Majority of CEOs report zero payoff from AI splurge : PwC survey finds more than half of 4,500+ biz leaders see no revenue growth nor cost savings

"So if your AI projects fail, you clearly just don't believe" 🤣

www.theregister.com/2026/01/20/p...

Astronaut looking at the earth being held up by excel logos, asks 'wait, it's spreadsheets all the way down?'. Astronaut behind them pointing a pistol says 'Always has been'

The classic story

Stop Building AI Tools Backwards | Hazel Weakly I’ve been reading this week about how humans learn, and effective ways of transferring knowledge. In addition, I’ve also had AI in the back of my mind, and...

"Remember: AI should be an amplifier, not an obfuscater"

hazelweakly.me/blog/stop-bu...

What a joy it is using the web...

The policy that changed childhood in the UK | Institute for Fiscal Studies What was Sure Start, what impact did it have, and why does it still matter? We speak to Christine Farquharson and Ed Balls to find out.

Fascinating insights into #surestart from @theifs.bsky.social. Great at showing how hard it is to square different depts goals and to make things a consensus so they stick
ifs.org.uk/articles/pol...

Text reads: Which dictionary uses MS Teams? Apparently, MS Teams uses a separate dictionary than other Office 365 applications which unfortunately can not be edited or added to with the Teams UI.

I hope I haven't made any spelling mistakes so far, but even if I had...

screenshot showing two emails in an inbox. One has a very subtle blue hue to it

Now what about emails... - How can you tell which email you’re about to delete? When there’s color coding applied to both of these emails. Not quickly obvious – it’s the very pale blue one which isn’t that distinct from any other email

And let's not worry about how naff Streams is. Nice that there's a transcription feature. It usually works well. But then make it really hard to actually look through that and make the panel very narrow so you can't really see much of the text.

Recording Teams meetings sounds helpful. Except you then realise it's such a bizarre process of sharing that recording with someone who wasn't in that meeting especially if you're not the meeting owner. The usual workaround to this seems to be to download the video then upload

OneDrive, SharePoint, other weird MS products you've never heard of - where should things be stored? Who knows? And the sharing setup is so bad you don't need to worry because you'll probably never get access for the people who need to see it anyway

To add to my experiences of Microsoft products. The scaling across Windows is awful!!! Words, icons etc. frequently overspill so I can't see them or they are partly hidden by another element. Perhaps it's my setting for larger text but I get blocked from carrying out a basic task every day

What a way to start the ISA season...

This series has been excellent so far. Definitely worth a listen

‘Woodstock for elder millennials’: the Garden State soundtrack anniversary concert The music from Zach Braff’s seminal comedy drama took centre stage for one special night bringing back artists from Imogen Heap to The Shins

"You gotta hear this one song. It'll change your life, I swear"

www.theguardian.com/film/2025/ma...

I feel that burden doesn't necessarily suggest reduce to zero unlike red tape. But that's just how I read it

Get what you mean but it's good for any org to recognise effort they force users to go through even if the outcome is beneficial.

I don't know the impact of it, but HMRC has a Administrative Burdens Advisory Board. I like the framing of 'burdens' placed upon people and businesses. And it publishes its reports each year.

Hard agree on the slogan-ing vs. actually improving things. And ironic when some changes just make govt less efficient and/or worse at helping users.

"Government should be run like a business" okay fine, let's be specific then. Do you mean the kind of business that:

- has hidden fees, like airlines, so the price they advertise is way less than what you actually pay?
- makes you jump through hoops to unsubscribe?
- denies most of your claims?

I get the feeling they didn't ask a parent about this or put it in a house with kids

Child lock on the washing machine stops most buttons being pressed. Great! Except it still allows the power button to be pressed. So if the wash is on and your toddler decides to turn it off. It'll stop and you're going to have to start the whole wash again.

Washing machine power button with a piece of plastic stuck around it to make it harder to press

LG's washing machine design is silly so people are having to 3D print covers. I love people solving stuff but really I wish this didn't have to exist.

It's generally not outdated technology that stymies simpler, cheaper and more empathetic public services.

It's outdated culture, processes and operating models.

Mistyping lift and shift and missing the second f. Actually that sounds more accurate...

I remember we recorded a team service walk through on a past project. But I'd love to try this again as there's so much lost knowledge when a team disbands or moves on.

HL2 Dev Commentary Part 1 - Point Insertion YouTube video by 2kliksphilip

In game commentary seems like such a good way to preserve or share knowledge from the people that built a thing.

Perhaps we should try to do similar things for the services we build

2min clip at 08:52 is fascinating
youtu.be/iZMX1nMdGlE?...

This is a really handy explainer. Just shared it with our team.

But it's clearly a bug for people wanting to work collaboratively across departments or organisations.

The same goes for how Teams recordings are really easy to share for those that made the meeting. But if you get added afterwards or work elsewhere tough luck.

I'm fascinated by how SharePoint seems to be intentionally designed to maintain organisational siloes. It's really tricky to share across your organisation. Perhaps this is just my organisation but I wonder if that's a feature rather than a bug for people who set up these sort of tools.

Great to hear about people thinking what the what next for digital government... But at the same time, I've just seen a huge waterfall programme with big design up front, reliant on contractors, throwing over the wall to a gigantic IT firm who are pricing per webpage

Caveat that I'm not so sure about the methodology used. Would be interested to see the results with a different question