Jun 7Curiosity is an Existential Issue But to Make the World More Curious You Need To Change Many SystemsMost people would agree that the world needs to be more curious. We face more and more wicked existential threats than ever before. And we don’t know where to start solving many of them. If we aren’t more curious, we will continue in our cluelessness. …Systems Thinking3 min read
May 11Alone In a Crowded Room: Mental Illness and Loneliness in the WorkplaceText of a talk for Experian UK’s “every Mind” Network for Mental Health Awareness Week. You can download slides here. You can find my book Our Dreams Make Different Shapes here. Key points Living with mental illness can leave us least lonely when we are most alone, and most lonely…Mental Health Awareness18 min read
Apr 30The Wheelchair and the Whale: final eschatology and the absence-yet-presence of disabled people from the ideal societyThis is the full text of a paper for the Conference “Worlds Ending — Ending Worlds” at the University of Heidelberg’s Centre for Apocalypse and Post Apocalypse Studies. I’m based in the Humanities Division at Oxford University. This means that in 2025 I, like thousands of my colleagues, will move…Disability12 min read
Apr 14The Horizon of Care: how to maximize people’s engagement with the issues you care aboutHow do we enable, encourage, and empower people to engage with a cause? That for me is the fundamental wicked problem we face as a world. I say that because unless we can crack it, there is no point in even attempting to solve any other problem. …Activism3 min read
Apr 12Decentring as Innovative PracticeThis is World Creativity and Innovation Week. To mark that, I wanted to write something short and practical about my approach to creativity and how to embed it in an organization to fuel innovation. For me creativity is, very simply, doing new things. And it is the most important practice…Creativity5 min read
Mar 22What Do We Do With Frictions to make the World Better?I’ve spent a lot of time arguing that micro frictions should be one of the top priorities for society to tackle — a wicked problem whose time has come. But what does that mean? What would a solution to the problem of micro frictions look like? I want to talk…Systems Thinking5 min read
Mar 17First Impressions: Reframing Vulnerability to Acknowledge Assumptions and Inferences(text of a talk given at Personal Investment Management and Financial Advice Association’s 2022 Virtual Fest) Let me ask you something. Why do you think so many talks start with a question that seems incredibly simple? …Accessibility8 min read
Mar 13Strong Customer Authentication: The Security vs Accessibility debate highlights the need for deep solutionsThis Monday sees the introduction of the requirement for online merchants in the UK to operate a form of“strong customer authentication” (SCA). Originally planned for before the pandemic, the implementation has been delayed by years to allow merchants the chance to get ready. …Fintech5 min read
Published in Bootcamp·Mar 9What are Micro Frictions and Why do they have such a disastrous Impact on Disabled People’s Lives?I wrote a little while back about the massive impact we could make on many people’s lives by focusing our attention on tackling micro frictions. What I didn’t talk about so much is exactly what kind of things I mean. So that’s what I want to look at now. What…Inclusion6 min read
Feb 4Friction and the Social Model of Disability: From the Aggregation of Marginal Gains to Compounding OpportunityDisabled people experience more low level frictions in life than others. …Disability3 min read