Do things only get better?

Last week I booked a restaurant for myself and my Dad (the Potted Pig in Cardiff). I’d been wanting to try it for a while and to some extent it was a random choice.

The day before Dad had been telling me a story about my Mum (she passed in 2020) and how he’d forgotten to meet her on her last day at work when she was pregnant with me (bad Dad!).

It wasn’t until part way through the meal that he casually informed me that the restaurant we were in was actually in the basement of the very workplace that was part of that story (a former bank).

The key part of the story was that when my Mum got pregnant, pregnancy was considered a fireable offence in many companies. And whilst she wasn’t fired, it was assumed she would just leave. There was no question of working, returning to work or indeed maternity leave. Attitudes to working mums was “basic”.

In fact, compulsory maternity leave wasn’t a thing back then as it was only made law in the UK in 1975, and even then it was fairly patchily implemented.

So despite all the bad things going on in the world right now, it got me to thinking about all the positive things that have happened in my lifetime. When I was born global poverty, disease, literacy rates, gender equality and global awareness of environmental issues were a lot worse than today. But since then many things have improved:

  • Dramatic decrease in child mortality rates, increased life expectancy worldwide, and advancements in disease treatment like HIV/AIDS medications. Near elimination of diseases like polio, tetanus, measles, and diphtheria.

  • Advancements in medical science: organ transplantation, cancer treatments, and DNA testing/sequencing.

  • Increased gender equality (including compulsory maternity/paternity leave).

  • Higher global literacy rates with increased access to education, particularly for girls in many regions. 

  • The fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Cold War.

  • The Montreal Protocol successfully reducing ozone depletion, increased focus on renewable energy sources, and greater global environmental awareness. 

  • Development of the internet, widespread access to information, and innovations in communication technology.

We have to believe things can only get better.

Back to School. CRO School!

I’m happy to share that I’ve obtained a new certification: CRO School from Pavilion!

Always good to stay curious, and great to learn from a cohort mostly made up of Sales leaders and CROs. Enjoyed the comprehensive overview of all the GTM functions now coalescing under a single CRO (not Head of Sales!) role.

A lot of marketers are rallying against this development, but I'm a big fan of an integrated GTM team working together under a single leader. If done right you can unlock the connectedness of sales, marketing, customer success and rev ops.

It was also a reminder that the "them and us" of marketing vs. sales is quite frankly ridiculous - we have more in common than differences.

Thanks to all the tutors - Sam Jacobs, Russell Mikowski, Stephanie Valenti, Kiva Kolstein, Sam Slevin, Cassie Young, Rick Smolen.

hashtag#backtoschool hashtag#learnitall hashtag#staycurious

On AI and dotcom bubbles

I know what you're thinking. Aren't those the youthful faces of the dotcom boom? 👶 👶

And yes, you're right! Ferdi and I were both at Ariba during one of the biggest booms (and busts) in tech history.

My time at Ariba was like an MBA in a box. I got to see every facet of business from hyper-growth to rapid crash to recovery. We were valued at $40bn (on revenues of $100m and quarterly losses of $2bn 😱 ), grew our teams by 3x then had to let everyone go. I came out more resilient & tougher, taking the European business from almost zero to $100m in 3 years. What a roller coaster 😅

Every boom booms, the bubble bursts, but ultimately recovers:

✅ The internet has radically transformed our world
✅ Ariba went on to define a new SaaS category still used today (Spend Management), was acquired by SAP and is now SAP Ariba
✅ Ferdi has become a serial entrepreneur (kudos 🙌 ) and
✅ I've gone on to enjoy leadership roles at Microsoft, Adobe, VMware, LettsGroup and others.

Have I seen it all before? Maybe, maybe not. AI is disrupting our industries and our jobs, but the bubble will burst, new opportunities will be created and we'll rise like a phoenix, just as Ariba did. 🐦‍🔥

The Environmental Impact of Sending Email 🤯

My mind was blown this week on the unintended environmental impact of one of the most innocuous activities - sending email (I know!).


📨 It’s estimated 4 million emails are sent every second (thats 347 billion a day). And each one of these not only needs processing power and storage to send, but also to retain. Remember the Cloud is someone else’s computer!

According to Mailjet a spam email generates approximately 0.3g of CO2, while a typical personal email produces 4g of CO2 - more than ten times the impact. Even more striking is the carbon footprint of emails with photo attachments, which can generate up to 50g of CO2 per message.

Obviously, these numbers fall short of power-hungry AI queries* (up to 150-200g of CO2) but highlight how both traditional and emerging digital technologies contribute to our carbon footprint in ways that might not be immediately obvious. 🤯

What can we do about it?

🌳 As an industry: Support initiatives such as "smart expiration" protocols. Under this system, emails would be automatically categorised based on their content and assigned appropriate retention periods. For instance, meeting invitations could expire shortly after the event date, promotional emails could be automatically deleted after 30 days, and important documents could be flagged for longer retention.

🌳🌳 As marketers: Do a better job of thinking hard about sending that next “mass” email, not only from good marketing practice but also from a sustainability perspective. Good targeting and consideration of the ICP will reduce the volume. Don’t spam the base!

🌳🌳🌳 As individuals: Take practical steps to reduce our email-related carbon emissions: limiting unnecessary emails, being mindful of large attachments, regularly clearing out old messages, and unsubscribing from unwanted mailing lists.

*🌳🌳🌳🌳 Bonus Tip! Stop using GenAI to ask what time is it, the capital of France or what's 37*5. It's all relative I know, but using good old Google is much better for the planet!

While each email's impact may seem small, the cumulative effect of billions of emails sent daily makes this something at least thinking about. And how small, collective changes can make big impacts.
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LettsSafari is another way to take small steps to address climate change. For the price of a monthly cup of coffee, subscribe to LettsSafari and help restore nature's biodiversity, support endangered species and sequester more carbon.

🌱 For every 10 new subscribers we plant a tree a year.
🦔 For every 100, we release an endangered animal.
🌳 And for every 10,000 we create a new rewilding safari park a year!

Make A Difference: Together We Can Rewild To Tackle Climate Change.

👉 Subscribe today

AI and Art: Like Oil & Water❓

It’s tough being an artist. A world notoriously difficult to get into and now being disrupted by AI bypassing human creativity. 😠

While DALL-E and Midjourney may grab the headlines, they're just one small part of how AI is transforming the art world. AI can also handle the business side of art, letting creators focus on what they do best – creating. And empowering artists to build a sustainable career. 💪

That's why I’m proud to work with the team at LettsArt to disrupt the business of art - providing FREE no-code Art Intelligence software for artists to have a better way to manage, share and sell their art. These tools aren't replacing artistic creativity – they're amplifying it by handling the admin and business tasks that many artists find challenging or time-consuming. 🙌

✅ Make More Money. Traditional galleries often take a significant cut from art sales, and don’t offer royalties on future resales. With LettsArt artists cut out the middleman (it’s DTC but Direct To Collector), take a bigger cut of every new sale and even receive royalties from resales of NFT artworks, maximising their potential earnings.

✅ Maintain Control. LettsArt uses AI and Blockchain to make it easy for artists to control the distribution and authenticity of their works.

✅ Spend More Time Creating. From sales and marketing to IT and finance, LettsArt uses AI to provide a whole range of assistants, leaving artists to focus on creating.

✨ Over 800 artists are now running their own gallery using LettsArt (some shared here). Their range of creativity and entrepreneurship is incredible - all using AI to boost their careers.

The reality is that AI and art aren't oil and water at all. They're more like paint and canvas. And the future of art isn't about AI versus human creativity – it's about how they can complement each other.

So, if you know any artists needing a leg up on their journey, have them check out LettsArt. It's completely 🆓. Share this link to sign up: https://www.lettsart.com/start/

🖼️ 🖼️ 🖼️ : Just some of the art from a selection of artists using LettsArt.

2024 : The Year the Future Arrived? 🛸

Back in the depths of time, OK in 2014, B2B Marketing celebrated its 10 year anniversary. As part of the birthday celebrations, I was asked to provide my thoughts on what B2B marketing would look like in 10 years. A bit of fun, but always dangerous to do predictions easily within one’s own lifetime, let alone career. Reminds me of Gerry Andersen’s 70s TV series Space 1999 forecasting a future just 20 years away. Bold!

Well, as we've just exited 2024 I can now do a quick hope vs reality check. And looking at my contribution I’d put my predictions down as a solid “B” grade. Firstly, here's what I said

"My dream is that B2B marketing will be a discipline people aspire to build a career in, rather than fall into. And that Cannes Lions will recognize B2B marketing excellence more than B2C.

My hope is that B2B marketers will base more and more decisions on fact not gut-feel, fuelled by greater insights and automation tools to scale out their marketing efforts. We’ll be fully in the land of real time, hyper-personalized marketing based on individual customer behavior. Campaigns and content will be tested on the fly to drive dynamic content at the point of interaction. 80% of marketing budgets will be spent on digital, not events. And marketing will be seen as driving the business not supporting it."

So how did I do?

➖ Aspirational career? Not so sure, but definitely less stigma in 2024 vs 2014.

✅ Cannes Lions Champions? Not much has changed, but Marketing Week not only nominated their Marketer of The Year to a B2B marketer, but also their Campaign of the Year was B2B. I’ll take the win!

✅ Fact, not gut-based decisions? Yes! Some may say we’ve now gone too far 🙄

❌ Hyper-personalised marketing? I think not. Privacy concerns knocked the wind out of knowing everyone’s inside leg measurements and our track record in martech implementation hasn’t exactly been commendable (just wait until we have a crack at AI).

❌ 80% of spend on digital? Well maybe during the pandemic, but my view is we’ve snapped back to the comfort zone of events-is-the-answer, now what’s the question?

➖ Marketing as driver not passenger? Jury’s out. We’re certainly attuned to the conversation of being “commercial" marketers but as an industry progress has been mixed.

So on balance, we’ve made some progress in 10 years but still a lot to do. Its definitely better to be a B2B marketer in 2024 than 2014, and the industry continues to innovate. So I’m going with that solid “B” grade. What do you think?


🌱 Building a silent rewilding revolution with LettsSafari 🌍

It’s been great being Co-Chair for LettsSafari and spreading the word about rewilding. We’ve been working hard in restoring biodiversity, tackling climate change and inspiring communities globally.

We’re just getting started, but here are four personal highlights from an impactful year:

1️⃣ Rewilding Expansion: We’ve now planted 2,000+ trees and support 150+ endangered animal species. We’ve seen our first Nightingale and, at the same time, healthy increases in our birds of prey. Plus we’ve successful protected black fallow deer across our parks. 🌳🦌

2️⃣ Community Education: Our “Create Your Very Own Safari Garden” series empowered individuals to transform gardens into urban wildlife havens, promoting biodiversity from backyards to city streets. 🐝🌸

3️⃣ Global Advocacy: Celebrating World Rewilding Day, we spotlighted projects like Derby’s Allestree Park and the Tower of London moat transformation, inspiring wider urban rewilding. 🏞️🏰

4️⃣ Art Meets Sustainability: In celebration of Earth Day 2024, we emphasised the significance of combating plastic pollution and embracing nature restoration by creatively showcasing sculptures made from recycled plastic bottles in our Capability Brown gardens 🎨♻️

Looking ahead to 2025, we aim to expand our reach - spreading the LettsSafari approach to more communities, gardens, and even countries! 🌍✨

👉 Join the revolution! We need your support to help in our expansion (it’s just £4.50 a month!): Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/eda6y7gz

#Rewilding #Biodiversity #NatureRestoration #LettsSafari #Sustainability
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LettsSafari is all about collective impact through low-cost subscriptions. For every 10 subscribers we plant a 5 year old, naturally grown tree annually, every hundred subscribers support the introduction of new wild animals each year and every 10,000 subscribers we add a whole new safari park a year.

Let’s continue rewilding together—one garden, one park, one animal at a time. Join us in creating a more biodiverse and sustainable future! 💪🌿

✨ Reflecting on 2024... my 20th 🤯 year on LinkedIn! 🎉

The year didn’t start easy— being part of an industry-busting acquisition, reduction in force and a broken ankle were certainly challenging! But 2024 also brought incredible moments: celebrating an 18th, a 21st, and an 80th birthday, successful A-Levels and sending Son 2 off to University 👨‍🎓. Plus completing Phase 1 of our Puglia renovation 🏗️ .

On balance, it’s been a year of celebration 🥂 Thanks to all the smart, interesting folk I’ve had the privilege to meet, work with, and learn from this year—both old and new connections. You’ve inspired me, challenged me, and helped make 2024 one to remember. Special thanks to:

💡 Alexa Schirtzinger, Alison Masters, Andrey Khusid, Carol Carpenter, Doug Kessler, Ed Hoppitt, Gavin Bradbury, Giles Fraser, John Horsley, Jon Buss, Joshua Leatherman, Justin Cooke, Laura Heisman, Lucy Timms, Martin Loat OBE, Philip Letts, Paul Mackender, Richard Peers, Richard Perry, Roger Warner, Sandy Purewal, Scott Harris, Scott Stockwell, and Tricia Miller.

💼 And of course, my former VMware teammates: Anna Lawler, Barry Cowan, Caroline Clifton, Danilo Lissoni, Isabelle Mehdi Bouriaud, Katie Dobiecki, Kerry Graham, Lothar Haenle, Martin Schuhte, Maud Allioux, Michelle Vaughan and Sarah Semple. You're all rockstars 🌟

Lastly, a big shoutout to the AI assistants who’ve supported me - all talented, promising individuals 😉.

As I look ahead to 2025, I’m focused on:

1️⃣ Continuing my weight loss journey. 29 lbs / 13 kgs down in 2H 2024 🏋️‍♀️)
2️⃣ Learning Ableton for music production 🎶
3️⃣ Doing more of what I enjoy ❤️
4️⃣ Making a difference 🌍

So here’s to 2025 and all the (AI-powered) opportunities ahead! 🚀

#2024Reflection #GoalsFor2025 #AI #B2Bmarketing