Piers is a regular guest on the podcast and as his day job he helps students improve their study skills are Escape Studios.

In this episode we talk about the idea of retrospectives and how they can be useful in both creative projects and everyday life. Sometimes it turns out we are a lot smarter after the fact.

With over a decade of experience working in a wide variety of sales organisations, Tom Parker combines technical expertise with real-world, quota-carrying experience.

Tom has built an impressive track record of helping B2B start-ups and SMEs achive sales excellence. Tom’s industry knowledge (along with a first-class network of partners) makes him a valuable resource. He was generous enough to share some of his expertise on how to approach sales in this conversation.

Far removed from the cheesy second hand car salesman, sales has developed into a complex business and Tom covers everything from c-suite level "revenue operations" to the techniques you can use to sell yourself in a job interview.

This is a bit of a bonus episode. I decided to see what an LLM could tell me about the uses of LLMs.

Claude was happy to oblige so I took his parts of the conversation and ran them through elevenlabs. Then I recorded my bits and edited it together.

It's a little shorter than my usual episodes as the AI voice can be a little grating, however I think there were some interesting points mentioned. We talked about the value of subjective writing, and about how Buzzfeed may have snuck into his training data.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this feedback form

Notes:

I've not changed any of the text, but I've trimmed it down a little. (This is nothing different to my regular conversations with humans) You can see the whole conversation here https://docs.google.com/document/d/15YpY0wGfbospInXOlsdB6FRQEjUz03fCDgMEKs-JrfQ

Andrew Griffith is a man of many hats, but all of them hang on the same sustainable business rack. Passionate about making a tangible impact on the world, Andrew simplifies the complexities of carbon jargon and advocates for supportive environmental policy. His work isn’t just about finding solutions—we already have many of those—but about bringing people along on the journey to a greener future.

As a leader at Planet Mark, a community of over 800 organizations driving toward a regenerative economy, Andrew focuses on building powerful partnerships. He believes business is personal, with success rooted in genuine, human relationships rather than impersonal transactions. Whether it's business-to-business or community-focused, Andrew is committed to unlocking the potential of regenerative business and helping organizations accelerate toward net zero and beyond.

Andrew is also deeply involved in celebrating and fostering sustainable communities. A self-confessed “community addict,” he believes that through connection and collaboration, businesses can do more good and create meaningful change.

As an active Institute of Directors Member and Ambassador for over seven years, Andrew is a prolific networker. He attributes his recent opportunities to the meaningful connections he’s built, both online and offline, advocating for authentic relationships over empty networking.

In this conversation Chris and Andrew discuss everything from the power of networking, to why gold mining companies have their eyes on landfill sites.

You can find out more about Andrew on his linked in page here https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewthomasgriffiths/

I was lucky enough to get to know Thibau ‘T’ Grumett as a student. He caught my attention because he was trying to build a cryptocurrency index fund before the rest of the world knew what a bitcoin was. Since then he has been very busy writing a book. "The Money Bible" is a handbook for your financial life and it's the sort of book I wish I had when I was younger, but I'm glad I have now.

In this episode of the podcast we talk about some of the topics the book covers. From taxes to risk assessment, from multi-million pound bonds to getting a better deal on a second hand car. It's a very interesting chat!

You can find out everything you need to know about "The Money Bible" at https://moneybible.co.uk/ and buy lots of copies because every penny goes towards providing free financial education in the UK!

In this episode Chris is joined by Philip Allin. Co-founder and CEO of Overtone. Overtone is a company that is training computers to evaluate the quality of online content. This means he is perfectly placed to talk about the most recent shift in "content creation", generative AI.

Chris and Philip talk about various AI concepts, including the "information density" of content, the strengths and weaknesses of new AI tools like ChatGPT, a deep dive into how technologies like Overtone evaluate written content and finally how you can use AI in your work. While this was recorded a few months ago it holds up well despite new developments in the field. Mostly because the core ideas behind this are more wide ranging than any particular tool.

You can find out more information about Overtone here https://overtone.ai/

If you want more information on information density there is a very entertaining podcast here https://timharford.com/2021/05/cautionary-tales-fritterin-away-genius/ which covers all sorts of stories about Claude Shannon.

Cajiten teaches a long list of topics at Pearson College, all focused around two main topics of economics and sustainability.  Our conversation covers everything from fixing world energy markets, to saving money on lasagne at the local Waitrose, to disposing of nuclear waste.  

While we do touch on a few technical issues the general points we cover are more "ways of thinking" which can be applied across the board.  

Blayne is Head of Talent Development at Pearson College London. Leading our Workfit Programme, Guaranteed Internship Scheme and MBM Executive Coaching Programme. Alongside his leadership role Blayne teaches People Management and Leadership to Undergraduate Students at the college.

In this podcast we discuss the best way to find and benefit from internships.  The growing role of Linked in and the awkward questions about money when it comes to internships.