GOOD STRATEGY REBELLION

Tag: technology

  • A Celtic Renaissance: Martyn de Tours’ Defiant Vision Against the Shadows of Extremism – Book Review

    A Celtic Renaissance: Martyn de Tours’ Defiant Vision Against the Shadows of Extremism – Book Review

    Celtic, European and Worldly

    Lila de Alba, FT Weekend, New Jersey, Saturday, 7th March 2026

    In an age when the airwaves hum with the discordant symphony of populist rage and algorithmic resentment, Martyn de Tours’ Celtic Domination: The Most Significant Influencers emerges not merely as a novel, but as a clarion call for the reclamation of decency in a fractured world. Published amid the lingering echoes of the MAGA era’s toxic legacy, this 428-page hybrid of thriller, manifesto, and philosophical pilgrimage invites readers into a labyrinth where Celtic heritage becomes a bulwark against the encroaching tides of authoritarianism and intellectual decay. De Tours, the pseudonym of the contrarian strategist Martyn Jones, a figure whose prolific output has long danced on the edges of strategy and speculation, crafts a narrative that is as lush as it is urgent, weaving personal introspection with a bold blueprint for collective renewal. It is a book that demands we confront the “dirty war” waged by the far right on the Enlightenment’s fragile gains, while proposing a democratic alternative rooted in plurality, equity, and environmental stewardship. In doing so, it stands as a testament to the enduring power of ideas in an era of manufactured ignorance.

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  • Celtic Domination: A Bold Literary Attack on Extremism – Book Review

    Celtic Domination: A Bold Literary Attack on Extremism – Book Review

    Celtic, European and Worldly

    Petula Clarkson, The New Yorker, New Jersey, Saturday, 7th March 2026

    In a literary landscape increasingly cluttered with the disposable and the derivative, Martyn de Tours’ Celtic Domination: The Most Significant Influencers arrives like a Molotov cocktail lobbed into a country club. It is a work of breathtaking intellectual audacity, a “Digital Celtic Covenant” that refuses to politely deconstruct the status quo, choosing instead to incinerate it. Part high-octane spy thriller, part “passive Marxist” manifesto, it is the definitive literary antidote to the toxic sludge of the MAGA era and the burgeoning “fetid imperialist conceit” of the extreme right.

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  • Exploring Celtic Domination: A Novel of Ideas – Book Review

    Exploring Celtic Domination: A Novel of Ideas – Book Review

    Celtic, European and Worldly

    Pamela Paddington, Times Literary Supplement, Oxford, Saturday, 7th March 2026

    There are novels that announce themselves with a trumpet blast, and others that arrive like weather. Celtic Domination by Martyn de Tours belongs firmly to the latter category: a book that drifts in on a sea-fog of memory, mysticism, political anxiety, and intellectual ambition, and then, rather unexpectedly, begins rearranging the furniture of the reader’s mind.

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  • Celtic Domination: A Literary Journey of Identity and Vision – Book Review

    Celtic Domination: A Literary Journey of Identity and Vision – Book Review

    Celtic, European and Worldly

    Heidi Katushka, Times Literary Supplement, Oxford, Saturday, 7th March 2026

    In Celtic Domination: The Most Significant Influencers, Martyn de Tours (a pseudonym of the prolific, contrarian strategist Martyn Jones) has produced a work that is at once a novel, a manifesto, a pilgrimage memoir, and a speculative blueprint for pan-Celtic resurgence. Published in 2025 and running to some 428 pages in its paperback edition, the book arrives like a fever dream dispatched from the Camino de Santiago, where the author has evidently spent considerable time walking, talking, and ruminating. The result is a text that defies easy categorization, part sibling reunion laced with intrigue, part philosophical treatise on identity and power, part utopian pamphlet for a “Celtic Union”, and yet it coheres, after a fashion, through sheer audacity and the insistent pulse of its Celtic romanticism.

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  • F*CK DATA MESH: The Contrarian’s Take on Data Tech – Book Review

    F*CK DATA MESH: The Contrarian’s Take on Data Tech – Book Review

    The Bonfire of the Vacuous

    Review: The Great Data Schism – Why the ‘Schmesh’ is a Schmess

    Paula Prada Price, New College Tech Review, Notting Hill, Friday, 6th March 2026

    Martyn Jones’s F*CK DATA MESH is a bracing, profane, and essential Broadside against the Silicon Valley hype machine.*

    In the glittering circus of modern data tech, where vendors hawk “revolutionary” architectures like snake oil at a Silicon Valley swap meet, Martyn Jones has lobbed what can only be described as a literary Molotov cocktail titled F*CK DATA MESH: The Far Side of Data, Information, and Knowledge. It’s less a book than a gleefully profane haymaker aimed squarely at the jaw of the industry’s latest sacred cow. And reader, it connects.

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  • Why Data Mesh is Not the Future of Data Management – Book Review

    Why Data Mesh is Not the Future of Data Management – Book Review

    The Bonfire of the Vacuous

    Review: The Great Data Schism – Why the ‘Mesh’ is a Mess

    Lady Amanda Percival, The Wired Wire, Kensington, Friday, 6th March 2026

    Martyn Jones’s F*CK DATA MESH is a bracing, profane, and essential Broadside against the Silicon Valley hype machine.*

    In the hushed boardrooms of the Fortune 500, “Data Mesh” has become the latest secular religion. It promises a decentralized utopia where data is treated as a product and domain owners are liberated from the “monolithic” tyranny of the central data warehouse. But according to Martyn Jones, a man whose career has seen the rise and fall of more tech fads than a McKinsey slide deck, this new paradigm is less of a revolution and more of a “fraudulent flim-flam sauce” served up by consultants looking for their next utilization spike.

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  • F*CK DATA MESH: A Critical Look at Data Trends – Book Review

    F*CK DATA MESH: A Critical Look at Data Trends – Book Review

    The Bonfire of the Clowns

    F*CK DATA MESH: A polemic against fashionable nonsense in the data economy

    Alicia Altmann, The Middle Digital Review, Chicago, 5th March 2026.

    In the technology industry, few phrases age faster than the latest architectural revolution. “Serverless”, “big data”, “blockchain”, each arrives with evangelical certainty before quietly settling into the background noise of enterprise IT. Into this cycle of hype steps Martyn Jones’s gleefully abrasive book, F*CK DATA MESH: The Far Side of Data, Information, and Knowledge*. Its title alone signals that this is less a manual than a polemic: a sharply written protest against what the author sees as the fashionable amnesia of modern data discourse.

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  • F*ck Data Mesh: Martyn Jones’s Hilarious Haymaker at Tech’s Data Delusions – Book Review

    F*ck Data Mesh: Martyn Jones’s Hilarious Haymaker at Tech’s Data Delusions – Book Review

    The Bonfire of the Imbeciles

    F*ck Data Mesh: Martyn Jones’s Hilarious Haymaker at Tech’s Data Delusions

    Review by Bella Carmela, WiredWiredWired, Silicon Valley, Thursday 5th March 2026

    In the hyper-connected, AI-obsessed circus of modern enterprise tech, where every startup pitches a “revolutionary” data paradigm like it’s the next iPhone, Martyn Jones drops a bomb: Fck Data Mesh*. Subtitled The Far Side of Data, Information, and Knowledge, this 2025 manifesto isn’t your typical dry treatise on ETL pipelines or cloud migrations. It’s a rollicking, profane takedown of the industry’s sacred cows… Data Mesh, Lakehouses, and the endless hype cycle that turns solid data strategies into vaporware. Written with the acerbic wit of a Welsh data veteran who’s seen it all (from mainframes to metadata meltdowns), Jones channels the spirit of Hunter S. Thompson meets Dilbert, urging businesses to wake up before their next “transformative” initiative sinks another billion into the swamp.

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  • Martyn Jones on Geopolitical Thuggery – Book Review

    Martyn Jones on Geopolitical Thuggery – Book Review

    A Plague On All of Their Houses

    THE END OF HONOUR: FROM ABSURDITY TO GLOBAL THUGGERY

    By Vanessa Bell, Madrid, 4th March 2026

    In Martyn Jones’s The End of Honour: From Absurdity to Global Thuggery, a sprawling and impassioned jeremiad against the moral rot at the heart of contemporary geopolitics, the author diagnoses a profound crisis in the Western liberal order. Published in 2025, the book posits honour not as a quaint Victorian relic but as an indispensable strategic asset, the ethical scaffolding that once underpinned alliances, restrained imperial overreach, and lent credibility to diplomatic endeavours. Its erosion, Jones argues, has precipitated a descent into what he terms “global thuggery”: a world where power is exercised through naked coercion, transactional extortion, and the commodification of international relations into protection rackets. Drawing on an eclectic pantheon of thinkers, from Kant and Lao Tzu to Martin van Creveld and Paul Kennedy, Jones traces this decline from the triumphalism of the post-Cold War era, through the neoconservative adventurism of the Bush administration, to the brazen populism of Trump and his unlikely bedfellows, such as Elon Musk, whom Jones caricatures as a “Bond villain with broadband” fusing Silicon Valley libertarianism with demagogic excess.

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  • The Crisis of Honour in Global Governance – Book Review

    The Crisis of Honour in Global Governance – Book Review

    A Plague On All of Their Houses

    THE END OF HONOUR: FROM ABSURDITY TO GLOBAL THUGGERY

    By Virginia Stephens, Madrid, 4th March 2026

    History, as Paul Kennedy observed in the pages that mapped the rise and fall of the great powers, does not announce its turning points with fanfare. It discloses them, reluctantly, through the accumulated weight of institutional decay, strategic overreach, and, most damningly, the erosion of the codes of conduct that once constrained even the most ruthless of statecraft. Martyn Jones, in this sprawling, ferocious, and occasionally magnificent polemic, has written something that Kennedy’s tradition demands we take seriously: a diagnosis of civilisational decline rooted not in balance-of-payments deficits or military overextension alone, but in the collapse of honour as an operational principle of governance.

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  • The Decline of Honour in Global Politics – Book Review

    The Decline of Honour in Global Politics – Book Review

    A Plague On All of Their Houses

    By Rebecca Kennedy, The Observer, Chelsea, Wednesday 4th March 2026

    The End of Honour: From Absurdity to Global Thuggery By Martyn Jones (martyn.es, 2025)

    In the grand sweep of history, as Paul Kennedy might observe, empires rise and fall not merely through the clash of arms or the ebb of economic tides, but through the erosion of moral sinews that bind societies and their leaders. Martyn Jones’s The End of Honour echoes this Kennedy-esque thesis, charting the precipitous decline of integrity in global politics from the unipolar illusions of the post-Cold War era to the brazen thuggery of contemporary strongmen. Written over a quarter-century, this sprawling polemic, part historical autopsy, part diplomatic jeremiad, dissects how the United States, once the self-anointed guardian of liberal order, has devolved into a “basket case” of strategic incoherence, abetted by neoliberal hubris and neoconservative adventurism. Jones, a data strategist turned contrarian commentator, draws on a lifetime of observation, from Welsh nationalism to Spanish socialism, to argue that honour’s demise has unleashed a world of “global thuggery,” where power is wielded not with restraint but as a blunt instrument of self-interest.

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  • Global Thuggery and the Erosion of Democracy Explained – Book Review

    Global Thuggery and the Erosion of Democracy Explained – Book Review

    A Plague On All of Their Houses

    By Rebecca Kennedy, The Charmed World Literary Supplement, Madrid, Wednesday 4th March 2026

    In his latest work, The End of Honour: From Absurdity to Global Thuggery, Martyn Jones presents a searing, non-linear “collage of collapse” that chronicles the steady erosion of political integrity and the rise of a “surrealist theatre” in global governance. Drawing on a quarter-century of observation, Jones argues that the democratic institutions we once revered as “pillars of integrity” have been hollowed out, replaced by a “theology of managerialism” and a “moronic embrace of the void”.

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  • BOOK REVIEW: Good vs Bad Leadership: Key Insights

    BOOK REVIEW: Good vs Bad Leadership: Key Insights

    Good Leader / Bad Leader – Martyn Jones

    By Stephanie Charming, Madrid, Tuesday 3rd March 2026

    Leadership

    In the annals of leadership literature, few works pierce the fog of modern managerial sophistry with the precision of a well-aimed bayonet charge. Martyn Jones’s Good Leader/Bad Leader: The Difference and Why It Matters stands as a clarion call to arms, a treatise that dissects the anatomy of command with the surgical acuity of Sun Tzu and the unflinching moral rigour of Marcus Aurelius. As a veteran strategist in the digital trenches, once hailed as one of the world’s top database minds, Jones draws not from ivory-tower abstractions but from the bloodied fields of corporate and public service battles. His book is no mere manual; it is a manifesto for the embattled leader, a compass for navigating the treacherous terrains of human ambition and institutional decay.

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  • STRAIGHT TALK: Davos 2026: The Illusion of Leadership and Dialogue

    STRAIGHT TALK: Davos 2026: The Illusion of Leadership and Dialogue

    A Marrs Barrs A Day Helps You Bla, Bla and Bla

    Martyn Rhisiart Jones

    Madrid, Monday 2nd March 2026

    Oh, for fuck’s sake, Dirndal Barr, you gleaming beacon of LockedOut futurism, you’ve done it again. March 2, 2026, the snow’s still settling on the Davos chalets, the private jets are queuing for takeoff like taxis at a funeral, and here you are, posting your pre-packaged “What Are The Real Questions Leaders Will Be Asking At Davos 2026?” like it’s some brave exposé rather than the world’s most expensive press release. You’re not a futurist, Benny. You’re a futurist-shaped content mill with 5 million followers who all clicked “Follow” in the hope you’d one day say something that wasn’t sponsored by the ghost of McKinsey.Let’s start with the official theme: “A Spirit Of Dialogue”. Beautiful. Nothing screams authentic conversation like locking up 3,000 of the richest, most insulated people on earth in a Swiss village so they can talk about how the rest of us should talk better.

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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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  • SOCIAL MEDIA: X Is Dying In Europe: Here’s Why – Revisited – 2026/02/16

    SOCIAL MEDIA: X Is Dying In Europe: Here’s Why – Revisited – 2026/02/16

    http://www.goodstrat.com/books

    X Is Dying In Europe: Here’s Why

    I asked X about its massive losses in Europe.

    “@grok, can you explain the massive drop in interactions in Europe with X?”

    This is what Grok had to say and updated for today.

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  • CONSIDER THIS: In Praise of Shadow-Apps – 2026/02/16

    CONSIDER THIS: In Praise of Shadow-Apps – 2026/02/16

    Here We Go Again!

    Martyn Rhisiart Jones

    Oza-Cesuras, Sunday 15th February 2026

    In the quiet underbelly of corporate life, sanctioned software often lags behind real needs. Shadow apps, which are unsanctioned tools employees adopt on their own, continue to flourish. Nowhere is their value more pronounced than in data analytics. Teams quietly sidestep lengthy procurement and rigid platforms. They harness spreadsheets, personal BI instances, open-source scripts, and cloud sandboxes. Far from mere rebellion, these shadow practices reveal institutional shortcomings while delivering tangible gains. Here are seven compelling advantages, viewed through a lens that values both ingenuity and measured reflection.

    We asked seven highly engaged professionals for their top advantages of allowing Shadow Apps to thrive. We then requested comments from industry leaders. And here is what they told us.

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  • Building the Data Logistics Hub: Pieces and Parts – 2026/02/15 – Part 3

    Building the Data Logistics Hub: Pieces and Parts – 2026/02/15 – Part 3

    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

    This is the brave new world of data!

    Martyn Rhisiart Jones

    Bandoxa, 15th February 2026

    Building the Data Logistics Hub: Pieces and Parts – 2026/02/15 – Part 3

    Guide

    This episode provides a comprehensive framework for the third installment in the series on the Data Logistics Hub (DLH). Martyn Jones conceptualised it as a technology-agnostic, centralised platform. Its purpose is efficiently moving, governing, and distributing data across organisations. This part expands on Part 1 (Challenges and Opportunities) and Part 2 (The Strategy). It focuses on the tangible “pieces and parts” of the DLH architecture. It outlines mandatory and optional elements. The episode also explores potential technologies. It examines key processes such as data pulling or pushing, translation from source to target, mapping, and data catalogues.

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  • Building the Data Logistics Hub: The Strategy – 2026/02/14 – Part 2

    Building the Data Logistics Hub: The Strategy – 2026/02/14 – Part 2

    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

    This is the brave new world of data!

    Martyn Rhisiart Jones

    Bandoxa, 14th February 2026


    Building the Data Logistics Hub: The Strategy – 2026/02/14 – Part 2Before I begin, remember this: “All data roads lead to the Data Logistics Hub.” They also lead from it. It is the Rome of the age of data, information, knowledge, and wisdom. Be prepared!

    Okay, we will now examine the Data Logistics Hub in terms of strategy, execution plans, and roadmaps.

    A high-level blueprint for a successful Data Logistics Hub outlines several requirements. These include principles, guiding objectives, an imagined “better world” and organisational alignment. Key trade-offs must also be considered, such as centralised versus federated and batch versus streaming, among others.

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  • Solucionando el Dilema del Almacén de Datos

    Solucionando el Dilema del Almacén de Datos

    Martyn Rhisiart Jones

    Madrid, sábado 7 de febrero de 2026

    Libros de Martyn Rhisiart Jones: https://www.amazon.es/stores/author/B086K5B97Y

    ¿Qué decir?

    Estaba leyendo un artículo escrito por Jeff Wilts y recomendado por Bill Inmon. Llegué a esta afirmación: «Teradata es un almacén de datos empresarial con todas las funciones». Para mí, la cosa fue aún más cuesta abajo a partir de ahí.

    Pero esto fue el golpe de gracia: «Databricks es una plataforma de datos unificada que puede comportarse como un almacén de datos».

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  • Building the Data Logistics Hub: The Challenges and Opportunities – 2026/02/13 – Part 1

    Building the Data Logistics Hub: The Challenges and Opportunities – 2026/02/13 – Part 1

    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

    This is the brave new world of data!

    Martyn Rhisiart Jones

    Bandoxa, 13th February 2026

    In this episode, we begin by honestly examining the pain points that make data logistics so difficult today. The challenges are siloed data and systems. There are also many data interchange point solutions. Quality is inconsistent, and there are security and compliance barriers. Additionally, data volumes are exploding. We then explore the transformative opportunities. These include faster time-to-insight and seamless collaboration across teams and organisations. The opportunities also feature monetisable data products and AI-ready flows.

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  • Building the Data Logistics Hub: Easy Introduction – 2026/02/12 – Part 0

    Building the Data Logistics Hub: Easy Introduction – 2026/02/12 – Part 0

    This Is Going To Be Absolutely Fabulous!

    Martyn Rhisiart Jones

    Bandoxa, 12th February 2026

    Hold up there for a moment. Have I got something for you!

    I may not be the father of Information Centres. I’m certainly not going to claim any of Bill Inmon’s achievements as my own. However, I have spent a professional lifetime wading in the data and information garlic. So, I do claim a rightful share of the credit.

    And I am rightfully credited with founding the Data Logistics Hub design movement.

    In an era where data is the lifeblood of organisations, it fuels decisions and powers AI. It enables innovation. It drives competitive advantage. The ability to move, integrate, share, and utilise that data efficiently has become a strategic imperative. Yet many enterprises still struggle with fragmented pipelines and siloed sources. They face compliance headaches and latency issues. There is also the sheer complexity of connecting data across clouds, on-premises systems, partners, and ecosystems.

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  • DATA WORLD: Data Warehouse Action: Big Business Drivers

    DATA WORLD: Data Warehouse Action: Big Business Drivers

    Masterclass on the side!

    Martyn Rhisiart Jones

    Madrid, Saturday 31st January 2026

    Martyn: The Enterprise Data Warehouse should be driven by business demand and nothing else.

    Ed: What does that mean in practice?

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  • DATA WORLD: Friends! Romans! Countrymen! Big Data is not Data Warehousing – 2026/01/29

    DATA WORLD: Friends! Romans! Countrymen! Big Data is not Data Warehousing – 2026/01/29

    Martyn Rhisiart Jones

    29th January 2026

    Hold this thought: To paraphrase the great Bob Hoffman, just when you think that if the Big Data babblers were to generate one more ounce of bull**** the entire f****** solar system would explode, what do they do? Exceed expectations.

    I am a mild mannered person. However, one thing that irks me is hearing variations on certain themes. These themes include phrases like “Data Warehousing is Big Data.” Another is “Big data is in many ways an evolution of data warehousing.” Lastly, some say “with Big Data you no longer need a Data Warehouse.”

    Big Data is not Data Warehousing. It is not the evolution of Data Warehousing. It is also not a sensible and coherent alternative to Data Warehousing. No matter what certain vendors will put in their marketing brochures or stick up their noses.

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