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Expert led AI

Wed, 02 Sep 2026 11:15:47 +0600

I’m on the record as being - at least as of a few years ago - something of a sceptic when it comes to AI. Put it down to years and years of breakthroughs that threatened to transform the world - everything from Web3 to Blockchain to VR to Crypto - only for that potential to mostly fizzle out. My scepticism has served me pretty well over the years, especially as a delivery guy who needs to see through the hype to work out, and be on the hook for, something that can actually be delivered, and which then meets business needs. A quick glance at the Gartner hype cycle from 2020 is quite a sobering exercise (lol, “Explainable AI”), and as recently as 2023, the outputs from AI were questionable in some cases, laughable in others, and downright dangerous on occasion.

Case study: Altai

Mon, 25 May 2026 11:15:47 +0600

It’s now a few years since I started working with the Altai team as a co-founder, and as I’m now transitioning into more of an advisory role, it’s a chance to reflect on the experience.

It’s certainly true what they say about the start-up space - it isn’t for the faint-hearted! There’s an interesting contrast with the larger organisations I’ve worked at, where easy access to expertise is built right in. People - for the most part - stay in their lane. At start-ups in general, you’ve got to roll your sleeves up and figure things out for yourself, get them done, and you rarely get a chance to catch your breath before you have to move onto the next challenge. It exemplifies the notion of perfect being the enemy of good. It can be pretty daunting, but when you’re surrounded by a team pushing hard in the same direction, you figure it out together at speed.

The Death of Reason

Wed, 19 Jun 2024 11:15:47 +0600

There’s a terrific scene in Game of Thrones where ex-Maester Qyburn goes to visit Queen Cersei in prison, after she’s been captured by the Faith Militant for various crimes against their religion. You don’t need to have seen it to understand one of the lines used by Qyburn to explain the fervent religious behaviour; “belief is so often the death of reason”. In this case, the Faith Militant kind-of had a good point, as Cersei had indeed had kids with her brother, one of whom was now the King - but the point has such practical application when it comes to AI that I couldn’t resist picking it up.

SXSW Sydney - How’d it stack up?

Tue, 24 Oct 2023 11:18:56 +0600

So the big SXSW Sydney experiment is finally under our belts - up until this year, it had grown for 35 years only in Austin, and this was the first time they’ve tried to repeat the formula anywhere else, never mind in a different country and timezone. So how’d they get on?

First things first, we have to acknowledge it was never going to be on the same scale as SXSW Austin. The commercial opportunities aren’t as great, which dictates who can invest in the trip. In contrast, SXSW Austin has been a mainstay of the film, music and tech calendars for many, many years. It took time to grow to the size, scale and cultural significance that we see today. So let’s keep that in mind.

Get Ready for SXSW Sydney

Thu, 05 Oct 2023 11:18:56 +0600

We’ve got less than a month to go before SXSW Sydney opens their doors to an excited and curious public. I’ve been to SXSW Austin six times since 2009, and learned a lot of what not to do along the way! So I thought I’d share some tips that first timers might find helpful.

This is mainly aimed at Interactive and Platinum badge holders, but there might be something useful in here for others too.

Case study: Franklin Women

Tue, 23 May 2023 11:15:47 +0600

As a straight, white, able-bodied man, I’m all too aware that the system is tipped heavily in my favour. People like me generally get greater career opportunities, better pay and fewer obstacles in work and in life. So I’m always keen to work for clients or on projects that help level the playing field for everyone.

As part of my partnership with Previsior, I’ve been lucky to work on one such project in the last few months. Franklin Women is a social enterprise that supports women working across the health and medical research ecosystem, who experience unique barriers above and beyond those experienced by women in other professional settings. Most notably, the gendered environments of academia generally favours men. This means women and gender diverse folk stagnate or leave the ecosystem altogether - talent lost from the system, never to return.

AI in Education

Sun, 21 May 2023 11:15:47 +0600

Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you’ll know that the explosion of AI tools and services is well underway. And I’ve mentioned before that it’ll sometimes be tricky to separate the snake oil from the more substantive advances.

So I’m pleased to share some ground-breaking work that we’re leading with one of our clients. Rather than create something mass market that does an ok job for everyone, we’ve created an AI platform which is lean, low cost, and with quick time-to-value for a highly tangible and specific use case. The platform gives us the basis to continue developing in a composable manner.

Notes from SXSW 2023

Sat, 18 Mar 2023 11:18:56 +0600

SXSW always warps the brain in weird and wonderful ways, and this year was no exception. In some ways this felt like a return to reality following the giddy optimism of last year’s SXSW, with all that’s happened in the world of tech since then. The crash of crypto, the unfulfilled promises of NFTs and VR, the mass layoffs and the twitter purchase by Elon Musk took a lot of wind out of sails before the event, and then the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (on day one of SXSW!) was a cautionary tale for anyone trying to make a quick buck.

Cutting edge web

Thu, 09 Feb 2023 11:18:56 +0600

I’ve refreshed my website today, which normally wouldn’t be too much cause for celebration as the content itself hasn’t changed - but some interesting stuff has gone on under the hood so I thought I’d capture it here.

There were a few key reasons why I needed to change platform. When I built the site originally in 2020, I selected Umbraco Uno as the managed service provider because I knew how to use Umbraco CMS and the front end was configurable enough for me to meet my fairly basic needs (range of modules, blog, contact form, that kind of thing). The price was fair and it got me off the ground quickly.

Cool your jets

Mon, 06 Feb 2023 11:15:47 +0600

This post could have been titled “Why We Don’t Necessarily Need To Panic Just Yet About The Arrival Of Artificial Intelligence”…

Back in 2015, the wonderful Randall Monroe wrote an awe-inspiring article titled “The AI Revolution: The Road to Superintelligence”. It’s an entertaining read and, at the time, I admit I found it very compelling. I would encourage you to give it a read, but the gist of it was that the rise in AI superintelligence is exponential, and therefore we would get whiplash as it approached and then rapidly overtook human intelligence. This handy diagram illustrates the point nicely:

Introducing Altai

Thu, 01 Dec 2022 11:15:47 +0600

After working on a secret project for the past year or so, I can finally share the big news that I’ve been helping an exciting start-up get off the ground - and we launch today! It’s a groundbreaking new web app in the entertainment industry, which connects Casting Directors, Agents and Artists through the casting process. And it’s called Altai.

The best thing about this project has been working with the founders - Josh comes from Casting, and Renee worked as an agent (and ran an acting college), so they know the industry and processes inside and out. The project was born from a deep frustration with the current products in this space, none of which provide a fully integrated service or a mobile friendly experience. The industry has been crying out for disruption, and our focus has been on providing a superior, connected, accessible and streamlined user experience at every turn.

The FAQs of Twitter

Sat, 12 Nov 2022 11:15:47 +0600

A few clients have asked for my views on Twitter and Mastodon, so here they are in one place.

Should I be worried about what’s happening at Twitter?

The short answer is yes, for a few reasons, all underpinned by a simple fact. Elon Musk paid $44bn for Twitter, when independent estimates placed the value at more like $20bn, and it seems to have plummeted to around $8bn since then. They have a significant revenue and debt problem, with advertisers pulling away in droves (see below). Twitter is going through a period of significant layoffs, and very poorly-thought-through experimentation, leading to several major issues already and almost certainly more to come. But the main issues for a company today are:

Twice around the sun

Wed, 10 Aug 2022 11:15:47 +0600

It’s now two years to the day since launching PragmaTech, and it’s weird to think how scary it was going it alone. No amount of reassurance from friends and colleagues could address the nagging doubt that this venture would fail.

What I didn’t appreciate was that the same friends and colleagues would help me get it afloat and then help it thrive. Whether it’s making connections or helping on projects, the list of great people who’ve got involved is long and illustrious. Big shout out and thank you to everyone - you know who you are!

SXSW: Part Two

Sat, 26 Mar 2022 11:18:56 +0600

For a general overview of the event, here’s Part one.

Part Two will focus on insights and learnings. No fluff, just the meat. Most links go through to photos on Flickr (here’s the full album).

Reflections on the pandemic

Several speakers talked about how the pandemic and associated lockdowns drove us to re-focus priorities. The U.S. Surgeon General (Vivek Murthy) talked about how loneliness, isolation and solitude were all receiving significant attention from his office - the pandemic pushed us away from the ones we love. People on their deathbed talk about wishing they’d spent more time with their close friends and families - it’s a deep-seated human need - and so there’s no surprise that the recent forced separation has created an epidemic of mental health issues. He reflected that we’re born with this great power, the ability to give and receive love, and urged everyone to “become a beacon of love in your community” as we emerge into a post-pandemic world.

SXSW: Part One

Thu, 24 Mar 2022 11:17:17 +0600

I feel like a jewel thief!

To have come into Austin, borderline-post-pandemic, have such a great trip, and then escape without a scratch (aka a positive Covid test result) seems too good to be true…

This story actually starts back in March 2020. SXSW (the annual technology, music and film jamboree held in Austin Texas) was cancelled just as I started a pre-conference road trip through Tennessee. A few eyebrows were being raised in Nashville, as the overseas “novel Coronavirus” made it into the local news segments, and then of course Tom Hanks got diagnosed with Covid and everyone lost their collective minds. I managed to squeeze in a quick pilgrimage to Graceland before getting on one of the last flights home prior to borders being snapped closed. My SXSW ticket got deferred to 2022 and, with so much water under the bridge since then, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

Case study: HTANALYSTS

Thu, 09 Dec 2021 11:15:47 +0600

HTANALYSTS has been providing premium impact measurement services to the Healthcare sector for 20 years, helping organisations to demonstrate everything from clinical efficacy through to the impact of social programmes such as dietary salt consumption guides. It was becoming increasingly clear that many of these skills had significant value outside health, and so HTANALYSTS engaged Previsior and PragmaTech to assess the opportunity landscape, and help plot the best path forward.

Our focus initially was on assessing sectors adjacent to healthcare, but we quickly uncovered a fundamental truth - healthcare, in the form of human-centricity, cuts across every sector, and in ways that are increasingly important. Measuring the full impact of an active intervention - or modelling initiatives before implementation - is virtually impossible without the levels of scientific rigour provided by HTANALYSTS. We quickly identified significant opportunities across Sustainability, Aged Care and Disability, as well as staff and customer wellbeing in a broader sense, engaging with stakeholders across all these areas to refine and validate our recommendations.

The disenfranchised patient

Sat, 26 Jun 2021 11:16:38 +0600

With our partners Previsior and Igenci, we often talk about the challenges inherent in building great products that change patients’ lives. Unfortunately, in our experience, we’ve often found that the final solution falls well short of the intent or potential, frustrating all stakeholders in the process - but no one more than the patients themselves.

The expectations of patients everywhere are set high by the array of great products in the consumer space - everything from banking mobile apps, to eCommerce platforms, to services like Uber and Airtasker - satisfaction is just a tap or two away. So why, when it comes to the healthcare space, do so many products come up short?

Strategy vs Logistics

Mon, 19 Apr 2021 11:18:32 +0600

A few days ago I came across a tweet which included the semi-famous quote from General Omar Bradley, stating that “Amateurs talk strategy. Professionals talk logistics”. It’s an interesting and provocative point of view, threatening to knock strategy off its lofty perch, so let’s take a look.

My broad and perhaps obvious interpretation is that strategy is pointless without the logistical plan to bring it about. Some might think it’s obvious, but during my 25 years in the industry I’ve come across an expensive strategy without a workable plan several times (some from very large and expensive consultancies), or a plan without a strategy - often as part of a post mortem, looking into why a project or program has failed to deliver the business goals.

Case study: Nucleotrace

Thu, 18 Mar 2021 11:15:47 +0600

Nucleotrace is an exceptional company that specialises in cutting-edge synthetic DNA tracing and identification technology. Synthetic DNA has a number of useful characteristics, in that it’s relatively cheap to manufacture, can contain huge volumes of information, and is virtually impossible to counterfeit. This means it can be used throughout supply chains to guarantee the origin of a product; for example, one of the initial areas of exploration is the pharmaceutical industry, where counterfeit medicine costs the industry $30 billion to $80 billion per year.

Case study: Telethon Kids Institute

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 11:15:47 +0600

In August 2020, the world-renowned Perth-based child health research organisation, Telethon Kids Institute, went to market seeking a partner to co-create their Digital Health strategy. With the world of Digital Health growing at an exponential rate, the Institute wanted to evolve to capitalise on the increased shift in funding towards all things digital and to reach its ambition of supporting happy, healthy kids.

In response to this brief, Previsior (Healthcare Strategists) and PragmaTech (Digital Strategists) formed a partnership-led shared response. Previsior’s healthcare experience and network provided access to the external sources and perspectives that would ultimately help shape the future of Digital Health for Telethon Kids. Meanwhile, PragmaTech’s extensive experience running digital projects and programs ensured that the recommendations would be practical and actionable. The work was awarded in September 2020, and we got to work.

Making Connections

Wed, 23 Dec 2020 11:15:47 +0600

This is normally the time of year where agencies do an “end of year wrap”, celebrating all the achievements of the year gone by and casting an eye on the year ahead….so I thought I’d attempt a one-man-band version from a PragmaTech perspective. But fear not though, dear reader, this won’t be one of those posts that opens with a recap of the impact of Covid…

Instead, I’d like to talk about connections.

The lure of personalisation

Thu, 20 Aug 2020 11:15:47 +0600

Personalisation works! Over the course of this post, you might be thinking I’m not a fan, but nothing could be further from the truth. It’s self-evident that customers respond well to an experience that is tailored to their specific needs and circumstances.

However…as we get further and further up the sales conversion funnel, focusing on people that aren’t yet customers, and trying to personalise their experience based on more limited information, things get a bit foggier. This post explores the different trade-offs being made, and why going all-in on personalisation might not lead to the happy ending everyone expects.

Launch Day

Mon, 10 Aug 2020 11:15:47 +0600

PragmaTech is officially launched!

Some people have naturally asked whether this is really a good time to start a new business. Covid-19 has hit all of us, some harder than others, and it still isn’t exactly clear how things are going to pan out. However, in some ways, now is the perfect time. Organisations still need to make progress with their digital transformation, but with more constraints around time, money and resources than ever before. And customer behaviours have changed significantly. That’s where we come in.

New ways of working

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 11:15:47 +0600

Given the number of apocalyptic films based on deadly viruses, plus plenty of real life warm up acts (Spanish flu, Avian flu, etc.), it’s remarkable how caught off guard we were when Covid-19 hit. In many ways, those of us with office-based jobs are lucky that the virus came along after cloud productivity tools gained widespread adoption. Just imagine if we were going through this in the 1970s or 80s, without the benefit of video conferencing, slack or even email? Not to mention home food delivery. Things could be worse…

The future of Customer Experience

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 11:15:47 +0600

The best thing about working in the customer experience industry is that it never stands still - changing technologies, behaviours and expectations have always been the norm. At the moment though, things seem to be developing even more quickly, as mature digital touchpoints (predominantly web, mobile and email) are being supplemented with a much broader range of technologies.

Many of these nascent technologies have gone through a rapid maturity cycle, where the initial experiments had limited success, but have since evolved to the point where customers find them genuinely useful. The conditions are now ripe for much broader adoption, and the impetus to build underlying services (APIs) that can support these touchpoints has become imperative.