Proof of the pudding?

 

On the right side of my blog, you’ll see a couple of badges. Not unusual, as there are badges and certificates on everything these days - so many, that I expect people don’t notice them any more. 

If you press on the first of my badges, the “Contributing Thought Leader for BlogNotions” one, you’ll soon discover it’s a dead link that goes precisely nowhere. I’ve left it there as a bit of a joke. I was an official “Thought Leader” once, which I find quite preposterous. It’s kept on in the same vein as I might keep my battered British Airways gold member luggage tag on a tatty rucksack.

The second one is a bit more serious - and genuine. No “thought-leader-washing” going on here. It’s my Society of Authors members’ badge. 

And the Society of Authors have recently introduced a new scheme - and a logo/badge - to give authors support in the rising tide of AI slop.

The “Human Authored” scheme was launched in the UK this week, following the example of the US Authors Guild. Authors can register their works, and use the logo on the book itself or in publicity material. The aim is to promote all those human-author qualities - empathy, imagination, craft, care, experience and so on, giving potential readers a quality reassurance that they’re not buying AI slop.

The authors may have used AI tools to assist with writing - from spellchecks to researching and brainstorming - but not to write the book via prompts.

I’ve signed up for it, although I feel a little sad that it’s come to this. 

And, I’m not 100% convinced by the name “Human Authored”. An author is an originator and “to author” is to originate a book, poem, play, whatever it is. Can non-humans “author”? As opposed to write, or generate?

Do we need an accreditation for our humanity? Surely, to mix metaphors in an unauthorly manner, the proof of the pudding is in the reading?

How long before we hear the slightly grotesque term “human-washing”?

RETROWURST: Quaint, curious and quirky - The 101 most useful websites (from 2008)

 

Now that I’ve run out of Retrowurst articles, I’m giving a few saved pieces a last airing  before they head for their new life in the paper recycling.

Today’s gem is The 101 most useful websites from The Telegraph, compiled by David Baker in March 2008. It’s a fascinating surf (remember that?) through today’s giants in embryonic form, valiant niche oddities still battling it out and those that sank without a trace in the (ugh) “sea of sameness.”

The article is divided into sections, and here are the first three mentioned in each section.

TECHNOLOGY

Google - well, I never!

Anonymouse - here’s a distinctly retro look. Not convinced I’d try or trust it ... 

iLounge - still around but if I haven’t used it in the last 18 years, I’m not going to start now

ENTERTAINMENT

Digital Spy - keeping up with the Kardashians, I guess

BBC iPlayer - yawn

Whatsonwhen - Not On Now

ADVICE & INFO

Newsmap - shame I misssed this, but it seems to have died a death. Apparently it was some new-fangled thing called an app

The Eggcorn Database - manglings of language, and jolly fascinating, too

Arts and Letters Daily - Est. 1998 - beautifully quaint

This section has the most weird stuff - for more, see picture above.

HOUSE & HOME

Noise Mapping England - killed off by a sonic boom

Prime Location - still in its prime

Rated People - as highly rated as CheckATrade? Not sure

SOCIAL

Facebook - “The most grown-up (just) of the social-networking sites that are fast taking over the world. Excellent for staying in touch with far-flung friends, though pretty good for re-establishing contact with those you hoped you had lost.” But what about all those lovely ads? 

Wordpress - Fair enough ...

Ringsurf - Doesn’t seem to be ringing anyone’s bell today

For the rest, see the picture above. The ususal suspects conspicuous by their absence.

SHOPPING

GiftGen - can you feel sorry for a website? Gifts suggested for me were: a flower arranging experience, a Lord/Lady title, and a Goat (for 3rd world). On the other hand, it’s rather refreshing to go back to the days when cookies weren’t so smart and Gemini was just a starsign.

eBay - no surprises there

Who What Wear Daily - terminally unfashionable

TRAVEL

Sky Scanner - how long before the AI agents come calling?

The man in seat 61 - going from Station to Station, and good on him!

Walk It - limping along

In all of this, I get a wistful nostalgia for the internet of those days, before we were stalked and fed, at the mercy of algorithms. Amazon and YouTube are mentioned in the article, but only in passing, not in the hit parade.

It’s been a pleasant ramble around. A bit like finding an old high street of individual, independent shops, each with their own speciality and character.

Will I find Claude and ChatGPT quaint in ten or even five years’ time?

Play up! play up! and play the game!

 

Although no-one much reads my blog apart from a few bots, I’m eternally grateful to my younger self (OK, middle-aged, let’s face facts) for starting it up. I’ve just finished reading C. Thi Nguyen’s The Score - review further down - and can see that I’ve been Ranting about Ratings since December 2013. 

Measurement has been a frequent theme in this blog since then - here and here for example. 

And so, to The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else’s Game. Here’s what I thought:

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I first came across C. Thi Nguyen’s work a couple of years back when I read his paper on “Value Capture”. This was about the tendency in today’s world to obsess about rankings and ratings, about performance and optimisation, better and best in all areas of life. This resonated with me - the idea and danger of metrics (“indicators” from an external source) becoming goals becoming personal internal values to live by.

This book expands this line of thought - and a very good one it is, too. There is so much evidence today of people losing sight of what really matters and spending energy instead on chasing easily-measured vampiric metrics. The book is full of insight - on the distinction between goal and purpose, the psychology of games in the broadest sense, the idea of outsourcing values to an istitutional metric. And the distinction between what’s easy to measure and what really matters. 

In describing metrics, Nguyen introduces “The Four Horsemen of Bureaucracy: Rules, Scale, Parts and Control.” In work situations, we’re constantly under pressure from these four to be transparent, to be clear, to KISS. But are transparency and clarity always a good thing? Nguyen shows how transparency can undermine expertise when experts feel demand to explain and justify themselves to non-experts. We cannot understand everything, so sometimes we need to put trust in the specialists. 

“Sometimes vague language is better because it expresses the truth that things are unclear or unsettled.” 

However, although there’s so much good stuff in this book, the author is an unapologetic games enthusiast. His boisterous ebullience starts charmingly enough with anecdotes about fly-fishing, yo-yos, rock-climbing and all manner of “weird sh*t” in the way of board and online games. But after a while this started to grate and even alienate me. Everything is “glorious” or “delicious."

I have never played D&D. At university there was a group who were into that but I wanted nothing to do with it - I was too busy living my life. I do have games I enjoy, and hobbies and pastimes that I’m quite wrapped in. But I know that others aren’t fascinated by my trumpet-playing or writing children’s adventures. I’ve never understood the “thrill" of watching others playing video games, or got into esports - and I loathe being bullied by family and friends into playing games that I really don’t fancy. 

Overall, there are some brilliant ideas here, but the book is repetitive and needs editing. I found it too black and white regarding the grey, life-sucking institutionalised metrics vs. the delightful, playful, individual world of games.

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I gave the book 4 stars on amazon and 3 on GoodReads (just to be perverse). As I said back then, in 2013, in remarkably few words:

I have written reviews on amazon for years, for books mostly, and I still feel uneasy about giving out stars. Quite frankly, I'd much rather just write a review of the book. But the trend is going such that the stars and ratings and averages are becoming far more important than what people actually think or feel.

It's the same in marketing. There is a growing tendency for KPIs to become goals or objectives in themselves. It becomes more important to achieve a certain score on some numerical indicator than to work out what we want to do with our brand. 

Infected by the machine

 

Nearly eleven years ago, I wrote of nostalgia for my "pre-internet brain". I was already yearning for a mercurial mystery, an opaque numinosity, a unique contrariness that I feared was slipping away from me.

Today, I had a nagging feeling that, while my pre-internet brain is alive and well, it's gone into hiding. Especially when it comes to its output in the form of work-related writing.

I feel as if my writing is becoming blander round the edges. As if there's a part of my brain that really is infected by AI. I'm not over-keen on putting everything through an AI detector, but gave it a go, nevertheless.   

Client 1

I write articles for their brand communications and media newsletter. As usual, at the beginning of the year, one article is about trends. My first draft was "64% likely human", but by the time I'd incorporated the client comments, it had crossed a line. Into "69% AI probability."

Uh-oh.

I dug out my article on trends from 4 years ago. "98% likely human."

Definitely infected.

Client 2

In this case, I write keynote-type speeches for marketing events. For the 2025 event, the line had been crossed, too: "68% AI probability." For the 2021 speech I was still operating on pre-AI brain: "97% likely human."

There are push and pull factors going on here. From the client side, the feedback is often of the "crisper, clearer, simpler" sort, and I have sometimes been given an AI first draft as a brief, rather than a few bullet points.

It's much harder to extricate yourself from an AI-style as first draft than polish up your first draft with AI.

Then there were the pull factors from my side. As the audience for the articles and speeches is international, I use Hemingway  to keep the language and structure relatively simple. And I probably cut out more colloquialisms than I used to. Killing my darlings for better comprehension.

This is all conscious stuff. But I sense that the infection has worked its way in unconsciously. I am spending far too much time reading stuff online, too much of which is AI-generated. And I suspect my clients are, too. We are all becoming infected. And the expectations of what's a well-written article has changed.

I know that I must push back now. Because I'm not writing for AI and GEO. My audience is 100% human. I'm spending more time on real, paper books. Avoiding AI summaries, going to original sources. 

It's time to wake the non-infected, pre-AI part of my brain up. 

RETROWURST: Switzerland February 2008

 

Hot on the hiking boot heels of Austria last month, it’s Switzerland’s turn in Retrowurst. Eighteen years ago, I took a William Tell-style pot shot at Switzerland in all its cohesiveness and diversity. Alphorns, flag-throwing, Swiss Army knives and all. 

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Having had a go, as it were, at Austria in my last Extrawurst, I thought I would take a shot at Switzerland, in a William Tell sort of way, this time and see if I can hit the centre of the apple! If we were to play that “countries as brands” game, one thing that strikes me about Switzerland is that the country presents perhaps one of the most intriguing combinations of cohesiveness on the one hand and diversity on the other of all European countries, at least.

 

I have a special affection for Switzerland while thinking about brands and marketing as Switzerland was the destination of my first ever trip “abroad” on business. I was involved in a fairly mundane market research project involving the development of an Own Label dog food for Migros but I remember the amazement I felt at sitting around a table at lunchtime where eight people were speaking no fewer than four languages between them! A few years later, on a holiday in Lucerne, we ascended Mount Pilatus via the funicular railway to find two highly contrasting but equally fascinating events vying for attention at the top of the mountain. These were something called “Les Chefs des Chefs” – or similar – a gathering of the head Chefs of the World’s political leaders and an Alphornfest along with a bit of flag-throwing. Here was the paradox of Switzerland, if not in a microcosm, at least on a mountain peak: simultaneously sweepingly International and passionately local. This sums up the country that is the host of International organizations such as the Red Cross or the United Nations Human Rights Council but hangs stubbornly onto their Francs, not wanting to get too submerged into the E.U.

 

To go back to that flag-throwing, I would hazard a guess that the Swiss flag, along with the Stars and Stripes, the Union Jack and that flag the Germans had from 1933 - 1945, is one of the most recognised in the world. The flag has a certain iconic quality that isn’t really present in all those stripy flags: having lived in Germany for twelve years now, I still get Germany and Belgium confused! And the Swiss are pretty good at marketing themselves via the flag, too. It is very easy to spend rather more francs than you want to at one of those amazing “Swiss Shops” at Zurich airport, or wherever, that tempt you with all manner of merchandise with that very pleasing-to-the-eye red and white flag.

 

Of course, numerous internet sites have sprung up peddling Swiss-flag-merchandise from T-shirts in all shapes and sizes, sunglasses, baby bibs, umbrellas and some rather dodgy underwear. (I must admit to being a little bemused by this – I am not sure of the potential effect of Swiss flag boxers or G-strings given that the Swiss always seem to get the role of the lovers in those European-version-of-Hell jokes!) In addition, you can order your favourite Swiss Army products such as knives and blankets as well as everything from watches to cowbells, cheese to chocolate (one thing is certain, Switzerland must be Hell for migraine sufferers!) Some of the sites I’ve found include www.myswitzerland.com , www.swiss.shop.missbach.com , www.swissmade.com and www.atoswiss.co.uk .

 

But so much for the coherence and consistency of Switzerland, as symbolised by the Swiss flag. The diversity of such a small country is the other side of the Swiss Franc. There are no less than four official languages (65% German, 18% French, 10% Italian and 1% Romansh), 26 cantons and over 20% of the population is made up of foreigners. In fact, of European countries, only Liechtenstein and Luxembourg have a greater % of foreigners in the population. These are mainly from the former Yugoslavia, but Germans, Italians and Portuguese also figure highly.

 

The Swiss-German language is almost incomprehensible to many High German speakers and really is a language in its own right – not simply a dialect with a few different words, as Austrian-German is. Because of this, perhaps, Swiss-German is a constant source of amusement to Germans. The Swiss are proud of their language so this amusement can be deemed as insulting but, to be very honest, they don’t exactly help themselves. I saw something in a bar called Kafi Schümlipflümli which I don’t think you’d want to ask for twice, presuming you weren’t rendered totally incapable by the first one (I got as far as working out that this involved alcohol).

 

But although they laugh at the language, Switzerland represents a sort of “idealised Germany” for many Germans. The people are richer, there is less unemployment, the mountains are higher and there is no or hardly any past that one would rather draw a veil over. This is perhaps symbolised very neatly in the story of Heidi. When Heidi is dragged away from her beloved mountains and Grandfather to live in Frankfurt with the sickly Clara, she soon becomes as ill, mentally and physically, as Clara herself. And of course, conversely, the Swiss mountains work wonders for Clara’s health. Heidi is still one of the most popular TV programs amongst primary school children here in Germany and is broadcast at the prime early-evening slot. The cartoon series was originally made in 1974 and has hardly been off air since. Maybe this is not surprising. But what is – and this is typical of the paradox of Switzerland – is that this immensely popular Swiss story’s most successful film version is a Japanese anime.

 

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It wasn’t a bad shot - think I got the apple that time. 

I’d like to mention a couple of Swiss brands while I’m here - first, those wonderful boots are from Ammann . And then, watches, chocolate, banking and insurance aside, I’ve noticed that Switzerland has been quite active in the development of non-alcoholic drinks recently - such as Nino and Bel Nada. 

This’ll be the last regular Retrowurst in this format. I have exhausted my ready-made supply of article from the past.

But today is tomorrow’s retro, so watch this space.

Extrawurst: The Film

Well, there's a thing! Extrawurst goes Hollywood. Or Babelsberg.

Nothing to do with this rather ageing and dilapidated blog, of course. But I did have to go and see it.

Extrawurst, the film, is about what can happen when we shove people into "identity boxes". The scene is a tennis club AGM, and what starts as a well-meaning suggestion (maybe) soon gets out of hand. The tennis club members are literally at each other's throats.

The film is a non-stop volley of insults based on what "women", "old white men" or "Turks" are "meant" to think or do. Rather than relating as the club members with a shared interest in tennis -  Melanie, Heribert and Erol.

Extrawurst is pretty damned funny, and a good reminder to look for universal truths when developing advertising. Putting people in target audience boxes, from "LGBTQetc." to "GenZ" is lazy and superficial. 

And it's just not tennis.   

Driving me round the trend ...

 

My trend-weariness was setting in already over three years ago, I see. This year, I’ve even looked at some of the AI summaries of trend reports and, maybe predictably, haven’t seen much to inspire me. It really does seem to be a load of (crystal) balls.

A new-ish genre in the trend oeuvre - in addition to category trends, consumer trends, media trends, tech trends et al - is marketing trends aka The Future of Marketing. One such is the Cap Gemini report I commented on a few weeks back.

Another is McKinsey’s State of Marketing Europe 2026.  In case you’re wondering how McKinsey work out the future of marketing in Europe, they do it by looking in the rearview mirror. Via a survey of 500 senior marketing decision-makers across 5 countries, backed up with a few depth interveiws with CMOs and academics. 

The stunning conclusion is that “marketing leaders are returning to mastering the basics but simultaneously advancing with utilizing modern tools.” Gosh. 

To get on in 2026, marketers must: Be Trusted, Be Effective, Be Bold. As opposed to ...

Golly gosh indeed. Who’d have thought it? 

There’s a rather hectoring tone about the report - in reference to AI: “Unless European marketing leaders rapidly change their attitudes ...”

Yes, tut, tut. Watch out before the cruel VUCA world gobbles you up, or the Burning Platform turns into an inferno.

The 50-page report has no less than 10 named authors (which doesn’t include Claude or ChatGPT), plus a list of industry experts as long as your arm, plus numerous McKinsey experts and colleagues. Not to mention all the others named who offered “editorial support."

There’s something “too many cooks” about this. It’s a report on an opinion poll, where the questionnaire has been designed by McKinsey. The 500 senior marketing decision-makers, I’m sure, work on a fascinating and diverse range of brands. And are, most likely, a varied bunch with some marked differences in character, in experience - and I’m sure in the way they approach marketing. 

Yet they’ve all been reduced to data points to make generalisations of the LCD sort, rather than HCF. Standardised to fit McKinsey’s frameworks, questions, flywheels, playbooks, agenda and whatever else.

The result is a rather bland, self-fulfilling prophecy. Seek and ye will find.

This stuff is all bad enough, as far as I'm concerned, when McKinsey does it.

But where McKinsey sucks, so do many lesser mortals, out to make a quick buck.

The author/s of this “Industry Pulse Report" report will remain nameless. The industry in question is digital media and advertising. 220 UK digital media experts were questioned in the survey that forms the basis of this - ahem - sales pitch.

But just look at this one chart:

The “experts” were asked what was suitable content to be adjacent to their brand. 

Around a quarter of these experts think it’s not just OK but positively “suitable” for your brand to be next to content that contains inaccurate information, mis/disinformation, or hallucinations. Or content that provides an ad-spammy or cluttered user experience. 

With the rise of synthetic respondents, I am beginning to wonder about the “experts” who find time to take part in these surveys.