One Woman’s View is now a book and officially on sale, you can order one on Facebook by sending me a message or it will be available on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, and on Cassaro Crafts at https://cassaro-crafts.sumupstore.com from tomorrow.
My first novel The Gabellotto’s Daughter is available for preorder on most eboook platforms now. The paperback comes out on August 22nd
https://books2read.com/u/mqY6NO
I’ve just finished an incredible week at Boomi World London. The technology Boomi has launched over the past year is genuinely mind-blowing — and tonight, after the event wound down, I finally had time to let it all settle.
Something came up repeatedly throughout the week that I want to reflect on: fear.
People kept asking — colleagues, partners, customers — “How are we going to cope with all of this AI? Is it going to take our jobs? Change everything we know?” And honestly? Those feelings are valid. Change is unsettling.
But then I thought about my mum.
She’s 85. Last year she got one of those robot vacuum cleaners. A few months before that, she’d asked me: “How is AI really going to change my life at my age?” — a fair question.
Then I remembered the vacuum. I told her: “That little machine knows where to go. He knows when he’s finished his job and goes home to charge. He even knows to change settings when he moves from the carpet in the living room to the tiles in the kitchen.”
She lit up. “He’s really smart,” she said.
“He’s smart because of AI,” I told her.
Simple use case. But it landed — and I’ve used that story many times since.
Then tonight another thread connected. One of the terms that came up at Boomi World was tokenomics— how we’re going to think about and spend AI tokens as a kind of new currency.
And I thought: tokens. That’s not a new word.
When I was a kid, tokens were what you used at the seaside arcades. Then they came back in the video arcades of my teenage years. Then home gaming consoles arrived — and the arcades faded. Then DVDs threatened to kill the cinema. Before that, VHS tapes threatened television. Then Netflix replaced the video rental shop.
Every single time, people worried. Every single time, we adapted.
We assimilated these technologies into our lives, our communities, our routines — and they became normal. Not because we stopped being human, but because we are remarkably good at finding our way through change.
So to everyone feeling a little anxious about the pace of AI right now — I hear you. But I genuinely believe we’ll find our way with this too, just as we have with every technology shift before it.
We always do.
…my mother has always called me “gadget girl”, because I am constantly looking for the latest and greatest tech BUT sometimes it does let me down. I’m sure you have all experienced this numerous times and it makes you feel frustrated. When this happens to me I try to remember what it was like before mobile phones, tablets, and the Internet. This usually works however this time it did not.
I live in the UK but was born in the US and I do follow baseball when my team makes it to the postseason. I have every sports package on the planet because I love most sports. Yesterday was game one of the baseball World Series and the first pitch was scheduled for well after midnight. Gadget Girl made sure the recording was set up (checked twice) because I hate it if I record the non-HD channel by mistake. I went to bed safe in the knowledge that the game would be recorded and ready for me to watch in the morning.
I grew up a Yankees fan but after the move to Texas and the Rangers joining the league I slowly switched to the local team. This is the Ranger’s first trip to the World Series since 2011 so it is a big deal.
I woke up thing morning armed myself with a cup of coffee and settled in front of the telly. The game was back and forth after the Ranger’s early lead. The Diamond Backs rallied and took the lead. Late in the game the Ranger’s tied the score and forced the game into extra innings. It is now crunch time, bottom of the 10th inning with the score still tied. It breaks to the 4,000th commercial of the game and STOPS! I am sitting there with my mouth open, staring at the frozen telly. No, I could not think about what it was like before you could record games or what life was like before self driving vacuum cleaners!
I started this blog with the fact the I love technology BUT sometimes it can drive you absolutely nuts. We are in 2023, men have walked on the moon, there is an active space programme to take a crew to Mars, AI that is so good you don’t know it isn’t real. So why can’t TV providers figure out a way to put a buffer at the end of games!! I had to grab my iPad and look up the score, all the while not taking a single breath. Through squinted eyes I saw the final score and let out that breath. We won in the 11th inning. Which was great news but it would have been nice to see it.
Here is a recommendation to broadcasters, why don’t you put some of the pre-match build up time to post match summary to avoid this happening? I know that there will always be games that go to multiple inning or extra time but surely in this day and age we should be able to solve this problem!
I grew up as the only girl between two boys, wonderful boys but boys. I often wondered what it would be like to have a sister. It was not the usual girly stuff I would think about, not the fixing each other’s hair or picking out shoes. I was a Tom boy through and through so my placement between two boys was perfect for me. Although sometimes I would think it would be nice to have a sister to share those precious secrets with or to have someone who knew me as well as I knew myself. I was lucky to have a few good friends but I knew it was not the same. One friend in particular through high school then as high school ended and real life began we took different paths and then were in different parts of the country and eventually we were an ocean apart. Over the intervening 20 years I tried to find my friend so many times with no success, then the technology that is FaceBook came along and we finally reconnected.
That was almost 5 years ago and I vowed we would never lose touch again. Durning those long years apart I realised that I did indeed have a sister, she is as special to me as any sister could be. Tonight I had the pleasure to be in her home, among her amazing friends and saw the girl I used to know as the incredible woman she has become. She is loved by these people and I know that she is in good hands when I am not here.
Angela, my friend my sister, I love you!
The letter “E” is significant in the English language but recently it has taken on a whole new dimension. Just over three years ago we welcomed our granddaughter Ellie into the world. Today the power of “E” has increased as we now welcome the newest addition to the Wilks/Matthews Clan..Erin. “E” now stands for so much more! I have not been able to see Erin yet as I am away on business but I intend to make up for this that is for sure.
This ever expanding family is phenomenal. We cross two seas (Atlantic and Irish) and multiple countries. As if the arrival of our newest member was not enough to rejoice we also have the pleasure of welcoming another new family member, by marriage, Amanda. Two new family members in as many days…wow, how lucky are we?
Congratulations to Matt, Sarah and Ellie and to Mark and Amanda! Thank you for writing the preface of the next chapters of our family history.
If you follow this blog you know that I travel quite often for business. Normally I have such brief stays in ant one location that it is not uncommon for me to only travel to the customer site and the hotel before going back to the airport. However, when time permits I love to take in the local culture usually through its cuisine. This week I am in lovely Milan, unfortunately I brought our UK weather with me once again. On the bright side my colleague and I have the opportunity to enjoy our first evening’s meal in a wonderful local restaurant. It was so good that we had to return for the second night in a row. The food and the staff are incredible! At the end of our meal we were enjoying the last of our wine and suddenly the waiter appears with a small plate of tiny pastries sprinkled with powdered sugar and a bottle, yes, not glass of, Lemoncello. I was immediately throw back to my childhood, (which is getting to be a much longer throw), I said to my colleague “strovalli”, he looked at me and said “what?” I said “I’m sure my grandmother used to make these for us and we called them strovalli”. Our Italian side of the family had names for things that you couldn’t always trace back to its Italian roots. I popped one in my mouth and I knew I was right. So when the waiter whizzed by I said “can you tell me what you call these”, pointing to the plate. He said “we call them strovalli”. Score!!! I knew it.
Almost 50 years on and one taste sparked a flood of childhood memories. The only difference I told the waiter was that my grandmother used to drizzle honey over them. He said “ah yes, that is the way we have them at home”. I guess sticky honey could be quite messy in a restaurant setting. So here I am 4+ decades and more than 4,000 miles from my home town and I rediscover one of life’s simple pleasures. Grandma, here’s to you “salute!”