Matt’s back from /NEW Conference in Newcastle and has a lot to unpack. Liam missed out this year, so this episode is a whistle-stop debrief of the highlights: talks, panels, stickers, and a few recurring themes that kept surfacing across the two days.
The conference theme was Human in the Loop, and while Matt deliberately stuck to the non-AI track, AI still found its way into nearly every conversation. Not because it was forced, but because the same questions kept coming up: who’s in control, who’s being listened to, and why do we keep ignoring the lessons we already know?
We cover:
- Matt’s first fully scripted talk — Everything is Too Hard — and why difficulty shouldn’t be a badge of honour
- Liz Fong Jones’ keynote: AI is like chocolate — don’t put it in every recipe
- Why “are you doing AI?” is the new “are you doing BYOD?”, and why it’s the wrong question
- Simone Bennett on automation and guardrails: automate correction, not just validation
- The 80/15/5 split — most of what you build isn’t unique, so stop pretending it is
- The WITH panel on imposter syndrome, confidence, and carrying an air horn to meetings
- Why confidence isn’t the absence of doubt, it’s the willingness to tackle the unknown
- Matt’s infamous hospital Active Directory disaster (and why asking for help saved him)
- Maria Padisetti on why brilliant people struggle to be heard, the eye-roll that lost the room, and why “smart didn’t get me the cheque, empathy did”
- Dan Godden on change management, and the surprising fact: the biggest fear of every employee over 45 is being made obsolete
- Victoria Aspden on decision-making, the beauty of a good old table, and the concept of data debt
- Why AI is a multiplier, and if you multiply garbage, you get 10x garbage
A lot of ideas circled the same centre: the problems aren’t new, only the substrate has changed. And if we’d been doing what we said we were doing all along, most of the hard parts wouldn’t be hard at all.
🍻 Tonight’s Drinks
No beers tonight, Liam’s still recovering from a recent night out at Sunday Road Brewing, and Matt’s running on conference afterglow and not much else.
Links from the Episode
- /NEW Conference
- Liz Fong Jones — keynote: AI is like chocolate
- Simone Bennett / Buildkite — From Delivery to Assembly Line
- Maria Padisetti / Digital Armour — Why Brilliant People Struggle to Be Heard
- Dan Godden / SolveSimple — Stop Rolling Out, Start Bringing People Along
- Victoria Aspden — How to Make Good Decisions
- Fadila Fidina - Change is Only Good when Measured
- Matt’s blog post — If AI Is Not Delivering Value, This Is Probably Why
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Cheers! 🍻