Rory Sutherland retweeted
How can it have taken this long for them to grasp this. If you really want non intermittent non fossil fuel energy, this is the only answer.
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Rory Sutherland retweeted
Have you noticed that when backing out of a parking space pedestrians no longer stop and wait? They walk right across the path of your moving vehicle.
That didn't happen twenty years ago. Backup cameras, rear cross-traffic radar, and warning chimes haven't just changed the he pedestrian to assume the machine will see them and stop. Every safety system rewrites the habits of the people around it.
Unintended consequences.
That didn't happen twenty years ago. Backup cameras, rear cross-traffic radar, and warning chimes haven't just changed the he pedestrian to assume the machine will see them and stop. Every safety system rewrites the habits of the people around it.
Unintended consequences.
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Rory Sutherland retweeted
@rorysutherland @hwallop Without slang we wouldn’t have P.G. Wodehouse.
(On your recommendation I read the Clicking of Cuthbert - I can see why you frequently revisit this book of irrationality!)
(On your recommendation I read the Clicking of Cuthbert - I can see why you frequently revisit this book of irrationality!)
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This is an extraordinary advertisement because it's effectively spending 60 seconds to tell us how technology is ruining our lives.
Incidentally, it fails to point out that not only is French toast not toast, but Canadian bacon is not technically bacon.
Incidentally, it fails to point out that not only is French toast not toast, but Canadian bacon is not technically bacon.
This might be the first time I’ve ever watched an Apple ad that made me actively not want to buy the product
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Not sure I agree with @hwallop here in his thesis that infantile slang is evidence of national decline. In 1920 it was much sillier. Preggers, bedsitter, rugger, soccer, brekker, etc all arose from the same urge to simplify as Maccy D's does today.
oxfordhistory.org.uk/university/sla…
oxfordhistory.org.uk/university/sla…
This week’s @thetimes biz column:
M&S ‘picky bits’ is brain rot — but also a marketing masterclass
thetimes.com/article/4c6c60…
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Rory Sutherland retweeted
No matter how often you visit Venice, you never stop discovering new wonders. This must be one of the most lavish Spars I have ever seen.
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Rory Sutherland retweeted
This feels very @rorysutherland but if there was a hotel chain that marketed itself on "Reasonable prices and large bath towels"... I think they would do great business...
WHY ARE HOTEL TOWELS ALWAYS SO SMALL?!
WHY ARE HOTEL TOWELS ALWAYS SO SMALL?!
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Rory Sutherland retweeted
@rorysutherland fully dry (stable) wood, which is more expensive to manufacture. In North America lumber is still a bit wet when you build, so it's cheaper to manufacture and it doesn't split when you nail it, so you don't need to use screws, you can nail framing. For example in Service Class 1 lumber, the target moisture content is 12% or less. In North America, standard framing lumber is kiln-dried to under 19%. So inEurocode 5 it legally mandates pre-drilling when nailing close to edges, corners, or when using denser timber species (like C24 graded whitewood/redwood) to prevent splitting.
All your regulations make it too expensive to use stick framing.
All your regulations make it too expensive to use stick framing.
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Rory Sutherland retweeted
@rorysutherland @typesfast Japanese takeaway it one stage further. 5 th item
So clever.
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Rory Sutherland retweeted
@rorysutherland Scotland builds most of its new homes in timber frame, and they've stood up to some fairly committed weather. The thing that seems allergic to wood is the mortgage form, which still files it somewhere near thatch under 'interesting'.
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There is a Fred Perry clothing brand. But the shoes in which he won Wimbledon are no longer made. Dunlop Green Flash was the OG sports shoe for anyone born in the UK from 1960-1980.
Instead British people pay a fortune for shoes worn by elderly Americans who once played sports we don't understand.
Instead British people pay a fortune for shoes worn by elderly Americans who once played sports we don't understand.
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Rory Sutherland retweeted
Quibbles are bigger (or smaller!) than any one organisation. While this announcement surprised us, it's good to see the cause gaining currency.
Martin has been an effective “quibbler” for a long time - one of our campaigns (Tax-Free Childcare name change) was even inspired by Ideas Initiative well. With the 5-month head start that we've had, we'd love to meet with @MartinSLewis, swap notes, and see how we can work together to fix the small stuff.
We’re proud of what we've built and the progress made on our campaigns so far. We're also proud of the personal investment that we’ve both been making to get quibble going… and of the fact that we'll always be the OGs.😉
Martin has been an effective “quibbler” for a long time - one of our campaigns (Tax-Free Childcare name change) was even inspired by Ideas Initiative well. With the 5-month head start that we've had, we'd love to meet with @MartinSLewis, swap notes, and see how we can work together to fix the small stuff.
We’re proud of what we've built and the progress made on our campaigns so far. We're also proud of the personal investment that we’ve both been making to get quibble going… and of the fact that we'll always be the OGs.😉
NEWS: Today I’m launching The Small Ideas Initiative. We want you to submit ideas at Small-Ideas.org for non-controversial fixes, e.g “live sewage updates for beaches” or “standardised allergen menus”.
A year ago, an interviewer asked what I’d have told the Government if I’d been advising it, I replied, 'Come up with 100 small things that piss people off and fix one a day for the first 100 days'. As I left the stage, I emailed myself, 'set up Small ideas institute!'
And today, I’m excited it's happening. I’m funding two charities to work together to collate the submissions, narrow them down to about 200 doables then turn those into formal policy proposals which I'll bring back to you for feedback.
Then to finish we've a Cross-Party panel who’ve agreed to pick 50ish, after which we’ll start trying to make them happen. You can read far more about it and who the cross party panel are here… blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2026/10/martin…
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Rory Sutherland retweeted
As if our hospitality industry hadn't experienced enough government abuse, last month saw yet another blow: permission for cities to levy a tourist tax on hotel stays.
But not quite so fast. Such a tax need not be bad news: it depends on how you levy it.
Done cleverly, a tax ost revenues for the classier end of the hotel industry. And I have a few ideas on how to do it.
✍️ Rory Sutherland
Article | spectator.com/article/there-… | @rorysutherland
But not quite so fast. Such a tax need not be bad news: it depends on how you levy it.
Done cleverly, a tax ost revenues for the classier end of the hotel industry. And I have a few ideas on how to do it.
✍️ Rory Sutherland
Article | spectator.com/article/there-… | @rorysutherland
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My Wiki Man this week proposes a more imaginative way to apply a tourist tax.
spectator.com/article/there-…
spectator.com/article/there-…
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Rory Sutherland retweeted
The Official Flexport Timeline of Global Trade
(Print it as a poster and put on your child's wall)
(Print it as a poster and put on your child's wall)
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Rory Sutherland retweeted
The catalyst for this tweet was a conversation I had last week with a friend who is the CMO of an F100 company. I didn't want to share any details that could leak identifiable information, but he gave me permission this morning:
Like every major brand / retailer, he's considering just how permissively and fulsomely to integrate with third-party agents for agentic discovery, and how much functionality should be made available outside of his owned environment.
This is a salient and critical question! Agentic discovery could become an important part of the funnel. But in some implementations, it could also be corrosive. If agents are merely recommending his products / company among a relevant set and delivering incrementally net-new users, integrating / cooperating is essentially costless.
But that very obviously and predictably won't be the case. Some users would have been reachable with ads. Will they behave differently when exposed to an in-agent recommendation versus an ad? Will their AOV change as a cohort? What about their product journey? Will they be as reachable after their first checkout?
Of course, we don't know, so we have to test this. How do you design an experiment that captures this? How do you construct the exposure and holdout groups? How long should this experiment be run? How do we accommodate the upcoming holiday season, the paid promotion of new agents that influences their usage in ways that are unlikely to persist, and differences across categories and geographies?
These are genuine, serious challenges, and his board has been extraordinarily accommodating in allowing him to put together a thoughtful, comprehensive "agentic" strategy. But it occurred to me in speaking with him that many CMOs are absolutely about to be replaced because they either aren't given that time / space to experiment (and the CEO has a friend who is confident that he can 3X the business with his "agentic playbook") or because they say yes to everything without any clear vision for how the business will be impacted.
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Rory Sutherland retweeted
This
The Return of Craftization by Adel Borky medium.com/p/the-return-o…
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Rory Sutherland retweeted
@rorysutherland My great great grand father wrote the first ever article about Billy the Kid, gave him his name in fact.
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Rory Sutherland retweeted
I heard a fascinating story about human behaviour today.
A tour guide at a historic castle was getting very high ratings from tourists.
They went to see what he was doing differently.
On several of the rooms he had used the red velvet ropes to block the doors.
These were normally used when the rooms were being repaired or cleaned. He had put them up at the beginning of each day.
During g the tour he would look around and say to the group “would you like to have a quick look in here?” And they would say yes in hushed tones.
He would ceremoniously unclip the rope and let them through into the room. A room that was always a normal part of every tour.
This simple little bit of theatre made people love the tour that much more.
Humans love what we can’t have.
A tour guide at a historic castle was getting very high ratings from tourists.
They went to see what he was doing differently.
On several of the rooms he had used the red velvet ropes to block the doors.
These were normally used when the rooms were being repaired or cleaned. He had put them up at the beginning of each day.
During g the tour he would look around and say to the group “would you like to have a quick look in here?” And they would say yes in hushed tones.
He would ceremoniously unclip the rope and let them through into the room. A room that was always a normal part of every tour.
This simple little bit of theatre made people love the tour that much more.
Humans love what we can’t have.
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