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Sharon O'Dea

@sharonodea.com
10K followers 1.8K following 2.7K posts

Consulting, writing and speaking on comms, collaboration & future of work. Cofounder, Lithos Partners. Author, Digital Communications at Work. Gym bore. Gets about a bit.

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Sharon O'Dea
Stefan Czerniawski @pubstr.at · 29/09/2026
"Quite often the technology is simply the place where a much messier organisational problem has chosen to make itself visible." @sharonodea.com in characteristic top form on what ineffective search demonstrates about intranets and their organisations - much of which resonates much more widely
sharonodea.com
Intranet Findability: Why Employees Can’t Find Information
Better search won't fix an intranet nobody can find anything on. Here's why findability fails in complex organisations, and how to diagnose it with research, card sorting and tree testing.
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 29/09/2026
Went into the office on a Saturday to write a talk about workplace interruptions, because it was the only day nobody could interrupt me. I also did improv in Dutch, combining two things I don't enjoy in one tidy package. Weeknote 2026/39: sharonodea.com/2026/09/29/w...
sharonodea.com
Weeknote 2026/39: Organisational dark matter
Organisational dark matter: 99 hypotheses, content nobody reads, a Saturday spent escaping Teams, improv in Dutch, and Kusama at the Stedelijk.
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 27/09/2026
I can’t believe Oasis have made me yearn for the relative fairness of the Glastonbury ticket scramble.
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 27/09/2026
Still nothing 😭😭 Had anyone else had theirs for the Amsterdam dates?
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 26/09/2026
Me refreshing my email till that Oasis code arrives
static.klipy.com
Waiting
ALT: Waiting
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 25/09/2026
One of the British things I miss most are Normal Lunch Sandwiches. Here in Amsterdam there are plenty of gourmet €15, 1000-calorie sandwich options. It's just too much. A £5 Pret or M&S special, a Tesco Meal Deal. Hits the spot without ruining your appetite for dinner, at a reasonable price.
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 25/09/2026
Good morning, Campers! How your email finds me this morning
Wonky road barrier, collapsed on one side, with two trash bags balanced on it
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 24/09/2026
Jon and I are talking Digital Communications at Work with VMA Group today, 1–2pm BST. Online, free of lanyards. Bring your awkward questions about channels nobody uses. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/meet-the-a...
eventbrite.co.uk
Meet The Authors: In Conversation with Sharon O'Dea and Jonathan Phillips
Meet The Authors: Sharon O'Dea and Jonathan Phillips on how to design digital channels that boost employee engagement and experience
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 22/09/2026
To a 17 year old, with no credit record, on a house in negative equity.
static.klipy.com
Sure Jan
ALT: Sure Jan
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 22/09/2026
Truly, the man has negative rizz
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 22/09/2026
One of many elements of this story that feel like key information is missing
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 22/09/2026
Fuck me. You have to ask why the Metro published an uncritical puff piece on this grifter.
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 22/09/2026
Very much this.
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 22/09/2026
£20k charity donations and £2k to your wife?
static.klipy.com
Jimmy Hill's Chinny Reckon
ALT: Jimmy Hill's Chinny Reckon
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 22/09/2026
Aww thanks mate ☺️
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 22/09/2026
Very little of this chap’s story adds up, and yet it’s presented here as advice. The PR who managed to place this bullshit deserved a raise.
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 22/09/2026
Especially when the story itself contains family assistance, extraordinary credit conditions, and a generational economic crash, and someone selling financial advice on YouTube.
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 22/09/2026
The real problem isn't that he's rich, insufferable, full of shit, or even that he's a landlord. It's the trick whereby a person's own success is presented as proof that structural constraints don't exist. “I managed it” becomes “anyone can”. “Anyone can” becomes “poverty is your own fault”.
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 22/09/2026
He also wants us to know the outfit he's wearing cost less than £100. This comes shortly after telling us he spends £550,000 a year renting his Dubai home and £20,000 A MONTH on travel. Avocado-toast discourse has achieved its final form.
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 22/09/2026
I particularly enjoyed learning that the £6,000 monthly utility bill is partly because of the swimming pool, hot tub and sprinkler system. Young people: have you considered cancelling Netflix? Samuel: regrettably the hot tub continues to exert inflationary pressure.
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 22/09/2026
Then his monthly budget. £100k income. £45,833 rent. £20k charity. £20k travel. £6k utilities. £5k food. £2k wife's “no questions asked” money 🚩 £98,833 in all. And somewhere, Martin Lewis has just felt a disturbance in the Force.
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 22/09/2026
His advice for young people includes sourcing property deals, forming joint ventures and finding investors. Which is useful. Next week: “Can't afford lunch? Have you considered a leveraged acquisition?”
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 22/09/2026
He also says blaming landlords for high rents makes no sense because “the market determines the price”. My brother in Christ, YOU ARE THE MARKET. The rent isn't delivered to your house each morning by the Bank of England's weather balloon.
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 22/09/2026
To recap the universal wealth formula: • be 17 during the aftermath of a historic financial crash • obtain 100% property finance • have a family member able to hold the property legally • acquire distressed assets • wait Young people simply don't want it enough.
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 22/09/2026
The interview doesn't explain what the lender understood about that arrangement, which feels like quite an interesting detail to glide past. But never mind. By 20 he had seven properties, helped by buying when, in his own words, sellers couldn't sell and were trapped in negative equity.
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 22/09/2026
Step one: be 17 in 2009. Step two: buy a £100,000 house with 100% bank financing immediately after the global financial system has fallen through its own arse. Step three: because you're too young to own it legally, have your stepdad go on the deeds. Why, many are asking, aren't Gen Z doing this?
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 22/09/2026
A landlord making £100,000 a month says young people have “no excuse to be poor”. Excellent. I love financial advice. Gather round, children, let's examine how he himself stopped being poor. metro.co.uk/2026/09/20/i...
metro.co.uk
I’m a landlord making £100,000 a month — young people have no excuse to be poor
Samuel bought his first home aged 17 with a 100% mortgage.
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 21/09/2026
Ahh of course it is. Phew.
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 21/09/2026
Local folks: are solpersteines removed for cleaning or anything? Only two different plaques on my usual walk to walk are missing. Normal maintainence, or is there something nefarious/anti-semitic going on here?
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Reposted by Sharon O'Dea
Jack Tindale @jacktindale.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Unless he’s raising an army in the Spanish Netherlands and claim the throne for himself with support of France and the Habsburg powers, this should not be leading the BBC headlines for the third day in a row. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Earl Spencer tells BBC Harry and Meghan's media treatment echoes what happened to Diana
Princess Diana's brother says she was "really brought low by all that criticism" and he saw her in "tears of despair".
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 20/09/2026
That too. Anyone still on there is lending it legitimacy it does not deserve
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 20/09/2026
At the very fucking least, stop lending the platform credibility by posting government updates on it.
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 19/09/2026
I had a vivid dream last night that someone I know had decked out their house for Halloween but all the pumpkins were in the style of Yayoi Kusama and I need someone to do this now cos I live in an upstairs apartment so I can’t.
New York style stoop decked out for Halloween, but the pumpkins are in the style of Yayoi Kusama
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 17/09/2026
It’s still useful for groups. But the feed is such a shitshow now that the only time I engage with the feed is to click “Not Interested”
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 17/09/2026
Oh god me too. I keep having Nigel Farage and shitty nostalgic British Patriot nonsense pushed into my feed
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 17/09/2026
This is exactly it. In my head this had such early 10s energy, I was genuinely shocked to learn it was more recent. At least it means there’s at least a half decade before its inevitable revival.
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 17/09/2026
No one. Truly the most inexplicable of successes. It was EVERYWHERE and then suddenly gone. No reappearance in successive summers.
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 17/09/2026
You know how you think some trends were recent and it turns out they were in 2007? I just had the opposite experience. O wondered when That Dress From Zara would start showing yo as retro, but it turns out it was was only out in 2019.
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 16/09/2026
Any comms/HR tech folks going to Unleash Paris next month? I'm going both days, but also on a panel at a side event with Flip night before which should be a corker (wine, a boat on the Seine, me). Ping me if you're coming to Unleash and want to join! www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...
linkedin.com
#advertentie | Sharon O'Dea
Most workplace tech is bought by people who sit at desks, for people who sit at desks. Which is awkward, given how much of the workforce doesn’t. #advertentie | Paid partnership with @Flip On 20 Oct...
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 16/09/2026
Can recommend skiving off work to walk down the whole of the 1984 Winter Olympics bobsleigh track.
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 14/09/2026
I'm hosting a chat/debate session tomorrow (12.00 UK) on internal comms w digital nomad employees. Me in Sarajevo, Tony Stewart in Hong Kong, Simon Cavendish in London. What breaks when a team stops sharing a timezone, and whether there are broader lessons here. forms.cloud.microsoft/e/D8LjDTypdf
forms.cloud.microsoft
Microsoft Forms
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 14/09/2026
Ticked off country 92 by mistake, landing back where I started, and spending the night in a hotel where everyone was smoking indoors and the buffet was paler than me. Two weeks of weeknote: sharonodea.com/2026/09/13/w...
sharonodea.com
Weeknote 2026/37
Amsterdammers lining up to begin the City Swim (Photo: me) We place far too much faith in the first verb. Launch the intranet. Start the business. Join the platform. Introduce flexible working. Tak…
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 09/09/2026
Spent two decades watching banks try to go viral. It never works. Not because they're bad at content, but because "the value of your investment may go down as well as up" has never won a Twitter fight. sharonodea.com/2026/09/09/t...
sharonodea.com
Why Financial Services Struggle With Social Media
Social platforms reward outrage and certainty. Financial services need caution and nuance. On the mismatch, and what you can do about it.
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 06/09/2026
I wonder how many of the IT consultancies which attend Labour/Tory conferences pitched up there to schmooze the fash?
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 06/09/2026
Same; we’ve given up on the process because the admin burden is huge and the win rate tiny. It’s bonkers that it is genuinely easier for me to sell my services to a global bank than it is a district council.
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 06/09/2026
Yep. If a company pays months late, i can re-invoice with a small percentage on top (delaying payment further), or threaten small claims and possibly get paid months later.
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 06/09/2026
We were approached about a tender for a smallish job recently (sub £50k). Just the first round required 60 pages of docs, including an audited estimate of our carbon emissions.
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 06/09/2026
I run a cross-border SME, and likewise. If they want to d to make life easier for small businesses they’d make enforcement of late and non-payment automatic, and reduce the admin burden in tendering for work.
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 06/09/2026
Oh I understood that. But between non-payment by SMEs and “effective tax planning” by huge ones you’re often left wondering if you’re a mug for paying in full.
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 06/09/2026
What are the chances at least one of these folks turns out to have previous for battering a partner or child?
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