I just finished Freedom Climbers by Bernadette McDonald, which tells the story of Polish alpinism. It's so good! Politics, relationships, and great observations on leadership and ambition. Strong recommendation.

See you in a few minutes, Brighton.

Design tip: stop using jargon I used to think that using words like “cognitive load” made me sound smart. But a lot of people don’t know what it means. So when explaining your design to your teammates, use simpler and clearer descriptions like:

Come join all of us in Brighton on Sept 17-18. Support a great homegrown conference!

Side effect of leaving my job... no more Outlook or Teams! 😑

After 7.5 years working on open-source technologies for public health, I left Resolve To Save Lives (rtsl.org) a week ago.

I'll tap the sign again.

Inspiring list. Love @ourworldindata.org and scienceheroes.com

Counting lives saved is difficult, but it can show us the great difference some people have made— Scientists can make an enormous difference in the world.

Is anyone following me who knows about buying server hardware and UPS? We have a server for hosting Simple.org in a new country and I need help picking an appropriate UPS to go in the country's data center. Help!?

One measure of a successful career is the number people you admire that also admire you.

Classical statuary in hipster clothes is pretty genius. www.itsnicethat.com/articles/leo...

What share of new cars in your country are electric?

billions of dollars poured into data centers doing unspeakable things to our planet, and all modern recommendation algorithms still basically amount to > YOU ENGAGED WITH PICTURE OF: CAT > HERE IS FOUR MILLION MORE PICTURE OF: CAT

I am delighted to be speaking at Leading Design with Mahima Chandak this November 12-13, at the Barbican in London. Use my code JOIN_DB for a 20% discount. ti.to/clearleft/le... #LeadingDesign #LDConf

When you let people in while the work is still forming, you make space for collaboration and momentum, not just approval. Over time, feedback becomes less of a verdict and more of an essential ingredient that helps shape the end result.

Back to Firefox as my primary desktop browser — giving the Zen Browser variant (which has a UI like Arc) a shot. So far kinda great. zen-browser.app

Dumb question of the day... is anyone shipping keyboards with "Mute/Unmute" buttons on them yet?

Global inequality is the result of two centuries of uneven economic growth

Next time you find yourself in a zoom call,

🎉📚 Exciting news! My new book — Clearing the Air — will be published in the UK in September. 50 of the most common questions I get about how we tackle climate change. 50 short, data-driven answers. www.penguin.co.uk/books/462676...

Figma going public means new industry tooling coming because they will slow down, focus on 1/4 by 1/4 numbers before eventually being swallowed by a PE firm or sold for little to Adobe who will rename it. Be on your toes design folk. Now is the time to try everything and use what works.

UI/UX tip: make form labels make sense everywhere, not just in the form. Let me explain: Too often, designers write labels that only work when filling out the form for the first time (in the blank state). This leads to inconsistency, more work and a maintenance burden...

Improving health and science outcomes is one of the things I’m most excited about inside of Microsoft AI right now. If you’re a Product Designer in the London area interested in shipping high-craft, society-positive work quickly, hit me up.

Anyone looking for a strong Android dev? Remote from India. I can wholeheartedly vouch for them from personal experience.

Thoroughly appreciated this interview with @shl.bsky.social about his work at DOGE. www.npr.org/2025/06/02/n...

We had a great conversation last week about how tech people can support public health projects around the world. Video is available now! youtu.be/_1fBpkwNcAA

We're currently reading @rutgerbregman.com's new book Moral Ambition. It's very good and very aligned with Hard Problems ideas. Definitely worth reading and get a taste with his recent interview on The Daily Show: www.youtube.com/watch?v=djKB...

It's not too late to join our online chat with 2 global public health experts to discuss how tech can support successful public health initiatives. RSVP! - 9:30am NYC - 2:30pm London - 3:30pm Paris - 7:00pm Delhi lu.ma/nqd3pagz

C'mon "Spelling Bee", what are we even doing here? 💩

Love this type of useful data analysis. Design is great too.

Really using Cursor to vibe code for the first time... I'm starting to understand the excitement. It's pretty cool talking to a coding tool to create realistic prototypes in html/css.

We just got approved for Settled Status in the UK! Yay! Also, credit to the digital teams in the UK government who really do make very good systems. 👏

Do I know anyone at Intercom or a CRM tool developer who would talk to me about how customers manage call-lists of customers? Am working on this in the context of primary care patient management and could use advice.

Does anyone else find it annoying when software (or even people) insist on calling every organization a "company." Working for a not-for-profit or government, it just rubs the wrong way.

What are you doing on June 3? We're hosting a dinner in London for 20 people at @hardproblems.com with @andybudd.bsky.social. It's a good opportunity to discuss tech and design with smart and empathetic peers. Please RSVP lu.ma/0iqbo3f6

The attitude that “Everything is a priority” is very enticing and hard to undo.

Who in London would be interested in a dinner for designers after Config on May 14? Would be great to gather for a meal. Reply or DM if you're keen.

Our new website for resolvetosavelives.org went live today with help from @clearleft.com. It's so much better organized with better content. Great work everyone involved! 👏

Ballot sent by courier to Canada. Democracy! 🇨🇦

Join us on Thursday on Zoom or in-person in London! Please RSVP: lu.ma/kme2kbaa

Phew, I passed the "Life in the UK Test"! I can now promptly forget how many members of parliament there are in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. 🤷‍♂️

Amen.

Join us on April 10 in London (or online)? It's going to be a great, frank discussion about whether a design agency can work on important problems in the world... and turn a profit.

We're hosting an interview with Brian O'Donnell from DHIS2 at the @hardproblems.com office in London on March 13. Come discuss how tech in public health is unique and how Brian and others are crafting careers that make a difference. lu.ma/bengeegp

I hate that its end is how people are finding out about all the good work 18F did. If we get to rebuild after all this bullshit, I hope we find prominent ways to promote & celebrate the work done by our entire civil service — especially the deep infrastructure work that has gone unseen for too long.

We are hosting our first campfire chat at Hard Problems, with Brian O'Donnell of the DHIS2 project in public health. Brian will coming to London from Oslo, so we can ask him what it takes to succeed at the intersection of public health and tech. lu.ma/bengeegp

"Everything is a priority." I don't think we have a shared definition of "priority."

Just pushed an update to Healthicons.org with great new icons from our volunteer illustrators. New icons include: - Dry eyes - Autoimmune disease - CPAP - Social determinants of health - Tumor - Cell tissue - FHIR2 - IV drip and lots more!

I'm often confused by people who are wealthy enough to wake up in the morning and do anything at all... many make choices that are hard to comprehend. I mean, you could do ANYTHING...