Many moons ago, I caught one of Bill Hicks' last performances in London before his untimely death at the age of 32. Bill's stage persona was that of a tough-talking misanthrope, and he often talked about the impact of human beings on the environment. Indeed, he referred to our species as a virus with shoes.

So here I am, years later, with children and wondering about the kind of world I'll leave them in when I'm gone. I know our consumption is killing the environment, but I feel powerless to do anything about it. Anyway, I'm into digital - so how can digital solutions empower me to reduce the footprint I leave behind and foster hope for my kids' future?

On this episode of LDN, I'm joined by Jason Barrett. Jason is the founder of Mondra, which is a platform that allows food producers to monitor, improve and communicate the environmental impact of their products, so that we can make informed decisions about what we buy.

Digital Transformation is an all-pervasive term that means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. For many, it’s about apps: the user experience of them. The convenience. But what many forget is that the digital they experience is the tip of the iceberg. How the interfaces we use connect to other parts of the systems that serve us, and the business processes we rely on, is where the real magic is.

I’m joined on this episode of LDN by Jack Hanison. Jack is the Founder and Managing Director of Adaptivity. Jack and his team specialise in helping organisations unlock value within their businesses by quickly and reliably integrating their processes and technology.

There was a more innocent time in computer technology, before viruses, before hacking, but those days are in the past. We’re now a networked society, hooking our bank accounts, social profiles and by extension our brains together. What brings us together also makes us vulnerable.

And with the revelations of foreign interference in the 2016 US Presidential elections, and the Brexit referendum, what does all this mean for the security of our democracy?

Joining me today to explore these questions is cyber security expert Davey McGlade. Davey has worked for many years in systems engineering, architecture and cyber security. He has advised and led on security initiatives for the British Government, and has also worked internationally with the US State Department, Homeland Security, Secret Service and NSA.

We’re now more than six months since the first COVID-19 lockdown, and even now government advice remains to work from home where possible. With our city economies built around commuter and business activity that may never return, this episode explores what impact COVID is going to have on the economy, environment and social cohesion of our cities.

On this episode, we're joined by Ciara Walker (Twitter: @cwalkerinsight), who is a construction economist with a proven track record forecasting the challenges and opportunities in the construction industry. Skilled in translating economics into real world impacts and simplifying complex concepts to provide usable insight, Ciara works to shine a light on an uncertain future and deeply understand the driving forces underlying the construction market.

Organisations seek to transform themselves for various reasons – often to increase their value, sometimes for other reasons, often for reasons that are unclear even to themselves.

Now organisations are having to adapt to the “New Normal of COVID-19, and whilst this is encouraging many to move out of their comfort zones and try something new, often, with cashflow squeezed and the market changing around them, there’s a huge price to pay for getting transformation wrong. Worse still, A Harvard Business Review study shows 70% of large-scale business transformations fail to meet their goals.

The Hero Transformation Playbook sets out EXACTLY how to design and deliver successful transformations and large-scale change programs with the HERO™️ Transformation Framework. Offering the best chance of success, it provides a clear method to help you design a transformation for maximum enterprise value and achieve a successful outcome despite the statistics.

I’m joined by the authors, Arif Harbott and Cuan Mulligan, both seasoned digital consultants, in this very special episode.

A lot has changed over the last few months. We’re in the beginnings of a recession, we’re heading into a new normal and we can’t work together as we used to.

The future used to belong to in person interactions - but how is this changing?

Processes and Tools are important but individuals and interactions are still important - so how do we square the circle of working together without being together? How do we stay apart yet combine our creativity and energy?

I’m joined in this episode by Andy Scotland, Head of Delivery at Kainos, who has some great insights to share about how to make collaboration work in the age of COVID-19.

Follow us on twitter and say “Hi!”, or catch up on previous episodes via our site www.ldnpodcast.com

COVID-19 has been a global economic, social and human disaster, the likes of which we haven’t seen in over 100 years. Like previous pandemics, it looks likely to fundamentally change how we live, socialise and work.

In season 3 of LDN, I’m joined by experts in their fields who are leading the change. We’ll be covering topics including how to coordinate huge delivery teams across multiple timezones. How technical and data integration is a key pillar to helping brands adapt to the new normal. We’ll dig into what that new normal means for the future of our cities and what it means for the future of how we work.

We’ll also be talking to people who have been fundamental to enabling the government’s response to the COVID pandemic, as well as people who are experts in unlocking and accelerating organisational change to deliver real value in times of uncertainty.

I’m really excited about what’s in store for this season - and I’m really looking forward to having you join me and my guests to try to make sense of these transformative times.

Follow us on twitter and say “Hi!”, or catch up on previous episodes via our site www.ldnpodcast.com

In this episode I'm joined by Duncan Drury and we go slightly beyond our mission to talk digital in the UK and Europe to look outwards towards the rest of the world. 

Duncan and I met in our first week at University in London. He was studying Anthropology, being inspired to do so by a life-changing school exchange where he spent a month in Tanzania. Both Duncan and I wound up getting caught up in the dot com boom and both our careers took us into Technology.

Duncan's journey took him back to Tanzania, where he helped set up an internet cafe, later working for Christian Aid as its Head of Global Infrastructure and Connectivity. He now works for Nethope, where he supports their efforts to further deliver connectivity around the world.

If you enjoyed this podcast, please recommend us to a friend. As usual, you'll find show notes on www.ldnpodcast.com. Follow us on Twitter @LDNPodcast, and please do leave us a review wherever you find this podcast.

Season 2 kicks off with some great conversation with an old friend, Steve Limmer. Steve joins Ciarán in the studio to reflect on the 18 years since the Manifesto for Agile Software Development was drafted. 

We talk about where it has made an impact, where it is still encountering resistance, and where it might lead us into its twenties.

About the Show:

LDN is a regular podcast about digital, and also where the digital meets the human. We’ll be based out of London, with a European outlook. We’ll be featuring good conversation with practitioners in and around London, who aren’t professional talking heads, but people who “do the do”.