The Progress Jury

Delivery apps - do they deliver freedom or are they turning us into a nation of lazy incompetents missing out on the simple pleasure of making an effort to do something?

Members of the Progress Jury made the trek in blizzard conditions to join the debate and give their opinion.

The Progress Jury talks about whether public sensitivity about offending people has gone too far. One one side there's a legitimate interest in reducing offensive talk and on the other whether our definition of offensive has gone from legitimate to absurd. Has moral outrage killed humour?

Listen on and find out what The Progress Jury found our (including that the Irish Centre has a pub quiz every Wednesday night at 8pm. 

Recorded on a cold winter's day, this episode is about insulation, heat pumps and community heating. 

With the cost of heating rocketing, it has started to dawn on us that stopping that heat from escaping might be a good idea. What are the options and what does the future hold for heating UK homes?  If you've never really thought about insulation before, this is the episode for you!

Hey everyone, the revamp of #BadProgress has started. I've turned to some nostalgia to kick-off, partly as I haven't got any new material available.

Do you remember lock-down? It seems a distant memory now but here I am with my friend David as we sit outside a coffee shop in Kings Heath, Birmingham in lockdown. The setting (although hard to hear) provides perfect fodder on gentrification and its absurdity. 

Listen to remind yourself about chimineas, chalk-paint, making stuff out of pallets, the low-traffic neighbourhood, posh coffee and lots more!

Apologies for the bad recording quality (it was hard times)...

The world is changing rapidly. As we try and take stock of shifting expectations, power-relationships and living conditions we find that it is often the case that noble aspirations turn into failed attempts to engineer change in ways that alienate people and sometimes make things worse. What's worse is that people don't listen to the other side of the argument and there's often more than a hint of preaching involved, rather than common-sense. Bad Progress? questions whether progress needs more work.

It is hard to deny that people are not as happy compared with times past, despite everything being regenerated, infused with positive messages and the rest. Of course, it depends on individual circumstances and there are the lucky ones who we are all desparately trying to emulate. With little success in my case.

Let me share with you talk about life, work, the world and technology, sometimes on my own but more often with a group of discussion-hungry guests in a bar or cafe in Birmingham. Please subscribe to Bad Progress? if you like the sound of it, it is on all major podcast channels or from my website.

With the chance of buying your own home now ruled out for lots of people, let alone living the lifestyle that social media glamorises, many of us are turning to desperate measures.

Nyla and guests talk about the growing problem of extreme risk-taking becoming an accepted way of living. From crypto schemes to Only Fans and social media scams, The Progress Jury talks about the way that people are taking a chance on things, why risky behaviour makes sense to people and whether there are better ideas out there.

Join us for more discussion from cafes and pubs, proving that you don't need to be an expert to comment expertly on the issues that affect our lives.

With Covid turning education on its head, I talk to Dr Tony Breslin about what he has discovered about schooling during the pandemic and its aftermath. We look at lockdown education through the lens of different groups of kids, whilst Tony reminds us that the gap between the best achieving schools and the worst is not getting narrower – it is growing wider. Find out how personalised education, more home learning and a greater social role for schools may the legacies of lockdown learning.

Welcome to Any Better Ideas, the show where I talk to people about what to do differently to sort out the big and small problems of today. From well thought-out theories to wild speculation, I put all ideas to the test in my hothouse challenge. In the process, I hope to entertain, smash echo-chambers and lift the lid on hidden strategies that might provide the answers to the problems we all groan about. Nyla.

We are used to recruiting based on leadership experience and looking for evidence from previous roles.

Given the variable success of this strategy, should we be looking at a completely fresh approach? What about thinking about behaviour rather than background?

As part of looking for radical solutions to sticky problems, Nyla talks about the potential to appoint based on behaviour in non-traditional contexts (in other words not via work). This could bring diversity and raw talent to senior levels of organisations.

Nyla shares the awkward revival of her podcast: So What do I Know? From being indecisive to being crap at social media and a first guest who really wants to talk; a few short days has brought a whirlwind of emotion and learning.