Creative Generalist

Dear Jon

In just a few short months I’ll be 45 and you’ll be 25, which means a whole generation has passed.  I feel like now is the right time to write this - the business came to an abrupt end recently, the house is on the market and we lost Chili yesterday.  Of course, you don’t yet know about the business, the house or Chili and I don’t want to spoil the surprise, so I won’t reveal any real details.  The details aren’t really important to be honest - that’s why I wanted to write.  You’re probably thinking that this all sounds horribly sad, but it’s not, it’s wonderful actually.  Let me explain.

Read more

Disclaimer: I wrote this article in 1997, whilst studying for an A-Level in Economics.  It was printed in the would-be-prestigious 'QE Economics and Business Review, Christmas 1997' Journal, of which, according to the inside of the bright yellow photocopied cover, I was deputy editor.  It appeared alongside other prescient articles like 'The Telecommunications Revolution - It's Changing our Lives' and 'The Best Thing to Kick Start and Economic Book - A War!'.  

I'm currently going through the process of finding and digitising old writing - mainly as a some sort of personal digital housekeeping exercise.  This article, though, is interesting enough to publish - not because of its content (which is fairly banal) but because of what it might reveal about certain threads connecting a version of me that existed 30 years to the person I am now.  I'll explore that, and related ideas, in an upcoming article, but you'll need this original piece for context.

So here it is, in all its teenage glory: The Economist's Couch.

Read more

There’s a point on the AP-2 motorway in eastern Spain, somewhere between Zaragoza and Barcelona, where you cross the Greenwich meridian line.  I’ve driven over it a handful of times and it always catches me by surprise.  I guess it’s just not where you expect it to be - the curvature of the earth somehow warps your perception of space and distance in strange ways.  A sign unceremoniously announces the imaginary line 500 meters before you cross it and then you drive under a nondescript concrete arc, say “ooh, I didn’t realise that was there” and then get on with your journey and forget about it.

Read more

AI reasoning models are now so good, especially with the introduction of ‘deep research’ type models that combine advanced reasoning with thorough content search capabilities, that they are generally my first port of call when tackling a complex, technical, open-ended question like “Should we pivot from product development to consulting services?” or “What business models could be built around such and such a website?”.  This is not to say that I blindly trust the output, just that rather than making even a cursory effort to sit down and process the big questions off the bat, perhaps with a notebook and pen in hand, I’ll ask AI first.

Read more

This article is a summary of an idea/project I worked on throughout 2024.  It went through various forms - a Strava group, a website, and an unfinished eBook.  In the end I decided I didn't have time to maintain it, so here's some of the content I created boiled down to a summary, mainly so the concept doesn't just get lost to the passage of time.

You've stumbled across the strange and exciting world of Ultimate Rucking. Let's get you up to speed.

Read more