Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 18/09/2026I think it’s brilliant, if what you’re looking to do is encourage people to work in the open. Lowering the barrier to entry is super important & good for the community building side If you’re looking to tell narratives of change using that openness as raw material, you need newer media 030
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 14/08/2026I’ve had three likes on Bluesky in half a day, which is pretty much viral for this platform #engagement 010
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 13/08/2026+1. For the blogging bit, it’s also such a tell that there are other problems with an organisation (+ leadership). Mainly lack of strategy, over-dependence on process instead of quality, and an old-fashioned understanding of risk… Fixable, but not easy. Glad you’re still indy blogging! 030
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 05/08/2026Though I’ll also say that if GitHub hadn’t been such an opaque nightmare, or if wysiwyg editors hadn’t been such buggy messes, none of this would have been necessary 010
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 05/08/2026I’ve been vibe-coding my personal website and I’m drunk on my powers 131
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 10/07/2026Have you seen the documentary? It’s wild. Recommended 100
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 10/07/2026Lovely slides and fun presentation @jukes.ie 😀 110
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 06/07/2026Salt-N-Pepa Extra commendation for the considered use of caps and hyphens 010
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 02/07/2026Guldi and Armitage’s book on the longue durée of history really informed my thinking when we were making the case for data-centricity (well, investment in data infrastructure) at GDS back in 2016 110
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 02/07/2026Yes! The point about the different speeds of development between technology and traditional academic publishing is well-made, and the new kinds of research new technologies engender is fascinating too… 010
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 24/06/2026Yes, though it’s subject to change depending on whether it’s more important that they live on land or that they hatch eggs. Like chicken, before the Babylonian Talmud 210
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 11/06/2026+1 also I saw a post saying everyone calling for under-16s bans needs to bring a plan (and funding!) for welcoming, safe, free and all-weather in-person spaces for teens. I think about that a lot. 110
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 06/06/2026I mean, they *did* tell us that marketing careers were at risk from AI😂 100
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 04/06/2026Oh I absolutely agree, it really should be (and fwiw I think agencies/companies should budget for consultancy fees for experts 🤷🏻♀️) 010
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 03/06/2026Absolutely ask for payment! Or a charitable donation in your name. I’d also ask for: What credit you want/don’t want for you input Sign-off for any direct quotations And (in an abundance of caution) who is paying for/sponsored the report 210
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 20/05/2026You’d think the journo would have clicked through the press release and seen that the report is from a project sponsored by a niche longevity/supplement company (also on the board)…but no. oxfordlongevityproject.org/our-sponsoroxfordlongevityproject.orgGeneral 2 — Oxford Longevity Project 030
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 16/05/2026I think that presumption is incorrect, I’m afraid: there’s a NAO report from 2023 noting the weaknesses of the original system, including duplication of Home Office data. More detail here: shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/05...shkspr.mobiUK Government Kicks Out PalantirThe UK Government, for all its faults, is pretty good at publishing contracts it has awarded. That's why I get depressed when I see rage-bait nonsense about how companies have been award "Top Secret" ... 042
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 13/05/2026You could go if you attended an event there as press. I wrote for a tiny blog with 10s of readers. Didn’t matter. The events were all slightly fever-dreamy: Whoopi Goldberg leading a panel about Battlestar Galactica, a lesser Kennedy introducing Anjelique Kidjo. The crustaceans? Magnificent 150
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 13/05/2026Even during the financial crisis of 2008-2009, the seafood buffet at the UN building in New York was off the hook. I have never seen such shrimp, and I grew up in a shrimp-loving Scandinavian nation 110
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 21/04/2026Ah! I see. +1 to the goth ageing paper below. Also (maybe) Haenfler’s work on subcultures more widely 010
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 21/04/2026Happy to help tho not sure I fully understand request… Jennifer Silva might be the best bet, though Jack Halberstam more provocative in rejecting chronormativity (how is that book 20 ys old already?!) daily.jstor.org/queer-time-t...daily.jstor.orgQueer Time: The Alternative to “Adulting” - JSTOR DailyWhat constitutes adulthood has never been self-evident or value-neutral. Queer lives follow their own temporal logic. 100
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 07/04/2026Rarely was a quote so clearly destined to show up in transformation/design pitch decks 010
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 07/04/2026“To be entirely clear: most AI problems that fail, do so because there was no service design involved, rather than because the AI wasn’t good enough.” From puntofisso.net/blog/posts/t...puntofisso.net15 things I have learned launching AI projects - Part 2What does AI adoption means in practice Part 1 was a preamble based on framing AI in the context of building solutions. Here, we get a bit more practical detail. 130
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 03/04/2026 Services are big this year sequoiacap.com/article/serv...sequoiacap.comServices: The New SoftwareThe next $1T company will be a software company masquerading as a services firm. 021
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 18/03/2026I think Google have been doing that for a while? 100
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 15/03/2026(Writers have had this problem/benefit since literacy became widespread, of course.) 001
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 15/03/2026One of the arguments I’ve been looking for www.frank.computer/blog/2026/03...frank.computerOn genAI: Was prototyping really a bottleneck?I keep hearing folks claim that the fact we can ‘prototype’ so quickly now is a good thing (thanks to modern genAI). But what if the slow parts about prototyping are actually what makes it worth doing... 141
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 12/03/2026Thought this was a beautiful post, thank you for writing! ”Without APIs being accessible to individuals like me, countless websites, passion projects, and even art, would never exist.” 110
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 11/03/2026Do you and @harrisonpim.com know each other? Introducing you if not :) 100
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 10/03/2026Yes! So good. Couldn’t agree more. And it’s a much more intuitive way of showing the value of well-designed APIs than the ones we previously had (hands up if you’ve had to depend on Citymapper as the best example in the past 🙋🏻♀️) 020
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 10/03/2026Also one of the better ways of talking about why data governance matters, which has been SO HARD to get buy-in for: ”LLMs consume data, but they don’t understand what it is without good descriptions and context. So it starts with good data governance.” 130
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 05/03/2026Yep. It also reminds me that the explicit policy aim of child care and social care was to give women time to work, largely in manufacturing. There’s no way anglophone centrist governments are going to be that focussed, especially when there’s a jobs shortage 020
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 03/03/2026💯 I’d add that I’ve experienced some automated systems now responding to ”speak to a person”, though that might be a US thing 010
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 28/02/2026Plus, to frame it in a non-snobby way, having worked as an editor/ghost writer: Even when tools improve, the TRICKY bit is that to use instagram well, you still need to be able to take great photos, have a clear aesthetic, stories to tell and do all of these consistently. Surprisingly rare 000
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 28/02/2026I think instagram had 10+ filters, and even then those early timelines were pretty samey. So perhaps not so surprising that the writing we’re seeing feels v derivative and dull 120
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 28/02/2026I don’t think you’re being snobby! At the moment, the retail LLMs are pretty much at the level of quality that the first instagram filters were for photo editing. But there’s only 3 mainstream options, and people tend to use the one that’s the weakest stylistically (ChatGPT) 110
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 23/02/2026Blog search (if only as a reminder of a different web) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_...en.wikipedia.orgGoogle Blog Search - Wikipedia 000
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 03/02/2026I imagine it could be, in a parallel to the case of California students being allowed to choose an alternative form of assessment when it came to dissecting animals in biology class: stanforddaily.com/2019/04/29/b...stanforddaily.comBanning Dissection: Where California Goes, So Goes the NationIn 1987, Jennifer Graham, a 15-year old California high school student, refused to dissect a frog because she believed doing so would be immoral. She asked her teacher for an alternative assignment, b... 030
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 29/01/2026I’m so sorry about all of this! I’ve found lawyers to be pretty careless abt what information is shared — legally covered, as in your case, but not careful 100
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 27/01/2026Or barring that, just a functionality that lets you export your chats with the chatbots and ”live agents”. So you have a trusted record that the gov has told you to ignore their emails 030
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 27/01/2026A practical application of the ”ethical tech” debates we’ve seen in the UK public sector: a single log of all the communications you’ve received from the government about your case 110
Ella Fitzsimmons @fitzsimple.bsky.social · 23/01/2026Far too self-critical :) ”Like a comedian, Chomsky knows what material works and he knows when to use it,” is an especially good observation. Sounds like a fascinating day! 010
