Reflections on fashion, freedom, and #InternationalWomensDay #IWD following my trip to the exquisite, elegant, Marie Antoinette Style exhibition at the V&A www.linkedin.com/posts/suekeo...

#ThisWeekAtSookio I loved hearing from @carolecadwalla.bsky.social, @eliothiggins.bsky.social at @thersaorg.bsky.social event Disinformation and Democracy. Stand-out quote, from Liz Pendleton @mediarevolution.mo-me.social: "We keep on looking at the clown, when we should be looking at the circus."

Been out and about exploring communications from all sorts of different angles - inside out, back to front, and upside down. *️⃣ Majid Islam's Cambridge Network workshop on organisational complexity, giant monsters and elite teams... *️⃣ Marketing Leaders' meetup + with top comms folk in Cambridge...

I had such a good week, then driving home last night, all cheerful, tunes on, I hit a *massive* pothole. Burst tyre; managed to safely turn off onto a quieter road; spent nearly 5 hours there before getting rescued by a guy with two black eyes from accidentally breaking his nose with a jackhammer

#ThisWeekAtSookio Was a biggie! Delighted to see the Cambridge Trust new website go live and the launch of the Opening Doors video, a project I've been working on since September. A relationship going back to 2018, I'm always proud to support their work. cambridgetrust.org

Good to be part of the National Business Women's Awards as a judge for the fifth year running! Time to get writing those entries and showcasing your strengths 🏆 eventsandpr.co.uk/national-bus...

Just saw a coach on LinkedIn explain how a client cried in one of her sessions, so she uploaded the transcript to Claude & got it to analyse her coaching technique. Turned the tips into a carousel. No mention of whether the client consented to having her emotional, private thoughts used in this way

I'm going to see Wuthering Heights tonight. As usual, I've deliberately not read reviews in advance because I like to make my own mind up. Plenty has filtered through though! I've read it twice; think it's best to go in not expecting a literal retelling of the original...

A pair of lovebirds for Valentine's day

Good to see one tech company looking ahead further than the end of its nose and thinking about long-term sustainability of the business fortune.com/2026/02/13/t...

Little but he's loud!

#ThisWeekAtSookio I had an excellent day at the Small Business Charter Help to Grow: Management alumni meetup. Loved Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts' perspective on the early days of the internet, when the landscape was still being carved out. Write-up on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/posts/suekeo...

Really productive day structuring two workshops: 1 - brand naming session to create a fresh identity 2 - elevator pitch to win investment. The trick is not to magically come up with the name on the day, but to capture everything so that coming up with the name/pitch is actually quite easy ✨

I was on a bus in Oxford yesterday with my dog, and this elderly chap gets on, looks down at her and says, "Does your dog bite?" "That is not my dog" 😂 youtube.com/shorts/lLR-V...

#ThisWeekAtSookio Really enjoyed a thought-provoking evening with Royal Television Society East on production in AI, and how it's being used - or not - in scriptwriting, music and the editing process

The roles, the tools, the global shifts…there’s a lot of rebalancing going on in marketing right now. What questions should you ask as you weigh up what works – and what doesn’t – in your business? Letter from the Editor: preview.mailerlite.io/preview/1745... Subscribe: sookio.com/mailing-list

At the Lee Miller exhibition I learned a lot about Vogue during WWII. Quality reporting and photojournalism that went way beyond just fashion. Fast forward to today; Vogue Japan puts Ariana Grande with six fingers on the cover. Can we get some STANDARDS back please, or is this it now, we're done?

#ThisWeekAtSookio ✨My theory that turning down work that doesn't feel right…actually leaves space for the projects you DO want to come through, usually within hours. Which is exactly what happened. And the first client asked us to send info over about strategic services for further down the line...

One of the challenges I'm finding in going from running an agency to a consultancy is turning down work which previously we would have snapped up, but now I know I shouldn't be doing anymore

I worked as a homepage editor for Yahoo for several years, which ultimately led to me picking up enough freelance work alongside to set up a business. So I have a lot of affection for them and would love to see them becoming relevant again. C'mon...

Brilliant saunter round the @designmuseum.bsky.social's Wes Anderson archive exhibition. I now want to rewatch the ones I have seen and fill in the gaps with the ones I haven't, starting with The French Dispatch - anyone seen this?

Cooking & catching up with recent episodes of BBC Radio4's When It Hits the Fan...very much enjoying the celebration of Traitors winner Rachel and how she uses all her skills as a strategic comms professional to play the game brilliantly www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

I'm normally all about best practice in communications... but just to say that if I were the social media manager for the actual White House accounts, I'd be so embarrassed after posting this that I'd have to leave the industry

For years on Twitter I used to do a Friday roundup called #ThisWeekAtSookio. Might try it here, largely for my own benefit 😂 ⭐ Very thorough proofread and copyedit of an education client's new website before launch, rejigging layout where I could for extra readability and to refocus on user needs

The way Ryanair have turned round to Elon Musk and stuck two fingers up at him has reversed years of grumbles from me about the airline and I feel like buying a flight somewhere right now

Went to see Blue Velvet this evening. Last saw it in my teens. Think I must have blocked out from my memory all the very bad nasty horrible things that happen in that film!

I can definitely see the reasoning behind a social media ban, but I'm not in favour. My preference is for tech giants to be held accountable for the products they build in the first place, so there's a safety-by-design approach and ethical standards are met at every stage of development

It's Dolly Parton's 80th birthday so I thought I'd brighten up your Bluesky feed with this pic I took of her in the early 2000s when I was Editor on the BBC Country website. Amazing woman, not just for her music but supporting children's literacy through book gifting - 230m+ copies given to date 👏

The Lee Miller exhibition at Tate Britain is astonishingly good. I knew very little about her before, and now I'm in awe. Up there with Letizia Battaglia in admiration stakes. Popped into Turner/Constable too, and enjoyed Maggi Hambling and Barbara Hepworth along the way ✨

A rave in the nave! I didn't know what to expect from an evening of Radiohead at Ely Cathedral but it was really rather good

I thought that Trinity College, Cambridge, was my oldest client - founded 1546. But they're a mere whippersnapper compared to Ely Markets, established 1216. And they're not just a market, they're an 800-year-old business incubator that fuels the local economy & puts smiles on faces all year round 😊

Enjoyable mix coming up today: * talking to a chap about delivering sessions on comms for his MBA students * joining an interview panel to help a client hire their Marketing Manager * finetuning the outline for a series of workshops on creating a podcast * crisis comms plan for an education client

Just had a sales call with a supplements brand, which I thought was going to be about marketing strategy...turned out they wanted me to make introductions on a commission basis. Er, no 😂 Just picturing...trying to flog omegas to University of Cambridge clients, they'd think I'd lost my actual mind

Most enjoyable morning running LinkedIn training with a large, established property company. The perception is that people all moved to Bluesky from X, but in my experience (subjective, obvs) it's LinkedIn that's changed the most - way more lively than a year or so ago, with a shift in content/tone

Livening up January with some cultural nourishment... ✨ Lee Miller and Turner/Constable, Tate Britain ✨ Wes Anderson, Design Museum ✨ Marie Antoinette, V&A for March ✨ Local cinema, David Lynch, Wild At Heart & Blue Velvet ✨ RSA events ✨ Traitors! And my first daffs for 2026 are ready to bloom 💐

At its core, #marketing is like gardening: your plants need • the right environment • sun, water & nutrients • tender loving care If one of those falls short, they aren't happy. Same is true for your customers. #buildinpublic

Embroidery by the first UK hunger striking suffragette, Scottish artist Marion Wallace Dunlop (1864-1942) #womensart

A little Dublin trip to round off 2025. Happy New Year everyone, and I hope 2026 brings you good health and lots of happiness ✨

Merry Christmas! Beautiful carol service in Ely Cathedral as always 🌟

A LinkedIn workshop to build today so it's all ready for Jan, then a whole afternoon of setting up systems and processes for 2026 and trialling a switch to a new project management tool. Which to some sounds like a headache, but to me is delicious ✨

Very enjoyable day in sparkly and festive London seeing two screenings: * Goodbye June, followed by Q&A with Kate Winslet, Andrea Riseborough, Timothy Spall and Fisayo Akinade * Hamnet, at Bafta, with Q&A on set, location, costumes Must say there's worse ways to spend a Saturday!

Been looking forward to hanging this little chap on the tree!

Hurrah, the @rspb.bsky.social advent calendar is back 🦉

Great to complete this course in Behavioural Economics over the weekend, complementing two others this year: 🎓Behavioural Science at Work, Durham University 🎓Behavioural Economics: Employee and Customer Behaviour, FutureLearn, with Professor Paul Dolan of the LSE

How do British Airways use the COM-B model of behaviour change - and lashings of British humour - to encourage bored passengers to watch their safety films? And how can you apply this model to your own communications, in your organisation & marketing to customers? www.sookio.com/blog/british...

Fulfilling a lifelong dream to follow in the footsteps of Isabel Allende and Mario Vargas Llosa and come to South America, with a trip to Perú, Chile, Argentina. Gabriel Garcia Márquez and Colombia on the list for another trip 🦜Saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time!

A pretty fun and special day yesterday, at Apple HQ in Battersea Power Station picking up podcasting tips from people who really do know what they're talking about. Then the Independent Podcast Awards; up for Culture and Business, didn't win but one of the best awards dos I've been to, bravo ✨

Communication Untangled is up for two awards tonight in the Independent Podcast Awards! Plus Apple are putting on a mixer at Battersea Power Station at lunchtime time for finalists. Not sure what a mixer is - except in production terms - but I'm about to find out 😊

Fun day ahead, supporting a client in a welcome event for international students, and overseeing the filming taking place in this lecture theatre, where scenes from the Theory of Everything were shot

Two weeks today I'll be on a plane to Peru. Which is very exciting - and also my to do list before then is down to my ankles. It's fine it's fine it's fine it's fine it's fine...