Why the Facilitator Assistant Is Key to the CEO CF Challenge
The preparation, coordination, live documentation and follow-through that help a CEO CF Challenge run well, and why typing is only one part of the FA’s job.
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Older essays on agentic systems, governance, operations, incentives, and the work of making AI useful in real organisations.
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Why Not Just Record the CEO CF Challenge?
What writing, refining, reading aloud and checking together contribute beyond an AI recording and summary.
Why Two Days Together at CEO CF Are Worth the Journey
Why time together can create room for better questions, continuing conversations and useful relationships, and what the evidence says about learning and memory.
The CEO CF Challenge: A Better Way to Think Through a Difficult Decision
Why I value the preparation, questioning, peer perspectives and follow-up in CEO CF’s Challenge format, and what research can tell us about them.
Why a CEO CF Challenge Can Stay With You Long After the Meeting
How preparing, explaining, recalling and reviewing what happened after a CEO CF Challenge may help the presenter and their peers learn beyond the meeting.
CEO CF: Bringing European Leaders Together Since 2005
More than twenty years of community, continuing peer groups and three in-person meetings a year. Why I think that combination matters for European business leaders.
Jobs For Our Next Generation, Thanks To AI
AI infrastructure will not only need models and code. It could help Britain train a new generation of electricians, engineers and technicians for the physical economy.
How Many Jobs Does A Data Centre Actually Create?
The permanent workforce is smaller than the headline, but a sustained data-centre build programme could help rebuild Britain's electrical and engineering skills base.
Not Everybody In Your Community Is Going To Be Your Cup Of Tea
A real community is not a room full of people who always agree with you. It is learning how to disagree, set boundaries, repair relationships and know when behaviour has crossed the line.
People Aren't Always Being Rude. They're Being Polite In Their Own Way.
Demanding leaders are paid to decide, challenge and move quickly. The difficult part is learning when directness is cultural, when silence means exit, and when behaviour has genuinely crossed the line.
The Coworker Is Here. The Employee Is Next.
Codex Voice already feels like a coworker. Long-running agents are beginning to feel like employees. What changes when we can brief them, leave them working and return to evidence?
What Is AGI? The Point Where AI Stops Being Just A Tool
There is no agreed AGI finish line. Here are the competing definitions, the public evidence and the five-part test that matters for organisations.
The Deployment That Didn't Happen
Preventing an unearned production release was a safety success. Failing to reach the smallest useful outcome was still a delivery failure. This is what the first Orchistra rollout taught me, and why the rebuild starts with Orchistra Zero.
Will We Be Getting Skill Patents?
The new portable skills and plugin moment makes professional know-how easier to package, share and copy. What can a licence, a hash and a common format actually protect?
What Does AI Cost This Month? August 2026
Pricing Watch 2: an August 2026 UK view of direct AI API prices, separating Anthropic Haiku's provider-price change from small GBP exchange-rate movement.
The Research Says. Which Research?
A citation is the start of a conversation, not the end of one. Here is the evidence trail that should sit behind the phrase: research says.
Give Every Codex Thread Its Own Voice
The working agent and the agent I talk to are not always the same job. Give every Codex thread its own persistent voice, project context and bounded technical lead.
Your AI Harness Should Teach While It Works
Long-running agents need supervision. The same narration that keeps them on course could turn every task into a lesson.
Your Data Will Never Be Perfect. Start AI Anyway.
Do not postpone AI until every system is clean. Use bounded, valuable data now, verify the work, and improve the wider data estate in parallel.
Stop Using Your Smartest AI For Everything
We have never had to choose an employee by intelligence setting. AI changes that. The practical rule is to use the smallest model and reasoning level that can reliably finish the work, then escalate on evidence.
OpenAI Just Made Frontier Models Easier For European Companies To Approve
Zero Data Retention removes a major practical objection to frontier AI. It does not make GDPR, permissions or company governance somebody else's problem.
The Future Is Either ERP Or AI
Companies need one coherent view of the work. They can get it by consolidating into ERP or by letting an authorised agentic layer orchestrate their existing systems.
What Does Electricity Really Cost In The UK?
Onshore wind and large solar really are cheap sources of bulk electricity. France shows existing nuclear can be competitive too. The hard part is comparing different services and whole-system costs honestly.
Why UK Energy Bills Are Still Higher Than Before The Crisis
The gas shock explains the surge in UK household energy bills. Britain now has unusually expensive household electricity but comparatively cheap gas, and the difference sits across fuel exposure, infrastructure, market design and how costs are recovered.