I have been thinking a lot this week about the idea of “Single Points of Failure”, an industrial / software term for a weakness within a system that can cause the whole thing to crash. Allowing there to be a single point of failure in anything important is, clearly, a…

In which I travel to London to meet my team, and ask about the real cost of “cheap” Ad Tech. My week: This week I got to spend 3 whole days in a room with my team; with our “out of offices” on, our Post-Its piled high, and an unholy…

My second attempt! In which I get to leave the house, I think about succession planning, and share a poem I found that summarises my desire to hide my despair at the world from those who might make it better for us. My week: A highlight of the week was…

Hi. Inspired by Hera Hussain, I am going to try keeping Weeknotes for a little while. Part memory aid, part transparency tool, part excuse to stop and reflect; let’s see how we go. My week: I was home this week balancing rest, childcare and some work, having finally caught Covid. I was…

Last night MEPs voted on a series of amendments to the Digital Services Act. The DSA is Europe ‘s — probably the world’s — best chance at regulating “Big Tech”, and last night was the main opportunity for our elected representatives to shape it. I wanted to see how Irish…

Below is the text of the speech I gave at the 2018 Re:Publica Media Convention in Berlin, on May3rd 2018. It was 3 weeks before the referendum and I was giving an outline of what we have found…

The way we ensure referendums are fair is out of date. Most of us get our information online; a domain “wholly unregulated” in electoral terms. History suggests the law will eventually try to catch up; a risky prospect that may focus on the impossible task of enforcing “balance”. A better…

Brace yourself; the referendum is coming. You, me, and the rest of Ireland are about to be bombarded by facts, rumours, misinformation, personal stories, personal attacks, photos and diagrams about abortion. Irish people, in my experience, take a serious and reflective approach to our referendums (ahem, Britain). We want to…

The morning after the US election, just over 12 months ago, I stood at the back of a large Washington DC conference hall filled with the heads of election commissions from every corner of the world. Together we watched live as President Obama spoke about peaceful transitions of power and…