Sharon O'Dea
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sharonodea.com
Sharon O'Dea
@sharonodea.com
Consulting, writing and speaking on comms, collaboration & future of work. Cofounder Lithos Partners, DWXS and 300 Seconds. Gym bore. Takes too many photos of Amsterdam.
Pinned
Mine and @digitaljonathan.bsky.social's book has been submitted to the publisher.

It's out in July but now it's on pre-order, so it's all starting to feel real now. Eek!

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Is this a secondary effect of social media? TikTok shows young women spending hundreds on skincare alone and doing elaborate makeup routines for an average day at work. In my camera-free 20s it was acceptable to look like shit at work, cos we all smoked, drank and used only one kind of moisturiser.
February 10, 2026 at 9:23 AM
The alternative is rolling the dice on Rayner, Lammy, Streeting - every one of which is going to be less popular
February 9, 2026 at 6:07 PM
Switching leader now - especially to someone the public either don’t know or don’t like (and any candidate is either one or the other) will only position Labour to be every bit as chaotic as the government they replaced. Is Keir popular? No. Will any replacement be more so? Also no.
February 9, 2026 at 6:05 PM
Problem is, literally any other candidate will be every bit as unpopular within weeks, but with the added disadvantage of lacking an electoral mandate. Honestly, the only route to winning in 28/29 is cracking on and actually delivering something rather than indulging in the psychodrama.
February 9, 2026 at 5:52 PM
As @radiobeartime.com said too, there’s a failure across the board to be honest about trade-offs (most particularly by the electorate, who punish any party that admits things cost money)
February 9, 2026 at 4:05 PM
After a decade of stable government the Netherlands (where I live) is now copying the pattern, only with long periods of not having a government at all in-between
February 9, 2026 at 3:51 PM
This is PRECISELY it. The country demands change, but only change that has negative consequences for other people, rather than even minor personal cost or inconvenience.
February 9, 2026 at 3:47 PM
Well, it’s hardly a coincidence that the last time the country had a stable government was also when Watford held on to a manager for any length of time; is it?
February 9, 2026 at 3:47 PM
The UK seems stuck in a cycle of hitting reset and hoping for a different result. Instead the country’s been lurching from crisis to crisis for a decade. Labour promised politics that tread lightly on real life. The least they can do is stop dragging the country into party drama.
February 9, 2026 at 3:47 PM
I can’t face trying to read the story between all the pop-ups on their unusable website, but I suspect this diagnosis is fair: the UK has become addicted to binning off leaders
February 9, 2026 at 3:35 PM
Starmer won a thumping majority 18 months ago. He’s the PM, not whoever’s managing Watford this year.

Seven PMs in a decade is objectively ridiculous.
Starmer has to survive 38 days to have had a longer tenure than Rishi Sunak.

If a successor were to be in place by 13th July, we'd have had 7 PMs in a decade, which, by my reckoning, is the most since the 8 of 1827-37.
February 9, 2026 at 3:32 PM
I use Copilot for anything client confidential, but Chat/Claude/Perplexity for anything else, because they’re generally far better outputs.
February 8, 2026 at 3:42 PM
Because Copilot is perceived (often fairly) of not being as good.
February 8, 2026 at 3:14 PM
Yeah it’s more the people who work for big corporates and banks, who will be expected to use Copilot, who are revealing themselves to be using ChatGPT rather a lot for work.
February 8, 2026 at 2:39 PM
Love how the “caricature of me and my work” trend has turned into an informal audit of who’s ignoring their company’s ChatGPT ban.
February 8, 2026 at 1:49 PM
I bought 40 tulips from my local market last weekend for €18.
Tulips from Lincolnshire on sale in a cafe/deli around the corner from my office in London for... yes, **£50** a bunch 🌷🌷😬😲
February 6, 2026 at 11:46 AM
I’m curious what government agencies are doing to support the staff they’ve tasked with running their accounts on X, who now risk seeing abusive materials and CSAM in the course of their work.

(I previously headed up social for Dep Int Trade, if I still was I would refuse to make my team do this)
February 6, 2026 at 10:41 AM
Ultimately they can’t please everyone, but it’s the decades of kicking the can down the road to avoid being the ones to commit money that have led to its current state of decay.

I suspect it will only be the place actually burning down that will finally force a decision.
February 6, 2026 at 9:59 AM
Plus the UK’s number 1 terrorist target could really do with a properly-built visitors’ centre, as anyone who has queued to get in via the current entrance can attest.
February 6, 2026 at 9:26 AM
a) type C/F standard Euro plugs
b) I really can’t think of anything! Personally I miss UK biscuits, but that’s more nostalgia. Still, everyone like biscuits.
February 2, 2026 at 7:12 PM
This week: decisions, consequences, and the delusion that SharePoint is free.

Also: making things with my hands, uncomfortable documentaries, and fully accepting my fate as an insufferable self-promoter.

Weeknote: sharonodea.com/2026/02/02/w...
February 2, 2026 at 10:22 AM
There is TOO MUCH NEWS
January 30, 2026 at 9:18 PM
I’ve gone round to a mate’s to watch the Take That documentary and we’ve had to pause to scroll, agog, at the Epstein release.

I miss Old Twitter on occasions like this.
January 30, 2026 at 7:56 PM
In every respect, the worst of all worlds, since it means the very highest earners pay the least
January 29, 2026 at 12:54 PM