Signals

The Encode Layer

Most brand strategies are written for humans. The problem is that the things executing them now are not.

Inside Five Corporate Rebrands: Five Rules for Making Brand Change Work

Most rebrands are a mistake. After working inside five corporate rebrands across technology, agencies, media, and heavy industry, one lesson is clear. A logo change means nothing unless the company itself changes.

Brand inside the machine

The brand book sits in a shared drive. Polite. Unopened. Meanwhile the tools hum. Here is what to do about it.

Your Instincts Are Wrong

I booked a one-way ticket to Shanghai with a beginner's Mandarin and no plan. What I learned there still shapes everything I do.

Curiosity Without End

It starts with Bayes in seventeentwentysomething. Why the habits of an eighteenth-century Presbyterian minister still explain how the most powerful AI systems in the world actually work.

Coke Is Jingling All the Way

Coke has 137 years of its own advertising to train an AI on. The result is the perfect case study on the advantage long-term brands have in the AI era — and a warning for everyone else.

I Still Want My Hovercar

We do not want less. We want better. We want progress without the punish. On the economics, engineering, and stubborn optimism of the green transition.