A hub for music and centrist sociopolitical commentary. Welcome to The Holtz Effect.
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Small Data Forum Podcast
Thomas Stoeckle (strategic business development, LexisNexis BIS; co-chair Measurement Commission, Institute for PR)
How do you make Big Data less intimidating, more actionable and thus more valuable, in particular for marketing and communications professionals? That is the question at the heart of the Small Data Forum, an initiative by LexisNexis Business Insight Solutions to listen, learn, share and educate ourselves and others who grapple with the challenges of the information avalanche. Industry thought-leaders Neville Hobson, Sam Knowles and host Thomas Stoeckle discuss current industry themes and new ...
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On a chilly 1st December, Sam takes us to the Bermudas (only virtually, sadly) – to the “Jurassic Park of crypto” that Michael Lewis (of Moneyball, The Big Short and so much more fame) describes with trademark virtuosity in his fly-on-the-wall tale of almost-first-trillionaire-cum-felon, Sam Bankman-Fried (“SBF”), of FTX-Alameda infamy. A self-decl…
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In a distinctly un-Friday 13th Feeling, the @Podnosticators Three gathered for the 78th time to pick through the familiar themes of politics and social media, separately and intermingled. Spoiler alert: this episode may contain rants. The rest is politics Sam started by reviewing the remnants and the impact of the recent U.K. party political confer…
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Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who will be the sexiest chatbot of them all?
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Another month, another deepish dive by the three podnosticators of the SmallDataForum – who Sam describes as “Thomas = the philosopher-academic and historical context-setter; Neville = the champion experimenter and enthusiastic evangelist; and Sam = the dabbler, observer, and sceptic.” This time, we dive into generative (as well as degenerative) ar…
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The three sceptics of the apocalypse
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Scepticism, questioning, and an ever-present gnawing uncertainty whether what Them In Power tell us is the case actually is the case – these are three hallmarks of we three Podnosticators at the Small Data Forum. And these three qualities are all present in abundant spades as we enter our fourth, quarter-century of podcasts in fresh-minted episode …
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After seven years of vigorous podnostication, the SmallDataForum reaches its diamond anniversary. Or semi-sesquicentennial (‘half one hundred and fifty’) as Sam (of course!) informs us. Seventy-five episodes of wondering and pondering about the strange times we live in, with absolutely no end in sight. Our almost hour-long Zoomwag starts with the b…
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Flushable, unflushable, or lingering round the U-bend?
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We start episode 74 of the Small Data Forum podcast – or “1 AB” as Thomas christens it; the first after B*ris – in what many are calling “the era past peak podcast”. Things haven’t worked out as well for our medium of choice as Spotify predicted and gambled, and that includes the platform’s not-so-conscious uncoupling from the Sussexes. But we – li…
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“In framing an ideal we may assume what we wish, but should avoid impossibilities.” This Aristotle quote opens one of my favourite books, Aldous Huxley’s last novel, Island (1962). It also summarises neatly Neville’s, and to a lesser degree, Sam’s, position re the appetite and capacity for, and thus the likelihood of radical change to the British p…
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Fire and music go well together. Sixties rocker Arthur Brown – a long-time resident of the liberal enclave of Lewes, home of your correspondent, Podnosticator Knowles – made an entire career out of his 1968 cult classic, Fire Indeed, I even played roadie to him and had the honour of putting him out when he caught fire during the first chorus of Fir…
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Back in the grey drizzle of a late March Friday morning in the UK, the three Podnosticators of the SmallDataForum convene to take another sideways look at ‘events, dear boy, events’ (something Harold Macmillan apparently never said). For once, and in spite of recent headline-grabbing incidents, we give relatively short shrift to the unflushable tur…
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Meet the Podnosticators – the Oracle of Riogordo
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In ancient Greece, people consulted oracles to learn about the future. The best known resided at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, where the blind priestess Pythia provided prophetic prediction for all in need of direction. Above its entrance, the temple had an inscription: Know thyself. In fact, there appear to have been a total of 147 maxims chisel…
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How should we shape our future digital life?
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The Small Data Forum podcast was created spontaneously and almost accidentally after your three co-hosts met on a panel at a media industry event in 2016, a few weeks before the EU Referendum. After a lively debate featuring sometimes radically-divergent views to keep our audience entertained well past the scheduled end time, seasoned podcaster Nev…
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Myopic PR industry set to miss yet another boat?
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With the sun beating down on the Small Data Forum Podnosticators on day three of our podcast recording retreat in Ríogiordo, Andalucía, we turn our attention back to the world of AI and its potential impact on the world of communications. With a new generative engine popping up almost every day – for words, structure, music, images, film, translati…
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Fuelled by nothing more than Coke Zero and Fanta Limon, the Small Data Forum Podnosticators pop up for a special, flash, mini, 15-minute micropodcast, recorded during our podcast retreat in Andalucía over the weekend of 10-13 March. Our topic? The titanic struggle emerging on the future of independent, impartial broadcasting manifested in the battl…
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Always with fingers on the pulses of the most relevant breaking news stories, the not yet scurvy-plagued triumvirate of the SmallDataForum briefly contemplates the shortages of fruit and veg on Great British supermarket shelves. And we decide that neither the Marie Antoinette-esque “let them eat turnips” intervention of political-turnip-made Secret…
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The world is split, riven, and – as we so often observe from the three outposts of the Small Data Forum – like never before. Milk or tea in first? Red sauce or brown sauce on a sausage sandwich? And is it still acceptable to say “Happy New Year” after Blue Monday (the third Monday in January and officially the most depressing day of the year, which…
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Reflections on 2022 – from Trussonomics to generative AI and goblin mode
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By Thomas Stoeckle
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Schadenfreude squared in the land of Big Tech’s woes
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The 17th century French moralist François de La Rochefoucald observed in his Maximes: “In the misfortunes of our dearest friends we always find something not wholly displeasing unto us.” So there was more than just the tang of sweet Schadenfreude in the air during the recording of the latest episode – 63, no less – of the Small Data Forum podcast. …
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Given our combined decades of experience in the wider media business, it’s no surprise that this post-party conference edition of the SmallDataForum takes a close look at politicians’ media performances. And boy is there a lot to look at. Front and centre, of course, is the new Prime Minister and her serial car crash interviews. Neville asks seriou…
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The lingering whiff of sulphur in the air
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(Please note that this episode was recorded – and these show notes were written – on Thursday 8 September, before the announcement of the death of Queen Elizabeth II.) The first Small Data Forum of the @TrussLiz era sees the podcast team convene IRL on the morning of 8 September for the first time in aeons – and in a professional, West End Studio, …
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What happens when enough really is enough?
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Inflation! Energy crisis! Cost of living! Inequality! Strikes! A government out of its depth and out of touch. And that’s just 1978 … The latest episode of the SmallDataForum podcast opens with Thomas comparing the not-so-good old days of the Winter of Discontent in Britain with the dry bleak hot summer of 2022. Ah, 1978: when Margaret Thatcher was…
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As I am typing up the show notes for our latest podcast, news has come in that former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe has been assassinated during a campaign event. A sad, sinister reminder that contrary to what the soon former prime minister of the UK would have us believe, it’s not all a laugh and a half. As if we needed reminding. The murder …
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For once, it appears, the Small Data Forum three are ahead of the news. So often in recent months and years, we’ve recorded an episode on a Friday morning and by the Sunday night before publication we’ve had to make rapid edits to the show notes because … a president has been impeached, a special adviser been sacked, or a new lockdown announced. Bu…
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Where we discuss a crazy aviator, BongBong and a pigeon …
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In another case of the speed of news catching out the SmallDataForum’s best-laid arguments, Neville’s, Sam’s, and my combined Musk-whispering was rendered somewhat outdated by the announcement - just hours after our podcast recording - that enigmatic Elon has put his Twitter purchase on hold because ... oh never mind the stated reasons. Actually, i…
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Shoulda been in Spain! Sporting a gardener’s tan from ongoing travails in his garden in Southern Spain, Thomas welcomes Sam and Neville to the first-ever Saturday recording of the Small Data Forum podcast. We recorded on 9 April, two years to the day – as Neville points out – from when we were supposed to be on a weekend-long podcast recording sojo…
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Propaganda 3.0: the end of free media (but definitely not of history)
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Taking its cue from professional media commentators, the SmallDataForum kicks off with Thomas quoting Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, who is better known by his nom de class struggle, Lenin: “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” Unprecedent times, anyone? Sam is reminded of the times of Soviet openness and re…
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