No More Disruptors Please

Klingon disruptor and Starfleet phaser.

It’s been funny over the past decade or so where the word “disruptor” has been used. disruptor /d?s?r?pt?/ noun a person or thing that interrupts an event, activity, or process by causing a disturbance or problem. “the film follows his evolution from Hollywood star to political disruptor” One classic example has been in the fad … Read more

There Wouldn’t Be a Cost of Living Crisis if We Had Better Management

Things go up. Things go down. When this happens along a historical timeline you can see that it’s cyclical. Stock market sentiment, share prices, inflation, interest rates and economic activity in general are all examples of systems that are subject to ebbs and flows in fortunes. Ultimately economies are just rather large businesses, made up … Read more

Data-Driven Decisions

Data driven decisions - data not dates.

If there’s one thing Boris Johnson has gotten right it’s his latest statement on data-driven decisions. Yesterday, in answer to calls to end lockdown, the Prime Minister said the approach to easing would be based upon “data not dates”. The PM’s stance is encouraging on many levels, and also draws parallels with the business and … Read more

I Love Bad Data

I love bad data

As a digital marketer and copywriter, I love bad data… NOT. When I have to look at web traffic, organic visits, pay per click, social media… I look at the data. When I write a report… I look at and present the data. Writing a blog post or news article? You have to look at … Read more

Another Alternative to Amazon

The McDonaldization of Society - George RitzerWith the threat of our beloved and run-down pub, the Tumbledown Dick, being turned into a McDonald’s restaurant somebody pointed me in the direction of a very interesting book – The McDonaldization of Society.

The book, first published in 1993, is written by sociologist George Ritzer and looks at the increasing rationalisation of the world as conducted by big bureaucratic organisations such as McDonald’s. The processes used by the fast food giant streamline the production and delivery of burgers & fries, impose the division of labour, force a formal manifesto and make the company’s “character” impersonal and technocratic…

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Beetroot Books

The Money-less Man - A Year of Freeconomic Living - from Beetroot Books In my quest to find alternatives to Amazon, my latest discovery has been an interesting one.

A couple of weekends ago I made a brief trip to Avebury in Wiltshire, a picturesque little English village and home to an impressive neolithic henge monument.

Once I was home that same Sunday evening I had a sudden flash of inspiration and wondered what Britain’s leading Druid, Philip Carr-Gomm, was up to these days…

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Alternatives to Amazon: First Book Order Through the Hive

Siddhartha - Herman HesseA recent conversation on one of the comments sections of the Friends of the Tumble Down Dick website got me thinking:

“Are there any alternatives to Amazon?”

For many years now I’ve been an Amazon affiliate and earned a few pennies here and there from my web and blog posts. In all honesty, I don’t think I’ve ever had a cheque from Amazon, but one day I’ll probably earn that £25 threshold payout from linking to obscure Haynes Manuals for the Opel Manta.

When the opportunity came up to make some pennies for the Tumbledown campaign, I set up an Amazon affiliate account.  I haven’t looked yet, but I don’t expect it’s earned very much at all. (Update: I just looked – Zero pence)

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