So you’re going to eat the elephant. Which is the first bite? Anywhere because it’s all got to be eaten - the second bite has 100% more learning than the first

An appreciation post of the amazing Ellie Collins, who is the office manager at Rixxo. She keeps everything moving, everybody happy, and everything working, and I definitely don't shout about her enough, so thank you, Ellie. You are a rock for us. We all appreciate you.

Define good. Not great, not perfect, just good. Then make everything good. That will give you great.

The definition of “done” is a far more powerful tool in development and integration than a brief, or scope or feature list.

Writing a brief IS starting the project. Building a website, aka the code, is only 1/10 of the work. Don’t leave all the power to development teams.

There is always bias in technology sales when a team has a development team. Hungry mouths to feed a certain flavour of code means a need to sell that flavour.

If you ask an agency, “Do you do B2B eCommerce?” and they say, “We can do it”, run!!! The answer you are looking for is “yes”

Technology is a language. For it to properly tell a good story, you have to have one. Start your brief with vision, mission, what is good and what is done. Not - I need a seamless experience.

My experience of ChatGPT-written briefs is that they are large, impressive, and add a ton of things you don’t need to think about, missing all the things you do. It is great for putting a real brief through and finding the last 5%.

Accidental AI is my favourite. When you've written enough context, you ask for help, maybe with a graphic, and it genuinely nails it. Although I would bet my left leg that if I had tried to ask it for a graphic, I wouldn't have got what I expected 😂

Being multilingual doesn't make you a poet. Being a developer does not make you a business consultant. So why, when people are building eCommerce sites, do they leave the strategy and go to market, and business processes to be defined by the technologist?

The map is not the road. You may plan, you may set your roadmap. But details emerge over time. Be ready to change and be able to change.

Agreeing what to do and how to behave when things go wrong is not a negative action. It shows maturity and that are your prepared to work through issues when it gets tough. Do it with your digital projects.

In my experience, projects don’t go wrong in the middle or at the end. They go wrong at the start. Agree on what done looks like before you start.

If you build it, they will not come. This ain’t Bill & Ted. You must teach your customers to change behaviours - they won’t just do it.

LTV - lifetime value. Knowing this is a superpower.

CTS - Cost To Serve. The ability to measure this number shows maturity in your business.

Centre of truth. This is a lie. Think of centres of truths. Gone are the days of connecting everything to a single source.

Did we get the proof in the pudding or what?! @b2becommerceworld was "shockingly well organised". A jam-packed event with hundreds of manufacturers and distributors learning about customer adoption, product data, digital maturity, technology, AI and digital transformation.

Context is EVERYTHING. I get the irony of this message.