GOOD STRATEGY REBELLION

Category: Dogma

  • CONSIDER THIS: The Prompt-Engineered: Prophet: Banal Merde and the Great AI Career Protection Racket

    CONSIDER THIS: The Prompt-Engineered: Prophet: Banal Merde and the Great AI Career Protection Racket

    Martyn Rhisiart Jones

    Madrid, Sunday 2nd May 2026

    While you were busy doing a real job, the world’s most expensive LinkedIn notification has been rebranding your impending redundancy as a “growth mindset opportunity.” It’s time to stop listening to a man who thinks “Vibe Coding” is a professional skill and start seeing the “AI Divide” for what it truly is: a desperate, corporate protection racket designed by a “futurist” who couldn’t predict a sunset unless it was written in a $500 whitepaper.

    Listen, before we start, let’s just take a moment to look at the word “Futurist.” What is a “Futurist”? In the old days, a futurist was a mentalist in a silver jumpsuit who thought we’d all be eating pill-form roast dinners while commuting to a moon colony via jetpack. Now, it’s just a title for a man in a sharp suit who’s managed to monetise the act of stating the fucking obvious with the hollow conviction of a cult leader selling “ascension” for forty quid a month.

    And here he is. Banal Merde. A man who looks like he was synthesized in a lab from the DNA of a LinkedIn “Top Voice” and a wet cardboard box.

    His latest piece of career-advice-slop, “The New AI Career Divide,” is the kind of breathless, sycophantic corporate fan-fiction that makes you want to go and live in a cave and communicate only through the medium of throwing stones at consultants.

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  • STRAIGHT TALK: Agile at Scale is Bullshit by Design – The Guardian

    STRAIGHT TALK: Agile at Scale is Bullshit by Design – The Guardian

    Martyn Rhisiart Jones

    Madrid, Wednesday 25th February 2026.

    Seven years on, the verdict is in, and it’s not flattering. Back in 2019, in a Brussels-fuelled rant channelling the incomparable Bob Hoffman, I declared Agile at Scale the next frontier of IT bullshit: immature, ill-conceived, supercilious, and emphatically not agile. It killed communication with jargon, turned criticism into heresy, and mangled history by ignoring what actually worked. I called it a cultish Frankenstein of Scientology zeal, Vatican pomp, and authoritarian quirks – all wrapped in vainglorious slide decks.

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  • CEO BRIEFING: Agile at Scale is Bullshit by Design – Remastered and Revisited – 2026/01/27

    CEO BRIEFING: Agile at Scale is Bullshit by Design – Remastered and Revisited – 2026/01/27

    Martyn Rhisiart Jones

    Bruxelles, 28th May 2019

    To begin at the beginning

    To paraphrase the great Bob Hoffman. Just when you feared that Agile evangelists might produce even more nonsense, they surprise you. What do they do? Exceed expectations.

    And how did they do that? Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Agile at Scale. It comes with all the miscellaneous, spiced-up, and vainglorious crap-on-the-side that accompanies it.

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  • STRAIGHT TALK: Agile at Scale is Bullshit by Design

    STRAIGHT TALK: Agile at Scale is Bullshit by Design

    cropped-p4010326.jpgMartyn Richard Jones

    Bruxelles 28th May 2019

    To begin at the beginning

    To paraphrase the great Bob Hoffman. Just when you thought that if evangelists for Agile were to generate one more ounce of bullshit the entire fucking solar system would explode, what do they do? Exceed expectations.

    And how did they do that? Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Agile at Scale with all the miscellaneous, spiced-up and vainglorious crap-on-the-side that accompanies it.

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  • In the Beginning was the Big Data Plan

    In the Beginning was the Big Data Plan

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    In the beginning was the Big Iron, the Big Data, and the Big Data Plan.

    And then came the Big Data Assumptions.

    And the Big Data Assumptions were without form.

    And the Big Data Plan was without substance.

    And the Big Iron was without movement.

    And the Big Data was without velocity, variety and volume.

    And darkness was upon the face of the data workers.

    And they spoke amongst themselves, saying: “Big Data, is a crock of shit, and it stinketh mucho”.

    And the data workers went unto their Data Supervisors and said: “This here Big Data is a pile of putrid crappy keech”, for they were from Govan, and continued, “and none may abide the odour thereof”.

    And the Data Supervisors went unto their Information Managers, saying: “Big Data is a container of excrement, and it is very strong, such that none may abide by it.”

    And the Information Managers went unto their Business Directors, saying: “This here Big Data doodoo is a vessel of fertilizer, and none may abide its strength.”

    And the Business Directors spoke amongst themselves, saying to one another: “Big Data contains that which aids plant growth, and it is very powerful.”

    And the Vice Presidents went unto the President, saying unto him: “This new Big Data will actively promote the growth and vigour of the company, with powerful effects.”

    And the President looked upon the Big Iron, the Big Data and the Big Data Plan, and saw that they were good.

    Many thanks for reading

    Join The Big Data Contrarians

    The Big Data Contrarians

  • Understanding the Subprime Crisis: Lessons Learned – 2026 Remix

    Understanding the Subprime Crisis: Lessons Learned – 2026 Remix

    Consider this: Financial Crisis and Subprime.

    Martyn Jones

    Patti Smith 1975 Robert Mapplethorpe 1946-1989 ARTIST ROOMS Acquired jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland through The d’Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/AR00185

    This is a republication of a piece written in 2009 on the subject of the Financial Crisis and Subprime loans. As the spectre of overreach and unhedged risks raises its ugly head once again, the temptation to republish this piece was just too much to resist. (more…)

  • Silly Season! Data Warehousing is Hadoop is Big Data? – Unplugged for 2026

    Silly Season! Data Warehousing is Hadoop is Big Data? – Unplugged for 2026

    Martyn Richard Jones

    2026 Remaster

    Let’s get this baby off the ground

    This weekend I read a piece on the Information Management website by Steve Miller with the title of Big Data vs. the Data Warehouse. It’s an old piece, from March 2014.

    It was in response to a piece by Bill Inmon titled “Big Data or Data Warehouse?” Turbocharge Your Porsche – Buy an Elephant, in which he singled out for criticism the ad campaign of a big-data and Hadoop promoter.

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  • Understanding Data Warehousing Misconceptions – Remaster 2026

    Understanding Data Warehousing Misconceptions – Remaster 2026

    Martyn Richard Jones

    2026 Remaster

    The problem with Data Warehousing is that at a superficially high level, it is very easy to explain, and it’s quite impressive that this superficially high level is all that a lot of people need in order to do data warehousing their own way.

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  • Mugged in Data Hell – Summary – На Бо́га наде́йся, а сам не плоша́й

    Mugged in Data Hell – Summary – На Бо́га наде́йся, а сам не плоша́й

    Martyn Richard Jones

    I wrote a piece titled “Mugged in Data Hell.”

    INTRO

    It told the story of a CIO who was hoodwinked, cajoled, bullied, bribed and patronised into doing the wrong things, continuously.

    As my mate Bill said, “It packs big punches, and doesn’t hold back with the shit-kicking truth”.

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  • Creativity and Corporate IT: Plumbers not Artists – Remaster 2026

    Creativity and Corporate IT: Plumbers not Artists – Remaster 2026

    Martyn Richard Jones

    Remastered for 2026

    Like many people around the world, I have certain expectations.

    When I want some artwork done for a sales campaign, yes, I expect the people that I commission to show a lot of creativity.

    When I want to read a novel, go to the theatre or simply chill out watching a movie, yes, I do expect some degree of creativity.

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