Groove Theory
Groove Theory #36 - Half-Time in Genoa
Channel 4 needed someone who spoke Italian. They got a man who could fit eight Elvis Costello songs into the half-time football scores.
📝 Writing
This is where most of the writing lives. 650+ posts since 2016 - some about learning and creative work, some about whatever I couldn't let go of that week. A restaurant that changed fine dining, a Nintendo executive who saved the company, a Gmail interface for leaked documents...
London
Five quid at the Old Spotted Dog
Clapton CFC is owned by its fans, plays at London's oldest senior ground, and gets more people through the gate than clubs two divisions up. I went to see why.
Learning Innovation
a16z, Scott Galloway and Paths to Power
A venture capital firm opens a school for fifty. A professor defends college for millions. Two American answers to what school is for, and they're closer than they look.
A.I
The chicken sandwich that AI wouldn't order
Learnings from a day with the team at Mastercard in NYC
Groove Theory
Groove Theory #35 - The Clear Cups
Penn & Teller do the oldest trick in magic in see-through cups, narrating the method as they go. You still can't see it.
Howard's Riffs
Founder's log: hiring, new biz, darlings, and coffee wandering
Four observations from running a small indie studio
Howard's Riffs
Most writing is editing
On what an AI editor taught me about my own tics - and why I've ended up using it less, not more.
Groove Theory
Groove Theory #34 - The Guava Roll That Worked
A Michelin-starred chef opened a bakery because the neighbours kept asking to buy bread. It worked so well they stopped being able to pop in.
A.I
515 startups and the case for case studies
Training gives you capability. A case changes what you think you are allowed to ask for.
Howard's Riffs
Sounds of the Sports Hall
Back to basketball, after two decades away
Howard's Riffs
Putting your name on it
A small habit that twice came close to killing my company.
Howard's Riffs
It nearly got through mine
I didn't love it. Couldn't have told you why, though. Not enough to stop.
A.I
I built a video game about surviving my own workshop
The enemies are the room: the Skeptic, the Expert, the one on their phone. I built it to demo an AI tool, then everyone wanted to play it instead.
Creative Business
Home Games
A touring DJ plays almost every night away from home. Andy C says the hardest gigs of his career were at his own club.
Groove Theory
Groove Theory #33 - The Tour He Stopped Giving
A man bought a wreck in Spitalfields and spent twenty years taking it backwards - no electricity, no plumbing, no twentieth century. Why?
Culture & Insights
Avon & Stringer - hard enough, smart enough?
Too commercial for the artists, too weird for the suits
Learning Innovation
Teaching to Learn
The delivery is ten hours. The design took four people six months. Guess where the learning was.
Learning Innovation
Question Design
One subject added to every curriculum, from five-year-olds to chief executives. Mine would be questions.