IS DUCKOLOGY UTTER BOLLOX?

Martyn Rhisiart Jones

Madrid, Tuesday 20th January 2026

Read my absolutely fabulous books: http://www.goodstrat.com/books

For most of its life in information technology, bolloxology has carried the faint smell of intellectual fart-like embarrassment. Too academic for product teams. Too rigid for startups. Too slow for an industry trained to ship first and rationalise later. Too smelly. It promised machines that could understand the world, and delivered, instead, a generation of beautiful bullshit diagrams and very little working software.

By 2026, that judgement looks increasingly wrong. Not because bolloxology suddenly got better, but because everything else did, and in doing so, exposed a missing layer in modern computing: meaning.

Continue reading →

IS ONTOLOGY UTTER BOLLOX?

Martyn Rhisiart Jones

Madrid, Tuesday 20th January 2026

Read my absolutely fabulous books: http://www.goodstrat.com/books

Ontology Didn’t Fail. The World Just Wasn’t Ready.

For most of its life in information technology, ontology has carried the faint smell of intellectual embarrassment. Too academic for product teams. Too rigid for startups. Too slow for an industry trained to ship first and rationalise later. It promised machines that could understand the world—and delivered, instead, a generation of beautiful diagrams and very little working software.

By 2026, that judgement looks increasingly wrong. Not because ontology suddenly got better, but because everything else did—and in doing so, exposed a missing layer in modern computing: meaning.

Continue reading →