(349) Freelancing

I don’t really know what to say about this one other than this is it. After 10 years, 1 day and 351 episodes, this is the last one. Thank you to everyone who has been involved; our interviewees, our hosts, the folk who have been involved in the Signal groups (which will continue past the […]

Ever organised an event and just assumed “accessible” meant a ramp at the front door? This week on WB40, Michelle O’Connor — co-founder of the Access Given conference — explains why that’s nowhere near enough, and what actually changes when you design an event around access needs from the start rather than bolting them on […]

On this week’s show, Julia and Nick meet Matthew Knight to discuss freelancing, community-building and the shifting economics of self-employed work. Matthew, self-employed since the age of 15, runs several communities supporting freelancers, with particular focus on mental health, strategy professionals and those new to self-employment. The conversation explores how the freelance market has evolved […]

On this week’s show, Nick and Julia meet Phil Clark to discuss the surprisingly complex world of technology procurement, and why it’s a profession almost nobody plans to enter but many find genuinely engaging once they do. Phil walks through procurement’s longstanding branding problem and CIPS’s efforts to fix it, including the QCD (Quality, Cost, […]

On this week’s show, Matt and Nick meet Chengwei Liu, professor of strategy and behavioural science at Imperial College, London, to discuss the role of luck in decision making — and why we routinely underestimate it. Chengwei traces his own serendipitous path from consulting in Singapore to a PhD at Cambridge, and explains why so […]

On this week’s show, Matt and Lisa meet Dan Bowsher to discuss Good Enough Chats, his podcast focused on men’s mental health through lived experience. Dan founded Good Enough Chats following his own experience of burnout, anxiety and depression, which left him feeling profoundly isolated. His podcast deliberately features ordinary men — not celebrities or […]

On this week’s show, Matt Ballantine and Julia Bellis meet Sian Basker, co-founder of Data Orchard, to discuss what data maturity actually means for organisations — and what a decade of benchmarking data reveals about who’s doing it well and why. Sian explains how Data Orchard‘s assessment tool, now used by nearly 20,000 people across […]

On this week’s show, Matt and the team meet Shaline Manhertz and Kristianah Fasunloye to discuss their business partnership, which began formally in 2018 when Shaline’s cancer diagnosis forced a pivot from individual business plans to joint working. The conversation explores how their partnership survived extraordinary pressure by rejecting the conventional 50/50 model in favour […]

On this week’s show, Matt and Nick meet Alexander Feick, Vice President of eSentire Labs, to discuss his book “On Trust and AI” and why organisations need fundamentally different approaches to govern AI systems. Alex explains that whilst traditional computers multiply human intent predictably, generative AI acts more like an autonomous agent capable of creating […]

On this week’s show, Lisa and Julia meet Emma Bruce, Software Engineering manager. The conversation explores the often-overlooked transition from individual contributor to engineering manager, examining why technical excellence doesn’t automatically translate to management success and what skills actually matter when leading teams. Emma discusses the historical lack of training for engineering managers and how […]