Week Notes (9 - 15 June)
Good conversations & creative thinking
This week reminded me how much I value being in conversation. Not just meetings or zooms but real, thoughtful exchanges with people who care about making things better. Whether in the arts, education, tech or beyond, these conversations have been generous, energising and sometimes long overdue.
One of the joys of stepping into freelance life has been having the space to connect. Old colleagues. New contacts. People I’ve admired from afar and finally have time to meet. Rebuilding relationships and forming new ones has become a core part of how I want to work.
There’s a common thread running through these chats. This is an extraordinary sector, full of smart and driven people. It is also tough. Several people warned me that freelance life could feel isolating. The best advice I got - build your network before you need it. I have taken that to heart. The freedom to connect, share and listen has been one of the biggest shifts in mindset so far.
I’ve had some great meetings this week that I hope will lead to future collaborations. We talked openly about what’s working and what isn’t. We swapped ideas, shared challenges and started to sketch out possibilities. These are the kinds of conversations that shape how I think. The are thoughtful, strategic and rooted in the real world.
I also spent time on a live project this week, getting properly hands-on. It has been a pleasure to roll up my sleeves again. Every project has its tangle of complexities, but I enjoy working through it. Solving problems. Building something that fits the organisation rather than squeezing it into a fixed model.
I had meetings at the Royal Opera House. The foyer was noisy, chaotic and full of excited young people who had just seen a schools matinee and were excitedly discussing the show and marveling at the costumes. It was not the best space for a meeting but it was a brilliant reminder of why this work matters. If they don’t see it, they can’t imagine themselves in it. Hats off to ROH for making this happen and inspiring those young people.
Outside of work, I booked to give blood. I saw a BBC piece about the need for 200,000 new donors. I had not given in a while and it spurred me into action. Proof that a well-placed story still has the power to shift behaviour.
I also joined a fascinating session on leadership in the age of AI. I wrote a separate post about it, but the session is still turning over in my head. We need leaders who can hold complexity, act ethically and bring real human clarity to fast-paced change.
Leadership in the Age of AI
In a change to usual service, I recently attended a really thought-provoking webinar led by Jamie Bykov-Brett from the Executive AI Institute hosted by The Corporate Governance Institute. It was the engaging, thoughtful and practical in equal message and really made me stop in my tracks on AI so I thought it was worth sharing my reflections.
We had another visit from the tooth fairy and I spent a lot of time walking, including across Blackfriars Bridge when our wedding first dance song came on my headphones and I had to resist the urge to dance across the bridge.
So that was the week. Good conversations. Creative thinking. And a few small ways to show up and make a difference. All part of building something meaningful.
Watching / Reading / Listening
📖 AI now has 800m users but is it in the hands that need it? from Martha Lane Fox
The report is crystal clear that the speed of adoption is like nothing we’ve seen before.
All of this is reminded me that the AI moment isn’t coming. It’s already here. The pace is breathtaking.
In 2025, the most important question isn’t whether AI can write a poem or summarise a contract. It is whether it helps build a fairer, smarter, more inclusive society.
📖 Ready vs willing from Anna Mack, The Portfolio Career Operating System
Having just launched The Knighton Group, this post really resonated with me.
You don’t need to feel 100% prepared, just open. You don’t need to exude confidence, just hope. You don’t need to feel ready, just willing. Willing to trust yourself. Willing to take a risk. Willing to step up and step out and step forward when the thing you once dreamed of creating, to your greatest surprise, comes off.
📖 What the ancient Greeks taugth me about podcasting from Podcast Strategy Weekly
What resonated with me was the importance of community and a sense of belonging, which can be created digitally, in these examples through Podcasts. I would assert that it could also be applied to digital theatre as well as live theatre.
At the theatre, people learned about themselves and their place in the world. They socialised, they shopped, they heard stories of the gods and of their own history. They could feel part of something bigger than themselves.
📖 If the average person knew this about confidence they’d become unrecogniseable from Unfiltered by Tim Denning. This one caught my attention as someone that is establishing confidence outside and organsiation and working in a different way.
📖 What teachers want from online learning content from Cultural Content on Substack. It isn’t rocket science, clarity, consistency and relevance to the curriuclum.
📖 Substack Summer party and subs stats from Tara Conlan’s Media Morsels. Highlights include Substack now having more than 5 million paid subscriptions and more than 50 people making more than $1m per year from substack.
📖 The Importance of Writing in Business from Getting Better by Giacomo Falcone. As someone used to holding information in my head and relatively new to sharing my writing this was fascinating the level of information that Stripe writes down, both to aid communication and decision making but also inclusivity and engagement.
📺 Department Q on Netflix. Slow going but suspenseful and intriguing, only a few episodes in so far.
🎭 The Midnight Bell at Sadler’s Wells. Great to be back at Sadlers again for the second time in a month! Making time to see work is definitely a priority for me. I like Bourne’s choreography, his playfulness and sense of storytelling. Lez Brotherston’s design’s evoking the world of 1930s Soho magnificently.
Roles
Director of Development & Enterprise
📍Location: BALTIC, Gateshead
💰Salary: £70-75,000
📅 Deadline: 7 July 2025
Chair, Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse
📍Location: Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse
💰Salary: Unrenumerated
📅 Deadline: 9am, 7 July 2025
Senior Distribution & Partnerships Lead
📍Location: Channel 4, London
💰Salary: £91,000
📅 Deadline: 24 June 2025
As a reminder, The Knighton Group, offers consultancy across digital strategy, audience innovation, performance capture, streaming, rights and creative leadership. If you’d like to find out more or have a conversation about how we could work together, I’d love to hear from you.
