Mobilizing for Monuments and other things that grabbed my interest.
    • How behavioural science can help optimise the response to a coffee shop problem.
    • I saw clear parallels between car touchscreens and the changes that digital music instruments went through in terms of design and adoption.

    I have had Alex Kassian’s cover version of the Manuel Göttsching classic E2 – E4 on heavy rotation. It was released just in time for the Ibiza season and has Mad Professor remixes dubbing out the balearic vibes for all the deep house shamans.

    https://flic.kr/p/2pPBBLh

    Books that I have read.

    • After Watches and Wonders 2024, I finally managed to get the time to read Rolex Wristwatches: An Unauthorized History by James M Dowling. Dowling is the person that the pre-owned watch market goes to for authentication of really old or unusual Rolex models. His history of the company, while unauthorised, had the collaboration of early Rolex staffers. What comes out is an interesting tale of adaption. Rolex started off as a UK reseller. The company innovated due to client needs and somewhere along the way because the luxury watch manufacturing giant we know today. What becomes apparent that their success was partly down to timing, circumstance and a belief that you change nothing, unless you’re making it better. The last point is something that product managers the world over could learn from.
    • David McCloskey’s Damascus Station came highly recommended as leisure reading. My taste in espionage fiction is more towards Mick Herron and John Le Carre rather than the more action orientated. This book had enough intellect and imperfection to make me put up with the James Bond factor.
    • I am at the time of writing working my way through Nixonland by Rick Perlstein – which I started before the student sit-ins against the conflict in the Gaza strip happened. More on this book once I have finished it.
    • Pogue’s Basics: Essential Tips and Shortcuts (That No One Bothers to Tell You) for Simplifying the Technology in Your Life by David Pogue. I bought a copy of this for my Dad and re-read my own copy, I keep forgetting some of the life hacks that Pogue captured in this book. It’s a decade old and still tremendously useful.

    Things I have been inspired by.

    I like watches, the design and quality of engineering that they represent and even the sound of them ticking away, but I generally don’t enjoy Hodinkee interviews. However, when they interviewed sneaker legend Ronnie Fieg I watched it. Fieg’s story around his watches is amazing, with each watch marking a milestone.

    TML Partners and Accenture Song have done an interesting report on ‘the future of intelligent marketing performance‘ – basically CRM and e-commerce based on a impressive roundtable of marketers. What immediately struck me was how many of the problems would haven written about in a similar way a decade ago. We are constantly in a state of digital transformation, that is starting to feel more like ‘digital treading water’ now. It is due to relatively short organisation memory and lack of a ‘learning element’ in organisations.

    Back when I worked in Hong Kong, I got to work on Colgate alongside other agencies. The work that I was doing was in association with the dedicated agency Red Fuse which was the umbrella for all WPP work. I was eventually shut down from working on it by APAC senior management from my own agency at the time; due to internal agency politics that I long gave up trying to understand.

    While I was working on the project, I got to meet Jason Oke who is now in charge of global client relationships at Dentsu in New York. Jason appears on the Google Firestarters podcast discussing how to get great advertising ideas made. Some of the thoughts are timeless and echo the advice of Ogilvy on Advertising. It’s well worth listening to.

    DSC_0991
    BBH Singapore Cultural Bleats newsletter

    Every agency has some sort of email newsletter, but one that stands head-and-shoulders above other agencies is BBH Singapore’s Cultural Bleats. I promise you once you get past the name, it’s brilliant. The premise of the newsletter is that they put together interesting cultural things to act as useful provocations. This is exactly the kind of thinking, curation and sharing that planning and strategy teams should be doing if they aren’t over-committed on Workfront. A prime example of the kind of thing that Culture Bleats might pick up on is how rich people no longer appear to eat due to Ozempic and meal replacements like Huel.

    Dow and Procter & Gamble announced an agreement to make a proprietary way to recycle mixed plastics. I am all for improving recycling of plastics, but having a proprietary method adds complexity into a recycling system that’s already unfit for purpose. I hope that once commercialisation happens P&G will follow the example of Unilever who freely licensed its more efficient aerosol cans to other manufacturers who were interested in the technology.

    The Norwegian government published the results of its Mannsutvalgets or Men’s Equality Commission. The report goes into policies across several areas here (in Norwegian). It has some interesting findings that echo think tank thinking about the intersection of social class and opportunity outcomes.

    Some of the content around health is particularly interesting Dagens Medisin covered some of these findings, you can see a translation of their article here. However some of the findings in health did make me wonder. It notes that men in Norway live shorter lives than women and considers this to be an equality challenge. Most writing I have seen around the gender mortality gap see it as a biological given rather than a ‘gap’. It felt like greater research was needed to support this reframe in science rather than a well-meaning aspiration.

    The report calls on the Research Council in Norway to take up the challenge of improving the knowledge base on many of the issues tackled in the report. The commission acknowledged data-related challenges and wanted revised statistics / indicators for gender equality so that they reflect the equality challenges of boys and men than are currently available.

    If you have semiconductor clients and haven’t been on Malcolm Penn’s Future Horizons semiconductor industry awareness workshop, you’re in look he’s running it again on June 18th. I started my agency career working on technology hardware, gadgets and semiconductors – the Future Horizons course helped no end. I went on to work for numerous technology clients including AMD, ARM and Qualcomm.

    Finally this essay on human creativity provided a lot of fuel for thought. It pulls together a multi-variant model for why human creativity is on the wane.

    Factors included:

    • A childhood lack of free time for play and imagination. Instead children have much more regimented structural lifestyles today.
    • Massive access to more cultural artefacts than we could possibly consume from around the world at the touch of our fingers. The unknown space is now limited and so there is less opportunity to be creative within it.
    • Science and technology innovation is connecting less disparate areas of knowledge in order to make a ‘thing’.
    • Stimulation is focused rather than a wide range of stuff, rather than washing over us.

    Things I have watched. 

    I have found myself watching less Netflix over time. Then Netflix moved from getting paid through the Apple app store to wanting a direct payment and bumped the price up. So a mix of inertia and not wanting to watch a compelling show or two has meant that I have consciously uncoupled from Netflix for the time being. I will probably go back when I have a good enough reason. In the meantime, I am buying the odd Blu-Ray or DVD here and there instead. It seems that I am not the only one who has taken this approach.

    Amazon Prime Video seems to have a bipolar personality between Apple TV+ level tentpole content and a wide range of trashy films, some of which deserve the moniker ‘cult cinema’. Red Queen fits into the former category rather than the latter. It is based a series of books by Juan Gómez-Jurado. I have just started reading the book Red Queen, but the TV series is compelling. I didn’t realise that I had managed to watch four episodes in one sitting.

    I went back to watch the Alain Delon Traitement de choc aka Shock Treatment. Delon plays Dr Devilers, the proprietor of a clinic on the Brittany coast. The clinic focuses on rejuvenating tired wealthy clients with spa treatments, special diets and infusions. The middle-aged patients at the clinic are true believers and as their treatment happens they become more child-like as the rejuvenation happens. The dark side of the clinic is that the serum comes at a price. A new patient finds out what actually happens and what plays out is a French New Wave allegory that touches on similar ethical health concerns, rather like the film adaptation of John Le Carré’s The Constant Gardener.

    My internet went down and I managed to work my way through The Street Fighter Trilogy starring Sonny Chiba and made famous by the Tony Scott-directed True Romance. The Street Fighter series was a key influence with Quentin Tarantino, who wrote in their role as a plot device in True Romance and had Sonny Chiba appear in his Kill Bill series. All of the films feel a bit hackneyed in a post-John Wick world, but the first instalment is hard-bitten. Given the torrent of films coming out of Hong Kong at the time, The Street Fighter films stood apart with their unflinching violence displayed on screen. They became the first film in the US to receive an X certificate for violence alone.

    Along with the Shaw Brothers boxsets and Bruce Lee’s filmography, the Street Fighter trilogy, is essential viewing for both Asian cinema buffs and martial artist movie fanatics.

    How do the sequel films stack up? The second and third film in the series have a bit more playfulness and off-kilter aspects to them similar to films of a similar age made as spaghetti westerns. Sonny Chiba’s 1974 trilogy typify the martial arts craze that swept western cinema in the early 1970s onwards. In the UK, The Street Fighter was called Kung Fu Street Fighter. The likely reasons were two-fold, a similarly named Charles Bronson film and the glut of Hong Kong martial arts films being shown.

    The Source is a French police procedural series that shows the cat and mouse game between a French Moroccan crime family and the police tasked to catch them. I am in a few episodes and really enjoying the show so far.

    Useful tools.

    Email charter

    My friend Marshall mentioned this email charter on LinkedIn. Share it with anyone you work with to improve the quality and volume of team communications. Much of it is about level setting expectations. More about the email charter here.

    Martin

    Martin is an app that integrates Claude-3, Deepgram’s Novo speech to text service and GPT-4 Turbo to interact with Google personal productivity software including Google Calendar and Gmail. Conceptually it’s a better Siri-type digital assistant. I have heard good things about it, but don’t rely heavily on Google services myself, so your mileage may vary. More details here.

    Magnet

    Magnet is a handy piece of software that keeps your desktop organised. It was recommended to me by a friend who codes software for a living. It is particularly handy for keeping ‘presence’ based channels (like Slack, Teams, Mail.app together on one screen as a ‘war room” type view and having creation on another screen. It even works if you use your screen in a vertical orientation.

    PamPam

    A service that allows you to create and share maps. You can import maps in various formats or describe it in text for PamPam to render it. Strangely useful.

    Scribd downloader

    I am not sure how Scribd managed to digest so many resources and hide them behind a paywall. But this might be the antedote if you have something specific that you need.

    The sales pitch.

    I have had a great time working on a project with GREY & Tank Worldwide. I am now taking bookings for strategic engagements for a bit of time that I have in early to mid-June; or discussions on permanent roles. Contact me here.

    More on what I have done here.

    bit.ly_gedstrategy

    The End.

    Ok this is the end of my May 2024 newsletter, I hope to see you all back here again in a month. Be excellent to each other and enjoy the bank holiday.

    Don’t forget to like, comment, share and subscribe!

    Let me know if you have any recommendations to be featured in forthcoming issues. 

  • Omakase and luxury futures

    Omakase and luxury seem made for each other. Think about the core elements of omakase:

    • An expert provides a personalised experience that is about quality, ceremony and theatre.
    • The expert decides what you will have and prepares it for you. You are there from selection to the provision of the item.
    • The ingredients are of fine quality (and often locally sourced).
    https://flic.kr/p/2kxYNLQ
    Marc Veraart

    As a trend omakase has expanded geographically with Japanese cuisine. But it has also expanded in terms of categories covered.

    Koreans have taken omakase and pushed it into other areas:

    • Coffee
    • Dessert tasting
    • Barbecue restaurants which are normally a local neighbourhood staple
    • Wine and champagne-tasting

    So how can omakase and luxury come together in the future?

    In order to understand how omakase and luxury in the future it is worthwhile paying a good deal of attention to the pressures that the luxury industry is currently under.

    Luxury is under pressure

    Undoing the mistakes of the past

    Luxury has expanded to be the size of industry it currently is due to ‘massification’ by most of the maisons. The exceptions to this would be the likes of Hermés.

    Massification

    Massification means lowering quality, using globalisation in the supply chain as well as the retail network to manufacture products cheaper. Massification occurred over a three decade period and was covered extensively by former fashion editor Dana Thomas in her book Deluxe.

    Around about 2014, Gucci led the way for luxury brands to do streetwear, leading to a more accessible luxury product. Louis Vuitton did the archetypical collection with its 2017 Supreme collaboration.

    Contrary to what most people believe luxury is aimed at the middle classes rather than the wealthy. But targeting middle class customers rather than the wealthy poses a number of problems:

    • Increased capital outlay due to the scale required.
    • Scale brings challenges in terms of supply chain management and consistency of customer experience. Greater control can be obtained by vertical integration within the supply chain and owning the retail channels. But all of this requires greater expertise and management oversight.
    • Increased economic sensitivity to shocks such as interest rate and cost of living rises.
    • Increased risk of devalued stock during an economic downturn. Gucci earnings were down 20 percent alone in Q1, 2024.

    Bigger might not always be better over a longer view.

    Secondary markets

    Secondary markets have been both a boon and a bane for the luxury sector. At one time pre-owned was seen as an ‘entry-level’ product. I bought my first nice watch secondhand once it had depreciated. It was often said that the best entry-level Porsche was a secondhand one.

    But gone are the days when you may buy a pre-owned Louis Vuitton purse on a second hand market stall in Paris. Now that will be on Vinted, Vestaire or some other platform.

    Secondary market inflated pricing affected luxury businesses in a number of ways

    • You would be interviewed to go on the waiting list for a Porsche or a Rolex.
    • Authorised dealers became order takers and dealer customer service slipped.
    • Your purchasing history would acquire you the rights to buy a Hermés bag over time.

    Luxury groups extended their businesses into the pre-owned market. LVMH owned part of secondhand watch retailer Hodinkee. Richemont owned Watchfinder and Yoox-Net-a-Porter who sold a mix of new lines and vintage preowned items. Rolex rolled out its ‘CPO’ programme selling inspected pre-owned Rolex watches through its authorised dealer network.

    Things looked really good for the luxury industry, they managed to managed to scale, to a point that LVMH is one of the largest companies in the world:

    • Massification through global manufacturing supply chains.
    • Keeping margins high, while letting quality go low.
    • Address a rising middle class in China, Korea, Japan, the Gulf countries and Russia to counteract the hollowing out of the middle class in the US and western Europe.
    • Maximising margins through controlling costs via vertical integration up and down the supply chain, from raw materials to retail.

    Market change

    A few things underpinned the craziness of COVID:

    • Money was put in consumer pockets, for which they had few outlets.
    • Supply chains were disrupted as factories closed down or pivoted to manufacturing essential products. For instances Perfums Christian Dior made hand sanitiser for hospitals for free.

    A Forrester effect (also known as a bull whip effect) resulted, driving inflation that the world’s economies are coming to terms with now. Secondary effects of this event were the increased interest rates used to reduce demand driven inflation.

    Other secondary effects include increased crime levels. London has gone from a luxury shoppers paradise, to having a global reputation amongst elites of being plagued by violent watch and bag robberies. COVID-19 isn’t the only driver of this crime wave, but is a contributing factor.

    It has also had a catalysing effect on reducing globalisation to increase national resilience.

    Consumers know that a good deal of luxury goods don’t match up with the European artisan heritage story that brands try to sell them. Experts like William Lasry has made public which brands make what kind of products where. Luxury brands often make in places like China due to capability and scale – similar reasons to why Apple products are designed in California and assembled in China. (Seriously, check out William Lasry’s channels, I love some of his visits to high-end Japanese manufacturers).

    China

    China has been a key focus for luxury brand, but it has changed in a number of different ways:

    • Chinese consumers have changed in their confidence of native brands and have a lower opinion of many foreign brands. This is partly down to a change in attitudes called guo chao. Guo chao can be traced back to the increased confidence in the run up to the 2008 olympics in Beijing. This was partly fuelled by a series of essays published in 1996 by the likes of academic Wang Xiaodong called China Can Say Now which advocated a modern robust form of Chinese nationalism, which was in stark contrast to the Deng-era vision of globalisation and biding one’s time. In the April before the olympics Chinese consumers boycotted French supermarket brand Carrefour. Over time the negativity of these boycotts have become more-and-more performative and extra-territorial in nature. The current Xi administration has seen fit to weaponise this nationalist sentiment by directing (wrangling is a more accurate term, like cowboys with a cattle train in the Old West) public opinion to further its own ends. A more positive aspect of it has been a more open market for domestic ateliers and brands than had been seen previously. Since before 2019, there have been Chinese efforts to build a rival luxury groups to LVMH and Kering and this fits in with Xi’s distaste for irrational worship of the west.
    • Xi-era growth. China under Xi Jinping faces multiple challenges around growth. The population is aging and in decline which has implications for declining consumption. Secondly economic growth has slowed compared to the double digit annual economic growth of the Deng, Jiang and Hu administrations. Foreign direct investment in China has declined for a mix of reasons including unattractive Chinese government policies, decline in China’s country brand and long term economic growth forecasts.

    Regulatory change

    I know what you’re thinking ok, this is very well Ged, but what does it have to do with omakase and luxury futures? Give me a little bit more time and all will be revealed.

    While China is an economic superpower with a desire to export its world view and the United States is a hard and soft power super power; the European Union’s super power is legislative in nature.

    European regulation drove the globalisation of the GSM mobile telephony standards during the 1990s and 2000s. They have also driven increasing internet privacy standards on web services, much to the chagrin of Alphabet, Meta and Twitter.

    Now they are driving environmental standards across a range of areas including:

    • A carbon tax to take into account the use of fossil fuels in extraction of raw materials, transportation, energy as an input to manufacturing and processing materials.
    • Product passports from raw materials to product end-of-life encouraging a circular economy and sustainable manufacturing.

    This means that the luxury sector has new restrictions on how it operates in the future.

    In summary:

    • We’ve likely reached peak massification due to economic and trade changes.
    • Market share in China looks uncertain due to changes in consumer sentiment and tastes, meaning, a more local approach might be required or a strategic withdrawal.
    • Secondary markets show that consumers are open to ownership beyond pristine new products.
    • Product passports and European legislation means re-examining the whole supply chain and the data to better control it through an entire product life.

    Finally, omakase and luxury futures!

    Omakase and luxury look like a happy meeting in the future. Think about the tenets of omakase.

    • An expert provides a personalised experience that is about quality, ceremony and theatre.
    • The expert decides what you will have and prepares it for you. You are there from selection to the provision of the item.
    • The ingredients are of fine quality (and often locally sourced).

    Going back to go forward.

    The future of luxury is about looking back. Tailors who suited generations of families and made alterations to Grandfather’s suit that the son is now wearing. The shirt maker replacing the collars and cuffs. The shoe-maker who refurbishes your shoes and has a set of lasts with your name on, for when he has to make a new set. Getting measured, having your foot cast for a last or getting your watch could be memorable events once again. So there this a precedence for expertise and service levels. But it implies a retail experience that will change dramatically.

    New techniques and questions.

    Previously with the exception of measuring sessions, these processes were largely concealed from the consumer and were difficult to scale. So it’s worthwhile thinking about how luxury’s omakase future could be extended with modern technology? We have some experiments that might give us some ideas. First up, L’Oreal has showcased bespoke make-up manufacture for a while.

    How could high-end perfume makers adapt for products beyond make-up? Improved analysis equipment from the likes of Oxford Nanopore could facilitate individually formulated fragrance products based on skin chemistry.

    Adidas experimented with its Speedfactory concept that blended the retail and shoe assembly together.

    Technologically there is a lot of promising ideas. Adidas have worked with up-cycled plastics retrieved from the debris brought together by an ocean gyre made into 3d printed soles and fibres. (Look for the Parley label, who Adidas partnered with on this.)

    How can additive or automated manufacturing and other processes feel luxe? In what way could they add to the theatre?

    This hybridisation of retail and manufacturing changes the nature of both offline and online retail completely. Would even the largest concession in Selfridges or a shopping mall be big enough, or would fashion houses need a single purpose brand experience?

    Given that there is likely to be a bit more time between manufacture and presentation of the product than there would be in a sashimi restaurant, what else would go into the maison experience? LVMH is already investing in hotels and resorts like Cheval Blanc which gives it a better understanding of more areas in luxury experience and service.

    Localisation would likely to be needed to handle omakase and luxury due to culture and the need for local materials. This might include new materials, such as fungus-derived leather. Of course, this might have negative implications for luxury house supply chains, whether it’s Louis Vuitton’s iconic plastic coated leather, or the Hermés crocodile farm.

    Which means that product line-ups could no longer be global in nature. So luxury companies may revisit that the creative process looks like. Should there be a single global vision anymore? Luxury maisons instincts would be to say yes, but could this be an opportunity to own local ateliers in markets like China or the US?

    • Will there be more local brands instead?
    • What will a maison’s heritage mean in the future? A luxury maison is about what remains the same as much as what changes. What will happen to long-standing motifs?
    • Will there be a greater opportunity for more auteurs who are closer to the customers?
    • How to bridge the tension in terms of choosing for the customer and creativity as well as quality?

    We’re talking a very different profile of creative in terms of thinking, attitudes and skills compared to the present.

    Service, repair and reuse could learn a lot lessons from traditional tailors and the service networks of watchmakers like Rolex or luggage maker Rimowa.

    I could not think of a more exciting or scary time to be setting the brand direction for a luxury maison, let alone the overall direction or the likes of LVMH. But by wrapping local materials, expertise, ritual and a bit of theatre the future could look like a fusion of omakase and luxury.

    More information

  • April 2024 newsletter – no. 9

    April 2024 newsletter introduction

    Welcome to my April 2024 newsletter which marks my 9th issue. We managed to make it through the winter and the clocks moved forward allowing for lighter evenings in the northern hemisphere.

    https://flic.kr/p/2pEXND8

    The number nine is full of symbolism in a good way. In Chinese culture it sounds similar to long-lasting. It was strongly associated with the mystical and powerful nature of the Chinese dragon. From the number of dragon types and children to the number of scales on the dragon – which were multiples of 9. You have nine channels in traditional Chinese medicine. In Norse mythology there are nine worlds and Odin the all-father hangs on the tree of life for 9 days to gain knowledge of the runes.

    Social media-related cognitive dissonance

    A couple of conversations with people, spurred me to write this next piece.

    I know it’s obvious and common sense, but it needs to be said occasionally. This time last year, I was on a Zurich work trip, providing support to a teammate running a workshop for a client who viewed the agency as the least worst option. We did good work and built temporary rapport, we got insight about the wider client-side politics at play. It was the classic example of the complexities involved in agency life and Lord knows we already have enough internal politics in our own shops to deal with.

    The photo I shared on Instagram at the time gave no clue to what was happening, serving as a reminder to consider the curated nature of social feeds when scrolling through.

    https://flic.kr/p/2ounaAh

    New reader?

    If this is the first newsletter, welcome! You can find my regular writings here and more about me here. 

    Things I’ve written.

    • Fads versus real trends
    • A quick guide to jargon used in pharma marketing.
    • What my answers to Campaign’s a-list questions would look like.
    • Boutique e-tailers and why the multi-brand luxury retail sector has gone from boom to bust.
    • Very Ralph and other things – Ralph Lauren’s world building abilities and how others from a cancer patient or overseas migrant workers have bent the world to their needs, or made a new one.

    Books that I have read.

    • There are a few books that I revisit and the March 1974 JWT London planning guide is one of them. In many respects it feels fresh and more articulate than more modern tomes.
    • Chinese Antitrust Exceptionalism by Angela Zhang sounds exceptionally dry to the uninitiated. But if like me, you’ve worked on brands like Qualcomm, Huawei or GSK you realise how much of an impact China’s regulatory environment can have on your client’s success. Zhang breaks down the history of China’s antitrust regulatory environment, how it works within China’s power structures and how it differs from the US model. What becomes apparent is that Chinese power isn’t monolithic and that China is weaponising antitrust legislation for strategic and policy goals rather than consumer benefit. It is important for everything from technology to the millions of COVID deaths that happened in China due to a lack of effective vaccines. Zhang’s book won awards when it first came out in 2021, and is still valuable now given the relatively static US-China policy views. Given the recent changes in Hong Kong where she lives, we may not see as frank a book of its quality come out of Hong Kong academia again on this subject matter.
    • Van Horne and Riley’s Left of Bang was recommended by a friend who recently left military service. It codified and gave me a lexicon for describing observations of focus group dynamics and observation-based shopper marketing. Probably of bigger value to people more interested in the analytical side of behavioural science is the bibliography – which is extensive.

    Things I have been inspired by.

    Sustaining a sustainable brand

    Kantar do a good webinar series called On Brand with Kantar. I got to watch one of them: Why consumers ignore brands’ sustainability efforts. Consumers are reticent to trust in brand’s sustainable efforts. Kantar’s recommendation is to stay the course and continue to demonstrate real sustainability. Kantar’s work complemented System 1’s Greenprint US-orientated sustainable advertising report. There is a UK-specific version as well with half a dozen ideas for marketers published in partnership with ITV.

    Media platform trends

    GWI released their 2024 Global Media trends report. GWI takes a survey based approach to understand consumer media behaviour.

    • Broadcast TV still commands the greatest share of total TV time, despite Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and a plethora of other streaming platforms from Criterion to Disney+.
    • Survival/horror players are most excited about gaming luxury collabs, whether or not luxury brands are equally excited about survival or horror gamers is a bigger question.
    • Games console ownership has halved in the past ten years. This surprised me given how many of my friends have a Switch or PlayStation 5. It probably explains why Microsoft is focusing on being a publisher rather than on platforms as well.

    Japanese online media spend

    Dentsu published a report looking into 2023 Advertising Expenditures in Japan. A couple of interesting outtakes.

    • They focused exclusivity on internet advertising, which gives you a good idea on where they want the balance of media spend to go, rather than necessarily the right tool for the right job. Yes digital is very important, BUT, we live in a world were we are wrapped by and consume layers of digital and analogue media.

    We can see from GWI data that this viewpoint is likely to be still excessively myopic in terms of media due to offline – online media linkages. This is likely to be even more so in Japan that still has a more robust traditional media industry.

    IMG_6260
    • Internet advertising reached a new high, despite being a couple of years after the Olympic games were hosted in Tokyo. (Media spend when a country hosts the olympics tends to be skewed that year upwards).

    One thing I would flag is that this report is based on surveying people across the Japanese advertising industry and built on their responses. So there maybe some biases built into that process. Overall it’s a fascinating read.

    Social media engagement benchmarks

    RivalIQ published their 2024 Social Media Industry Engagement bench report, download it to get the full details. Three things that struck me straight away:

    • Macro-level decline across platforms on engagement rate, which matches the trends that Manson and Whatley outlined ten years ago in their Facebook Zero paper for Ogilvy Social.
    • If brands didn’t need enough reason already to reduce exposure to Twitter, the falling engagement rates on the platform add additional reasons. Overall video seemed to underperform on engagement compared to photos.
    • One thing leaped out to me in the industry verticals data, if you are looking to reach student age adults, why not consider collaborating with higher education institution social media accounts rather than influencers?

    Shocking health outcomes

    The Hidden Cost of Ageism | A Barrier to Innovation & Growth | Future Work – sparked a lot of discussion with its implications on workplace practices, particularly within the advertising sector. What was less discussed but more important was the implications of ageism related biases on healthcare treatment.

    Under-treatment or Over-treatment: Older adults may receive less aggressive treatment options or are overtreated because of age-related biases, rather than based on individual health needs and preferences.

    Dismissal of Concerns: Healthcare providers might dismiss older patients’ health issues as inevitable parts of ageing, potentially overlooking treatable conditions.

    Age-Based Prioritisation: In some cases, age influences the allocation of healthcare resources, with younger individuals being prioritised over older ones, assuming they have more “life worth living.”

    The Hidden Cost of Ageism | Future Work

    MSNBC News in the US did a report on what it called a ‘Post-Roe underground’ echoing the underground railroads to free slaves in the Southern states and the Vietnam war era draft dodgers who escaped north to Canada. This time it is to help women access abortion pills or procedures in other states or Mexico.

    MSNBC

    My friend Parrus hosted a talk on World Health Day, more on that here, the key takeaway for me was not trying to replicate developed market solutions in developing markets. Instead think about how it could be reinvented. Thinking that could be extended beyond health care to consumer goods, telecoms and technology sectors as well.

    Luxury market shake-up

    Business of Fashion covered a US court case where two women brought a lawsuit against Hermès, alleging purchase of its sought-after Birkin bag is dependent on purchase of other products and is an “illegal tying arrangement” that violated US antitrust law.

    https://flic.kr/p/njF8w8

    Hermès is more vulnerable than other brands because it owns its retail stores. The case, if successful could have implications far beyond the luxury bag-maker. For instance, how Ford selected prospective owners for its GT-40 sports cars, or most Ferrari limited edition for that matter.

    While we’re on the subject of luxury, LVMH are rerunning their INSIDE LVMH certificate which is invaluable for anyone who might work on a luxury brand now or in the future. More here.

    Morizo

    Toyota are on a tear at the moment. They correctly guessed that electric cars were too expensive at the moment and focused hybrids as a stepping stone to electric and hydrogen fuel cell production. They have also successfully use the passion for driving in their products and their marketing. The Toyota GR Yaris was a result of Chairman Akio Toyoda instructing engineers to make something sporty enough to win the World Rally Championship and affordable.

    He also outed himself as a speed demon who went under the nom de plume of Morizo.

    Quebec

    For many English speakers one of the most dissonant experiences is being confronted by a language you can’t speak. It’s part of the reason why ireland managed to become the European base of companies like Alphabet and and Intel. So I was very impressed by this campaign by the Quebec government to attract visitors and inbound investment.

    Things I have watched. 

    I watched Mr Inbetween series one in March and managed to work through series two and three this month. I couldn’t recommend them highly enough as a series. They just keep building on each other.

    Over Easter, I revisited some old VHS tapes my parents still had and rediscovered the Christopher Walken science fiction horror film “Communion.” It epitomizes its era, with alien abduction narratives emerging during the Cold War and permeating popular culture from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” to “The X-Files,” tapering off after 9/11. “Communion” demonstrates how effective editing and minimal special effects can heighten tension and emotion. Despite the film’s incredulous premise, Walken delivers a fantastic performance.

    “Modesty Blaise” is from a time when comic book adaptations were uncommon in cinemas. This 1966 adaptation of the 1960s comic strip shares stylistic similarities with “Barbarella” and stars a young Terence Stamp. I received a tape copy from a friend who was attending art college at the time. The depiction of the computer as a character with emotional reactions in the film feels contemporary, echoing the rise of virtual assistants like Siri and ChatGPT, despite being portrayed as a mainframe. It is interesting to contrast it with Spike Jonze’s movie Her made 50 years later.

    Useful tools.

    A lot of the tools this month have been inspired by my trusty Mac slowly dying and needing to get my new machine up and running before my old machine gave out.

    Time Machine

    Apple’s native backup software, Time Machine, serves as a personal sysadmin for home users. Regular backups are essential. If a crucial document disappears while you’re working on it, Time Machine, coupled with a Time Machine-enabled hard drive, allows you to retrieve earlier versions of the document, potentially saving your sanity in critical moments.

    Microsoft Office

    I prefer the one-off payment model over Office 365 services. I use Apple’s Mail, Contacts, and Calendar apps instead of Outlook. While Office is available for just £100, which is reasonable considering its features, I still prefer Keynote over PowerPoint for creating presentations.

    Superlist

    Many of you may recall Wunderlist, which Microsoft acquired, but much of its original charm was lost in the transition to Microsoft To Do. Superlist is a reboot of Wunderlist by the original team, this time without Microsoft’s involvement. It’s available on iOS, macOS, and the web, catering to both individual and team task management needs.

    https://youtu.be/2MzzbRhYlSA?si=04eBXH-MqKLpX2bN

    ESET Home Security Essential

    I used to rely on Kaspersky, and while I generally like their products, I have concerns about the potential influence of the Russian government. Therefore, I switched providers. ESET has a strong reputation and offers better Mac support than F-Secure. I can recommend their ESET HOME Security Essential package.

    Amazon Basics laptop sleeve

    I use a various bags depending on my destination and activities. Over the years, I’ve found that Amazon Basics brand laptop sleeves work well for my machines. They’re often among the cheapest options available and tend to outlast the computers they protect. 

    Laptop camera cover

    https://flic.kr/p/JQpUyo

    The photo of Mark Zuckerberg’s laptop with tape covering the camera raised awareness about privacy. Webcam privacy covers, such as a sliver of plastic that slides across, are ideal as they allow your laptop to close fully. A pro tip is to use a red LED torch to clearly locate your camera when applying the stick-on cover.

    Protective case and keyboard cover

    I’m a big fan of clip-on polycarbonate shells to protect my laptop, as they provide a better surface for the stickers that personalize my machine over time. You don’t necessarily need a big-name case. The one I have came with a keyboard cover that works well. Anything that prevented Red Bull, coffee, or croissant flakes from getting under my keys is worth doing.

    Screen protector film

    The screen protector film provides great protection and is easy to apply and clean, even for beginners like me. I’ll update you if my opinion changes.

    The sales pitch.

    I have enjoyed working on projects for PRECISIONeffect and am now taking bookings for strategic engagements or discussions on permanent roles. Contact me here.

    More on what I have done here.

    bit.ly_gedstrategy

    The End.

    Ok this is the end of my April 2024 newsletter, I hope to see you all back here again in a month. Be excellent to each other and enjoy the bank holiday.

    Don’t forget to like, comment, share and subscribe!

    Let me know if you have any recommendations to be featured in forthcoming issues. 

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