Notes from Tuscany

We went to Tuscany in 2022 and I never wrote it up, so here are some notes that are 2 years out of date. A great trip, apart from the scorpions. | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 4 days ago

Work has picked up

Some notes from the last week, and some links to internetty things. This is the sort of stuff you subscribed to the RSS for, I'd imagine. But then I like to think I'm quite imaginative. | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 8 days ago

Notes from Canada

A long post with notes and reflections and photos from my recent trip to Toronto and Halifax. | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 10 days ago

Frink in Dorchester

A few thoughts about the Elizabeth Frink exhibition at Dorset Museum in Dorchester. | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 13 days ago

Why this feed isn't full text (except for this update)

On Mastodon a few days ago, Sophie Koonin asked: "Folks who don't have the full text of a post in your RSS feed: why not?" My answer there - that "mine’s handmade and I can’t work out how, nor be arsed to do it manually" - wasn't terribly informative or helpful to anyone, so here … | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 14 days ago

Presentations as HTML

More raving about how good iA Presenter is, *especially* when you export to HTML and present about the web, using the web. Yes. Yes! | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 1 month ago

Lecturing at UCL

Did a little talk at UCL, advising MA students on tactics for communicating about their work | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 1 month ago

Doing weeknotes

I've made a new website about weeknotes, at doingweeknotes.com | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 1 month ago

Happy 25th birthday, gilest.org

This website is 25 years old, flippin' 'eck | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 1 month ago

How to communicate with busy stakeholders

About a little talk I did at the British Library the other day. | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 1 month ago

Palm makes easy web pages

Elliott Cost's Palm app helps people make easy web pages and I think it's inspiring | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 2 months ago

Me talking in BC

Video and audio of me talking to the digital people in British Columbia. | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 2 months ago

Corporate training needs content design, not cartoons

A bit of a rant about the state of corporate training tools. I think they need more content design to meet user needs, and fewer terrible, infantilising cartoon characters. | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 3 months ago

See my shoebox

I've added a shoebox of old files to this website, and this is a blog post telling you about that. Includes Pretend Office jokes. | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 3 months ago

More on the easier indie web

Summing up most of the things people having been saying on Mastodon about yesterday's indie web rant. | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 3 months ago

Let's make the indie web easier

A bit of a rant today, on a topic I've been thinking about a lot. TL;DR - we need more self-hosting personal publishing tools that provide a decent alternative to Wordpress. And those tools should NOT need anyone to do anything at all in a terminal to get them set up. They shou … | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 3 months ago

Flooding in Bradford on Avon

Photos of the serious flooding in our town today :( | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 3 months ago

All we can do is type good words in the bad boxes

Go on, click this one, there's a funny image to see. | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 3 months ago

Lights in Rome

Stupid thoughts about infrastructure while standing on a chilly side street in Rome. Happens to all of us. | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 3 months ago

Pro EU in Roma

Some brief thoughts about Brexit, sparked by an advert seen on the Rome Metro. | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 4 months ago

Ruins in Rome

You don't need to see more photos of ruins in Rome, but I took some anyway. Sorry. | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 4 months ago

Stuff of the year

Some stuff I listened to and read this year, because lists are what you write in December | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 4 months ago

Projects 95-120

A yearnote for a crappy year :( | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 4 months ago

Weeknotes rules, and the superpowers they enable

I've started sharing a list of rules-for-weeknotes with teams that want to do them; I think they're useful rules, because they give teams new superpowers. | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 7 months ago

The agile comms handbook - revised edition

After months out of stock, my book is back: as a newer, more up-to-date *revised edition* oh yes. | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 7 months ago

Hello Southend

Views from the longest pier in the world | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 7 months ago

A dissertation about garden festivals

Archiving my terrible academic efforts digitally, so that I can throw away some old papers | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 7 months ago

My internet shoebox

Hello RSS subscribers I've added a shoebox to this website. It's a place to put digital odd-and-ends. Bits of old stuff. Scanned documents. Half-arsed ideas, abandoned projects, snippets and scraps. Putting them here means I can delete them from my hard drive, or throw away some … | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 7 months ago

De-enshittifying digital photos

I can't decide what to do with my thousands of digital photos that are littered across the web and my hard drive. What a mess. If you lot have any suggestions, I'm here for them. | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 7 months ago

How teams remember

New on my mind: thoughts about teams and memory. What do you need in an organisation to make remembering happen? Starting to think there's a whole book for me to write about this. It starts with this post. | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 9 months ago

Three reasons why government should hire more writers

Three things I've seen on the internet recently have given me three reasons why government (and other orgs too) should pay more attention to, and spend more money on, writers and the clarity they bring. (I mean yes, this is also the rantings of a writer who's looking for work. Bu … | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 10 months ago

RSI notes

My story of pain and painkillers | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 11 months ago

Lovely Llyn

We enjoyed a break in north Wales, on the Llyn peninsula | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 11 months ago

Speaking at Agile in the City

My first speaking gig for a while, and it's just down the road in Bath | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 11 months ago

Another test

Testing stuff. Honestly you can just ignore this | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 1 year ago

Slide inertia

Slides have inertia; they live on in duplicated presentations for years. That's not always a good thing. | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 1 year ago

First drafts are good for clichés

Yes, you should avoid clichés in your writing. But in your bad first drafts, they can be quite helpful. Especially for your editor. | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 1 year ago

Three good presentations

Watch these pressos to see how good presenting is done | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 1 year ago

Clip Recaps turns YouTube into text

I tried a website that claims to generate short text summaries of YouTube vids, and it seems to work | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 1 year ago

Playdate's human comms

Observations on Panic's admirable skill at making a product announcement video that does things right | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 1 year ago

My Playdate pal

Some thoughts on Playdate, with a bit of useful background info on how terrible I am at videogames | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 1 year ago

No x 4

An instructive piece of calligraphy | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 1 year ago

Things people say about my working in the open training course

A few snippets of feedback worth archiving | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 1 year ago

Detached from reality

I helped Kayley Hignell at Citizens Advice with a piece of long-form writing about the current state of welfare benefits in the UK. | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 1 year ago

Opinionhavers are the new stakeholders

Thinking out loud about "stakeholders" as "opinionhavers", and why good open comms can help with all that stuff | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 1 year ago

A simple portfolio HTML template

I hired Elliott Cost to redesign usethehumanvoice.com, and now the template he created is available to all | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 1 year ago

Happy to help

TLDR: I'm available for new work, as of April. Give us a bell if you're interested. | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 1 year ago

Broken post

The conversation that took place between me and a member of Post Office staff today, when I tried to post a book to another country. | Continue reading


@gilest.org | 1 year ago