This weeknote comes to you courtesy of epic jet lag. I’m in Chicago for the LumApps Bright conference. Landed yesterday and, in a triumph of willpower, stayed awake until 8.30pm.

Naturally, I was wide awake at 4.30am, because body clocks are cruel and unforgiving. The hotel gym doesn’t open until 6, so I spent a glamorous hour sitting in the dark, contemplating my life choices.

And now I’m committing that self-doubt to the blog. You’re welcome.

This week at work

I moved offices. Then spent about two hours in the new office before hitting the road again. But the new gaff seems nice.

Our big focus was a workshop day with a client.

Workshops are always rewarding, but they’re also hard graft. It takes a lot of thought and preparation to design them properly — working out the right questions to ask, the right exercises to run, the right structure to actually get people talking. It’s not something you can just wing (though plenty try); investing the time upfront makes all the difference.

But when it clicks, it’s brilliant. I love those moments when you can go round the room and hear people properly reflecting, discussing, debating. And just as importantly, actually listening to one another. You can feel the energy shift when people move from lobbing opinions around to properly building on each other’s ideas.

Which is my long-winded way of explaining why I was basically brain-dead by close of play Friday.

Also this week

Which was unfortunate, because Saturday was King’s Day in the Netherlands. 364 days a year you can pretty much forget the country has a monarchy. Then on 27 April (or 26th if that’s a Sunday, as it was this year), the nation drowns itself in orange to celebrate King Willem-Alexander’s birthday.

The party kicks off the night before, on King’s Night, with street parties everywhere. Then on King’s Day itself, every street becomes a flea market, everyone starts drinking at breakfast, and the whole country gives itself over to a sort of joyful chaos. No one cares if you’re Dutch or not — just don something orange and get stuck in.

I scored a fluffy orange onesie in the kids section of Hema and danced the afternoon away at a sound system on the Palmgracht. Some bloke down the road hung a massive disco ball from his gevelsteen (the hook on the front of Dutch houses) and spent the day leading singalongs in the street.

This year was as beautiful and sunny as I can remember. On days like that, Amsterdam really does feel like the best place in the world. I’m so lucky to live there.

Consuming

👩🏻‍💻 Internetting

This week I stumbled across a brilliant story from a small town in Japan. Kawara’s Ojisan Trading Card Game turns real local men — train drivers, noodle chefs, retired robotics experts — into Pokémon-style trading cards.

It started as a way to bring kids and older residents together, and it’s worked: it’s broken down generational barriers, surfaced hidden talents, and turned everyday people into local heroes.

A good reminder for internal comms too. Connection doesn’t come from flashy campaigns. It comes from celebrating real people, making it easy (and fun) to get involved, and keeping things personal. Sometimes the best thing we can do is help people see how interesting their colleagues already are.

📺 Watching

Like millions of others, the news of the Pope’s death prompted me to rewatch Conclave. Impressive synergy between Conclave’s marketing team and God there.

📚 Reading

Finally took a proper deep dive into Internal Communication Strategy by Rachel Miller this week — a book I bought ages ago but only ever dipped into. A timely read for some research I’m doing for another project.

🎧 Listening

It was an eclectic music week.

On Sunday I was lucky enough to score tickets to an intimate performance by Jools Holland. He took questions from the audience of about 100, illustrating his answers on the piano. Over an hour or so he covered the history of the piano, his career, and the greats of blues and jazz, before ending with a few numbers with vocalists from his Big Band.

Midweek, we saw the Sugababes at AFAS Live — a lovely early-00s nostalgia fest, albeit in my least favourite venue in the city.

Coverage

This week I published a new piece for Reworked: Less Content, More Clarity

It’s a call for a long-overdue clear-out of redundant, outdated and trivial content, and a shift away from publishing more towards communicating better.

I argue that it’s not enough to audit what we already have — we need proper discovery work to understand what employees actually need. Good internal comms isn’t about volume; it’s about clarity, user focus, and strong governance. When we get it right, we don’t just build trust — we create the conditions for better decisions, better digital experiences, and workplaces where people can actually get things done.

Travel

As I said, I arrived in Chicago yesterday afternoon. Here until Thursday — shout if you want to catch up.

Heading on to Toronto after that.

This week in photos