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The pen never forgets

I read books to get me to think. I often want to refer back “this book had some useful nuggets” but of course can’t locate the passage. To ensure I don’t forget I now force myself to have a pen handy. Spot a useful nugget, put a bracket around it and then also doodle a 1cm line on the outside of the page so that as I’m flicking through the line draws my attention more easily then the underlining (tends to blur into the text).

These days I sometimes even take a photo in the hope one day it will be easily searchable.

Sounds easy because it is. Yet it took me years to take up this simple habit for future me.

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Report: How Watershed supports creative research and development

https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/15798259/nurturing-creative-futures-how-watershed-supports-creative-research-and-development

Watershed, a cultural organisation in Bristol, UK, works at the interface between research, creative practice and emerging technologies, bringing a values-led approach to innovation. It does this primarily through its long term support of a community in Pervasive Media Studio.

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Same road different view

On a walk I typically like to do a loop instead of going half way and then back, thinking I’m walking the same route. Yet the walk back from the first half is a totally different view as the surroundings and objects in the distance will of course be different. This was doubly so when the kid was trying to describe somewhere on the way to me but from the perspective of walking from the other direction. I wonder how much of our communication has this biase which leads to confusion?

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What’s in your wake

When you make a decision you will have thought about who it will impact. Yet further away from those people will be those on the edge. The ripples of your choices may impact them too without you even knowing. If you could be aware of those caught up in your wake would you change your course?

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after you

Often you’ll see someone complete “their” task or job knowing that the next person will have an issue. You’ll even hear them say “i did my job” or “its not my problem”. They often don’t know what the impact is downstream because they can’t see it. As a manager or leader this is of course frustrating because you need the whole task(s) completed. What if you swapped jobs with the next person in the chain for a day. Saw how your task impacts the next person and had the opportunity to make it better for them and so on and so forth. Step by step you would make the whole task better.

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Reading list 2026

A list of the books I read in 2026. You can check out the archive starting with 2025 if you like.

  1. We the People – Consenting to a Deeper Democracy by John Buck and Sharon Villines. Paperback ISBN: 9780979282737
  2. Excellent Advice for Living by Kevin Kelly finished 30th January 2026. Hardback ISBN: 9780593654521
  3. The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri finished 9th April 2026. Paperback ISBN: 9781838770013. Rarely read fiction.
  4. The Age of Extraction by Tim Wu finished 12th April 2026. Audio book.
  5. Death and The Penguin by Andrey Kurkov finished 21st April 2026. Paperback ISBN: 9781784879075