Well worth 20 mins of your time. From Hannah Fry ... Why AI Agents are either the best or worst thing we’ve ever built. youtube.com/watch?v=WnzR5aOE… @FinanceDirCFO

It was hard enough to see the posts of folk I follow when I could chose 'recent' over 'popular'. Now that choice has been removed my use of this platform will reduce. maybe to zero. Or I will just look for posts - and reposts - of specific folk like @FinanceDirCFO @tomfgoodwin

Is Google going downhill? I've never seen a web page download on a tilt before. Can't have been deliberate ... could it?

Last quarter I rolled out Microsoft Copilot to 4,000 employees. $30 per seat per month. $1.4 million annually. I called it "digital transformation." The board loved that phrase. They approved it in eleven minutes. No one asked what it would actually do. Including me. I told everyone it would "10x productivity." That's not a real number. But it sounds like one. HR asked how we'd measure the 10x. I said we'd "leverage analytics dashboards." They stopped asking. Three months later I checked the usage reports. 47 people had opened it. 12 had used it more than once. One of them was me. I used it to summarize an email I could have read in 30 seconds. It took 45 seconds. Plus the time it took to fix the hallucinations. But I called it a "pilot success." Success means the pilot didn't visibly fail. The CFO asked about ROI. I showed him a graph. The graph went up and to the right. It measured "AI enablement." I made that metric up. He nodded approvingly. We're "AI-enabled" now. I don't know what that means. But it's in our investor deck. A senior developer asked why we didn't use Claude or ChatGPT. I said we needed "enterprise-grade security." He asked what that meant. I said "compliance." He asked which compliance. I said "all of them." He looked skeptical. I scheduled him for a "career development conversation." He stopped asking questions. Microsoft sent a case study team. They wanted to feature us as a success story. I told them we "saved 40,000 hours." I calculated that number by multiplying employees by a number I made up. They didn't verify it. They never do. Now we're on Microsoft's website. "Global enterprise achieves 40,000 hours of productivity gains with Copilot." The CEO shared it on LinkedIn. He got 3,000 likes. He's never used Copilot. None of the executives have. We have an exemption. "Strategic focus requires minimal digital distraction." I wrote that policy. The licenses renew next month. I'm requesting an expansion. 5,000 more seats. We haven't used the first 4,000. But this time we'll "drive adoption." Adoption means mandatory training. Training means a 45-minute webinar no one watches. But completion will be tracked. Completion is a metric. Metrics go in dashboards. Dashboards go in board presentations. Board presentations get me promoted. I'll be SVP by Q3. I still don't know what Copilot does. But I know what it's for. It's for showing we're "investing in AI." Investment means spending. Spending means commitment. Commitment means we're serious about the future. The future is whatever I say it is. As long as the graph goes up and to the right.

One of his best ... this is the way marketing is taught - and is presented in most marketing textbooks.

Anyone else not getting Carol Vorderman's posts in either of their feeds? @carolvorders

generally I like Jet2, but its website/app usability could be better. This example is frustrating because the message suggests that the fault is mine. The icon in the top right corner of this screenshot suggests it is not my Internet that is the problem.

I like to drag this back out every so often ... the current ad from Curry's has given me another opportunity 😀 alancharlesworth.com/Alans-m…

I just spotted an ad for a ‘fast track to digital marketing’ an ‘8-week course covers the key digital topics a marketer needs to understand.’ Why are there still marketers out there who need such training?

Hmmmmmm 🤔

I just completed a yougov survey on travel. One question was in regard of my use of online media which required me to tick each 'brand' that I used 'regularly'. I would suggest that each respondent's definition of 'regularly' renders this research so flawed as to be useless.

And another article ... where a 'direct-to-consumer' plans economies by planning 'to get closer to our new manufacturer'. Errr, that makes you an online retailer - because DtC means direct to the consumer without the involvement of a third party.

Just read an online piece on B2B exuding a research-based 2020 model revealing buying groups of ‘target’ and ‘hidden’ buyers. No mention of the decision-making unit (DMU) from Webster and Wind in 1972🙄

Just listened to a radio show on AI. It focused on output being dependent on input. One talking head was presented as Professor of AI at [UK uni]. She was further described as an 'expert in AI data input'. In her chat, she misused 'i.e.' for 'e.g.' and vice versa. Hmmm🤔

The article’s title started with “DTC Toy Company …” and the description of said company included “makes … toys and sells them on Amazon, Walmart, and other marketplaces.” Errr, DTC stands for direct to consumer, not selling via a third party.🤦‍♂️

I just read the results of a significant publication's 'marketing' awards. All categories in the various industries [with no - it seems - B2B] were 'promotional' practices. Ho Hum.