Neil Perkin
@neilperkin.bsky.social
Founder of Only Dead Fish. Author of 'Building the Agile Business', 'Agile Transformation' and 'Agile Marketing'. Curator of Google Firestarters.
WhatsApp is great for personal stuff and quick messages but I have clients who insist on using it for almost everything. It's a thing. 'WhatsApps that should have been an email' giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
Ping! The WhatsApps that should have been an email
If your instant message requires immediate attention, fine. But many don’t — they’re just inconsiderate
giftarticle.ft.com
February 11, 2026 at 4:10 PM
WhatsApp is great for personal stuff and quick messages but I have clients who insist on using it for almost everything. It's a thing. 'WhatsApps that should have been an email' giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
I'm a huge fan of what the BBC does and personally believe it's great value for money. The government consultation on the future of the BBC is online and anyone can submit a response. Takes about 15 minutes to do dcms.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
BBC Charter Review Public Consultation
The government is consulting the public to aid decision-making on the terms for the BBC Charter’s renewal and any changes needed to help the BBC to continue to serve the public.
dcms.eu.qualtrics.com
February 10, 2026 at 3:32 PM
I'm a huge fan of what the BBC does and personally believe it's great value for money. The government consultation on the future of the BBC is online and anyone can submit a response. Takes about 15 minutes to do dcms.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
Me to big agency group (BAG): 'Can you pay my invoice please as it's now overdue'
BAG:
Me: Can you pay my invoice please?
BAG:
Me: Please?
*One month later*
BAG: Can you fill in this new information and it will take 2 weeks to onboard you to.our new payment system
Me: 🙄
BAG:
Me: Can you pay my invoice please?
BAG:
Me: Please?
*One month later*
BAG: Can you fill in this new information and it will take 2 weeks to onboard you to.our new payment system
Me: 🙄
February 6, 2026 at 1:34 PM
Me to big agency group (BAG): 'Can you pay my invoice please as it's now overdue'
BAG:
Me: Can you pay my invoice please?
BAG:
Me: Please?
*One month later*
BAG: Can you fill in this new information and it will take 2 weeks to onboard you to.our new payment system
Me: 🙄
BAG:
Me: Can you pay my invoice please?
BAG:
Me: Please?
*One month later*
BAG: Can you fill in this new information and it will take 2 weeks to onboard you to.our new payment system
Me: 🙄
AI is about to steamroller through traditional L & D practice, so what could the future of learning in the workplace look like? I've had a go at mapping it out. Interested to know what you think onlydeadfish.substack.com/p/fish-food-...
Fish Food 676: The Coming Revolution in Learning
The future of L & D, a manifesto for a new approach to AI, Claude Cowork, the miracle of kindness and the best book covers from the last decade.
onlydeadfish.substack.com
January 30, 2026 at 9:25 AM
AI is about to steamroller through traditional L & D practice, so what could the future of learning in the workplace look like? I've had a go at mapping it out. Interested to know what you think onlydeadfish.substack.com/p/fish-food-...
AI doesn’t just give us answers, it shapes what we pay attention to. With AI becoming more ubiquitous in business, if we take short cuts, or fail to think critically, there is a huge danger that we are building up systemic risk onlydeadfish.substack.com/p/fish-food-...
Fish Food 675: Business Critical Thinking
Blindly following technology, Claude's new constitution, OpenAI ads, and what the Victorians knew about AI.
onlydeadfish.substack.com
January 23, 2026 at 4:46 PM
AI doesn’t just give us answers, it shapes what we pay attention to. With AI becoming more ubiquitous in business, if we take short cuts, or fail to think critically, there is a huge danger that we are building up systemic risk onlydeadfish.substack.com/p/fish-food-...
This is a powerful takedown by Margaret Heffernan of the whole pretence around corporate 'purpose' which so often falls foul of less worthy incentives in the face of the realities of the market and leadership priorities heffernanm.substack.com/p/purpose-is...
PURPOSE IS POINTLESS
Johnson & Johnson book poses questions about institutions that Purpose cannot answer.
heffernanm.substack.com
January 17, 2026 at 2:53 PM
This is a powerful takedown by Margaret Heffernan of the whole pretence around corporate 'purpose' which so often falls foul of less worthy incentives in the face of the realities of the market and leadership priorities heffernanm.substack.com/p/purpose-is...
We’ve reached a point where a radical rethink of how organisations are structured and nature of work has become an existential necessity. onlydeadfish.substack.com/p/fish-food-...
Fish Food 674: Re-imagining the corporation in the age of AI
The future of the corporation, personal super-assistants, WPP Agent Hub, Claude Code, and vibe-coding fashion
onlydeadfish.substack.com
January 16, 2026 at 10:09 AM
We’ve reached a point where a radical rethink of how organisations are structured and nature of work has become an existential necessity. onlydeadfish.substack.com/p/fish-food-...
'The engineers who thrive aren’t necessarily the best programmers - they’re the ones who’ve figured out how to navigate everything around the code: the people, the politics, the alignment, the ambiguity.' I liked these lessons from a Google engineer addyosmani.com/blog/21-less... HT @kottke.org
21 Lessons From 14 Years at Google
Lessons learned from 14 years of engineering at Google, focusing on what truly matters beyond just writing great code.
addyosmani.com
January 14, 2026 at 10:54 AM
'The engineers who thrive aren’t necessarily the best programmers - they’re the ones who’ve figured out how to navigate everything around the code: the people, the politics, the alignment, the ambiguity.' I liked these lessons from a Google engineer addyosmani.com/blog/21-less... HT @kottke.org
Reframing is one of the most important tools that a strategist has at their disposal, and the role that AI engines can play as a cognitive circuit breaker is wholly undervalued. onlydeadfish.substack.com/p/fish-food-...
Fish Food 673: Using AI to ask better questions
AI in reframing, 50 provocations for marketing and advertising, big philosophical questions through a neuroscience lens, and the 26 most important ideas for 2026
onlydeadfish.substack.com
January 9, 2026 at 2:06 PM
Reframing is one of the most important tools that a strategist has at their disposal, and the role that AI engines can play as a cognitive circuit breaker is wholly undervalued. onlydeadfish.substack.com/p/fish-food-...
Late last year I was lucky enough to speak to Ed Cotton on his 'Inspiring Futures' podcast and the episode has just been published. We talk about AI (obvs) but particularly about AI as a thought partner, cognitive outsourcing, and the roles that it can play. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/n...
Neil Perkin- Only Dead Fish
Podcast Episode · Inspiring Futures - Lessons from the Worlds of Marketing and Advertising · 12/17/2025 · 53m
podcasts.apple.com
January 5, 2026 at 12:03 PM
Late last year I was lucky enough to speak to Ed Cotton on his 'Inspiring Futures' podcast and the episode has just been published. We talk about AI (obvs) but particularly about AI as a thought partner, cognitive outsourcing, and the roles that it can play. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/n...
A phenomenal article by Dr Rachel Barr looking at some of the biggest philosophical questions (our notion of self, the concept of free will, and how we find meaning) through a neuroscience lens. It gave me a totally different way of thinking about these ideas. Bravo. bigthink.com/thinking/3-p...
3 philosophical debates from the 20th century that neuroscience is reshaping
Modern neuroscience is reshaping how we understand free will, meaning, and the self by revealing them as emergent features of the brain.
bigthink.com
January 1, 2026 at 7:11 PM
A phenomenal article by Dr Rachel Barr looking at some of the biggest philosophical questions (our notion of self, the concept of free will, and how we find meaning) through a neuroscience lens. It gave me a totally different way of thinking about these ideas. Bravo. bigthink.com/thinking/3-p...
Reposted by Neil Perkin
Pre-orders for Random the Book are now open: securityblendbooks.com/products/ran...
Random
Giving this as a gift?When you pre-order, you can download a printable gift certificate to give to friends or family for Christmas. Or at random. Download the gift certificate here. Note that orders w...
securityblendbooks.com
December 22, 2025 at 10:00 AM
Pre-orders for Random the Book are now open: securityblendbooks.com/products/ran...
In many ways, strategy is a creative process. We toggle back and forth between divergent possibilities and convergent judgement and evaluation. In the last newsletter of 2025 I've written about the 'clown' and the 'editor' in creative and strategy workflows. open.substack.com/pub/onlydead...
Fish Food 672: The Clown and the Editor in Creative and Strategy Workflows
Strategy as a creative process, the accuracy or otherwise of synthetic personas, 'theory of mind' in human/AI collaboration, and a prompt generator that actually works
open.substack.com
December 12, 2025 at 9:19 AM
In many ways, strategy is a creative process. We toggle back and forth between divergent possibilities and convergent judgement and evaluation. In the last newsletter of 2025 I've written about the 'clown' and the 'editor' in creative and strategy workflows. open.substack.com/pub/onlydead...
I suspect (but don't know) that one of the reasons why advertising is becoming increasingly disliked is because of relentless, out of control retargeting. Casually look at any product online = carpet bombing of similar stuff. Buy something = endless ads for the thing you've just bought.
December 6, 2025 at 1:39 PM
I suspect (but don't know) that one of the reasons why advertising is becoming increasingly disliked is because of relentless, out of control retargeting. Casually look at any product online = carpet bombing of similar stuff. Buy something = endless ads for the thing you've just bought.
There are some not insignificant architectural limitations to how LLMs work which suggest that there is no straight line between where we are now and AGI (if we even want AGI which is a big question). onlydeadfish.substack.com/p/fish-food-...
Fish Food 671: On the Limitations of LLMs and the Future of AI
Life after LLMs, 52 things I learned, Claude Skills, all the trends, Stranger Things strategy, and saved by Stoppard
onlydeadfish.substack.com
December 6, 2025 at 10:47 AM
There are some not insignificant architectural limitations to how LLMs work which suggest that there is no straight line between where we are now and AGI (if we even want AGI which is a big question). onlydeadfish.substack.com/p/fish-food-...
Always great
December 1, 2025 at 1:50 PM
Always great
This week I've been working with a client on techniques for using critical thinking in conjunction with AI engines. The more I see about how most teams use AI the more I think that this is an unusually enlightened approach
November 28, 2025 at 10:25 AM
This week I've been working with a client on techniques for using critical thinking in conjunction with AI engines. The more I see about how most teams use AI the more I think that this is an unusually enlightened approach
Humans and LLMs learn in fundamentally different ways. Understanding these differences helps us to work with AI in a 1 + 1 = 3 kind of way. open.substack.com/pub/onlydead...
Fish Food 670: AI versus human reasoning
How humans and AI learn, AI notetakers and company culture, Nano Banana Opus four-point-something, a theory of dumb, and what comes after LLMs
open.substack.com
November 28, 2025 at 8:11 AM
Humans and LLMs learn in fundamentally different ways. Understanding these differences helps us to work with AI in a 1 + 1 = 3 kind of way. open.substack.com/pub/onlydead...
Successive (Tory and now Labour) governments have made it much harder to run a small business in the UK (Corp tax, Dividends allowance reductions and tax rises). It's a real shame that governments don't seem to like people who are self-starters and are willing to take the risk to be entrepreneurial
November 26, 2025 at 5:44 PM
Successive (Tory and now Labour) governments have made it much harder to run a small business in the UK (Corp tax, Dividends allowance reductions and tax rises). It's a real shame that governments don't seem to like people who are self-starters and are willing to take the risk to be entrepreneurial
Nicely put
If people in your team or organisation are using AI notetakers as a way of coping with too many meetings and a culture of presenteeism, there's not a technological fix for this. The answer is to have fewer, better organised meetings www.careful.industries/blog/2025-11...
November 21, 2025 at 10:09 AM
Nicely put
When it comes to driving change, systems are way more powerful than goals. Many businesses mistake goals and targets for strategy, but systems motivate through progress, compound through repetition, and preserve adaptability and optionality onlydeadfish.substack.com/p/fish-food-...
Fish Food 669: Why systems beat goals
Change through systems, AI is eats the world, Gemini 3.0, testing AI-produced ads, why we still need to teach knowledge, and the myth of shrinking attention spans
onlydeadfish.substack.com
November 21, 2025 at 10:08 AM
When it comes to driving change, systems are way more powerful than goals. Many businesses mistake goals and targets for strategy, but systems motivate through progress, compound through repetition, and preserve adaptability and optionality onlydeadfish.substack.com/p/fish-food-...
We've all been there, mate
November 21, 2025 at 10:01 AM
We've all been there, mate
Frosty morning from the shed
November 20, 2025 at 10:09 AM
Frosty morning from the shed
John Burn-Murdoch on the growing numbers of young NEETs (Not in Education, Employment or Training), disengaged not only from the economy but the rest of society. Something big is happening to our young people and it's not good www.ft.com/content/bd61...
Young adults are growing increasingly economically dislocated
A disconnected class is taking shape, but is absent from the headline statistics
www.ft.com
November 14, 2025 at 3:20 PM
John Burn-Murdoch on the growing numbers of young NEETs (Not in Education, Employment or Training), disengaged not only from the economy but the rest of society. Something big is happening to our young people and it's not good www.ft.com/content/bd61...
Some weekend listening - I've been binge-listening the BBC's wonderful 'This Cultural Life' in which creative figures talk about their life and influences. These 2 episodes from James Rhodes and Goldie are so moving but so inspiring www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m... www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
BBC Radio 4 - This Cultural Life, James Rhodes
Pianist James Rhodes talks to John Wilson about his formative influences and experiences.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 14, 2025 at 12:38 PM
Some weekend listening - I've been binge-listening the BBC's wonderful 'This Cultural Life' in which creative figures talk about their life and influences. These 2 episodes from James Rhodes and Goldie are so moving but so inspiring www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m... www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...