31/08/2025
Kicking off the week feeling energised and inspired after Something Digital 2025.
So many highlights stayed with me over the weekend. But most of all the sense of hope and possibility threaded through tough, complex conversations.
🧠 Marwa Fatafta (Access Now) opened with a powerful, confronting insight into the use of AI in modern warfare. With major tech players vying for war budgets, she warned we’re in an “AI arms race” – and called for less autonomy and more humanity in global tech development, setting the tone for the next two days.
👩🏽🚀 NASA’s Brittany Brown took us into the cosmos in Reimagining Storytelling. At one point, the whole room paused to listen to the sound of the sun, completely mesmerised. NASA’s remit to communicate with as broad an audience as possible puts relatability and accessibility at the heart of its storytelling approach. Brittany’s message? Make the human the hero – think astronauts sharing their personal photos of space and behind-the-scenes insights into the seamstresses who craft protective spacecraft garments.
🔍 SEO isn’t going anywhere. It’s more important than ever. Build brand, earn credibility, partner with authoritative sources. LLMs are blending past and present info, creating new accuracy challenges and new opportunities. But if you want to rank in ChatGPT or Perplexity, you still need to rank in Google. Thanks for a fabulous session Sally Mills, David Tait and Renee Davidson.
🛠️ Masterclass: Designing intelligence – A hands on dive into agentic AI. Our group tackled the challenge “Too many support tickets building up.” We mapped out available inputs, constraints, human knowledge and oversight, then adapted mid-way when a risk factor was thrown into the mix. A fun and thought-provoking group project.
📈 Reskilling opportunities. Genevieve Beeston-Reid from ACS encouraged businesses to upskill from within and use the SFIA tool to map skills gaps and career pathways across all levels and ages. The tech industry is shifting fast – and internal capability building will be key.
💬 Masterclasses and roundtables. These smaller, collaborative formats really worked for me. So much value in unpacking big ideas with smart, generous people.
My top takeaways 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
✔️ Keep humans at the heart of everything we do
✔️ Uplift the human heroes within your organisation – and tell their stories
✔️ Lower the barrier to entry for your content (accessibility broadens your audience and is the right thing to do)
✔️ Use Google Ads to test and refine campaign audiences before nailing down audiences for campaigns across other channels.
✔️If you’re not controlling your brand information online, someone else is
