0:00
You don’t need complicated technology. If you look at any successful organization in the world or business,
0:06
they’re relentlessly focused on customers and users. And that’s, you know, that’s a core truth. I think still
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if you think about government, if I’m renewing my driving license or renew my passport, it’s a really really simple
0:18
transaction when it comes to technology. So with the organizations, the governments you’re working with on their
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equivalent of gov.uk, UK. Are you introducing AI elements into that that you didn’t here in the UK when you first
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did the design or are there other elements that you’re introducing just from learning what you did from that experience?
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Hello and welcome to Tomorrow the Future Forum podcast. I’m Ollie Barrett and
0:44
here at Future Forum, we’re all about bringing very different people together to shape the future. And whilst I’ll
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often be your solo host on tomorrow, today I’m delighted to say I’m not
0:55
because I’m rejoined by Victoria Usher. Victoria, how are you? Absolutely brilliant. Delighted to be here as usual.
1:01
Well, Victoria, I have been looking forward to today’s episode because you always uh help us select amazing guests
1:07
and today is somebody who is hugely respected by lots of my favorite people
1:13
and he is of course Ben Terret, the chief exe of public digital. So tell us
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a bit more about today’s conversation. Very excited about today. So uh Ben and I have had a chat talking about lots of
1:25
the different highlights within his life. There are so many to talk about today. So he is best known for the gov.uk website. He is the brains behind
1:32
it. All of us have used gov.uk website. I use it relatively frequently in my
1:38
business. He is he has taken that thinking and the brains behind it. He’s worked with other businesses and
1:43
institutions across the world. um he has been um a leading voice in terms of an
1:49
authority in terms of digital transformation areas like digital sovereignty. He’s got incredible views
1:55
on AI which we’re going to talk about today. And all of the this this was recognized in the honors uh list last
2:01
year when he was awarded a CBE quite rightly so for all of the work he’s done. No, that’s right. And that that’s a
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really good way to tear it up because for me um Ben is about making stuff beautiful and beautifully simple to use.
2:13
say he has spanned different sectors. So, Victoria, I’ll let you take the lead, but for now, Ben Terret, welcome
2:19
to tomorrow. Thank you very much. It’s great to be here. Thanks for having me on. So, I’m going to start, Ben, by looking
What will AI-powered governments look like in 10 years?
2:25
at what the world is going to be like in 10 years time. So, if digital systems
2:31
become fully embedded in public services, which is your area of specialism, um along with AI, what kind
2:38
of a world are we looking at? That’s a great question to start with. uh and it’s it’s a really difficult one
2:43
to answer. I think it’s a question we get asked, I get asked a lot. And I think if you if you if you start by
2:49
looking back 10 years, the the world has changed so much in those 10 years that you project that forward, it’s it’s on
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the one hand, it’s almost impossible to say what things will be like. Um, but I think you you can sort of point to some
3:03
answers. So I think a lot of things will be the same. A lot of things fundamentally won’t change. um and lots
3:10
of things would have you’d have made slow you know progress on various bits of technology and particularly how
3:15
citizens interact with the state um but then you can see a direction where the
3:20
world is moving incredibly quickly so AI you know uh is the obvious example um
3:27
you don’t have to go do you have to think very hard I don’t think to think that governments around the world are
3:32
not ready for kind of an agentic um aentic empowered citizenship so already
3:38
uh you are hearing some stories of particularly local councils and people like that where they’re inundated with complaints
3:44
[snorts] um for planning applications or something as simple as that and they’re all being generated by AI and they can now you know deploy thousands of these
3:51
and the government is not ready to handle handle that kind of thing. So things like [clears throat] that are
3:56
obviously going to increase. I think if you think we will live in this blissful world where AI takes care of everything
4:02
and all your public services, you know, beautifully and simply handled, that’s not going to happen. And that’s what I mean. Some of those things will still
4:08
feel incredibly familiar now, I think, in 10 years time. But some some of them will will push on. And what we see at
4:16
public digital really is the the smaller countries are the ones that are best at taking advantage of this. When you say
4:22
smaller countries, well, the still really the sort of leading government in the world digitally is Estonia. They have been for
Why Estonia leads digital government
4:28
a long time. Um they’re really ahead on this kind of stuff. Ukraine have made huge advantages um sadly because of the
4:35
situation there in the war, but they’ve made huge leaps in terms of digital technology. And what are they doing differently from
4:41
like the UK for example? Well, both of them have got very strong digital identity um programs which the kind of
4:47
you know the traditional western countries don’t have or or are struggling with gen mostly for political
4:53
reasons not not technological reasons. Um but they they have that and they build everything off the off the back of
4:58
that and then they just go all in on the on the digital solution and sort of they can skip the kind of legacy that that
5:05
some bigger um western invert commerce countries have. if you uh look back, you
Lessons from creating GOV.UK
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know, you’re you’re best known for your gov.uk um creation and obviously the spin-off from that. Um if what do you
5:19
what have you learned about that looking back on it? What would you do differently? What uh what didn’t you
5:25
realize then that you know now? What I’ve learned is this is very similar to what Ollie said in his very kind intro
5:30
is it is possible to make things that work really well, are really simple, are
5:35
really functional and and are really beautiful and you can make a big difference to people’s lives in just
5:41
kind of doing things well and and taking care and making those making those things simple. And um there’s a phrase
5:48
that Corey Doctoro coined which is the inshitification of you know modern I’m sure it’s come up on your podcast before
5:54
but you you see that everywhere um now I mean less so in in public services but you see in in modern life and it is
6:00
that’s not inevitable and it’s possible to make things that are easy to use and that are beautiful and that are simple.
6:06
And I think I one of the things I probably learned is is you can take that approach to everything. you know things
6:11
don’t have it’s not inevitable that that things that digital technology has to be bad to use and you know complicated and
6:17
you know it’s possible to do those things simply um and do them well. Are there are there key principles around that? Love to find out a bit
The secret to great product design
6:24
more. Yeah, I mean it really the the key principle is it all stems from user needs and looking at the user and
6:30
finding out what people are what people really want to do not what you think they want to do. And the real way you do
6:36
that is user research. That’s really the key to this is spending time with users, finding out what they’re doing, what
6:41
they what they need to do, uh, you know, just and building things around that. And that’s a [clears throat] a really
6:47
difficult thing for most organizations to do because most organizations, it’s, you know, what we call the hippo, the
6:53
highest paid person’s opinion. And so it’s the high paid person’s opinion says we should do that and then, you know,
6:58
why don’t we put these these three things here and you come out the meeting and everyone builds that without talking to any real users, customers, whoever it
7:05
is. But if you look at any successful organization in the world or business, they’re relentlessly focused on
7:12
customers and users. And that’s, you know, that’s a core truth I think still. So when you did the gov.uk website, how
Why user research changes everything
7:20
many people did you speak to for that? For example, uh we we did I mean we were doing user research every day
7:26
um with real users and getting them to test things we built and we’d we’d make small we’d make small tweaks and then we
7:32
test it again and we did endless user research. Yeah, that really was at the core of it.
7:37
um fantastic lady called Lisa Reichel who who led that team and really instilled that approach in everyone and
7:43
we used to say um that uh everyone had everyone had to go along everyone had to
7:48
go and at least see some user research and I think I’m remembering this right there was a target of see even the sort
7:55
of most senior people who weren’t involved dayto-day they would we wanted them to do two hours every six weeks I
8:02
think that’s right sure it’s not six hours every two weeks but I think it’s um two hours every six weeks just to get
8:08
them to go along to a a user research lab, watch people watch people using services and you know just just do that.
8:14
So yeah, it was a really cool part of So was there anything that came out of the research that you thought was going to work that actually didn’t once you
8:21
put it in front of consumers for the website? Yeah. Yeah, it’s a really nice example I see that we were talking about last week. So we if you think about gov.uk
The GOV.UK design mistake that failed instantly
8:29
now, it’s very well established as a as a as a platform and as a design and so on. But back in the early days, we were
8:36
trying to invent what what can this thing look like and how can it represent kind of the whole country without it’s
8:41
not a tourism website and so on. So it’s a quite a difficult path to go down and we had this well I had this idea because
8:48
it’s kind of my fault. I had this idea that we would use some of the festival of Britain um style you know graphics
8:54
and things and we made these beautiful icons. We’ve got somebody in the team had kind of drawn and and made these
9:00
beautiful icons. And so different parts of the site had these these icons on. You know, if it was a transaction, it
9:05
had one icon. If it was a a sort of guide, it had a different one. And we it looked great. And the site looked great.
9:11
And we were really really pleased with these. And when we tested it users, I mean, it didn’t last five minutes. They
9:16
they all thought they were buttons or they were things to click on and they were purely decorative and they just
9:21
kept clicking on these things that went nowhere and did nothing. And I really remember one person we spoke to who said
9:27
I got really one of the things I think it was for a guide something with this beautiful little icon that in our heads
9:33
looked like [clears throat] a guide or a book or a booklet but to this user looked like a door and he said I kept
9:40
trying to exit the site. I kept clicking on the door and didn’t go anywhere. I got really frustrated and you know and we just went round this loop and we
9:45
thought oh my and they just bombed absolutely bombed it instantly. So we ditched them. We just we completely we
9:52
completely ditched them. So it was um that was a big big mistake but you know without user research we’d never have
9:58
discovered that it’s design the perfection of design that you’ve got in your head and your conceptually and then of course in
10:03
reality. So um for people that haven’t heard of public digital can you tell us a bit more about the business and also
10:12
some of the businesses that you are working with um and that maybe you have influenced with the learnings that
10:17
you’ve had from gov.uk UK and and Ben, can I ask you and we will cover this up in our edit. Can I ask you
10:24
to hold that thought because if it’s all right, Victoria, I just want to Yeah, go for it. I’ll ask the question. A couple of bits and pieces. I think I
10:29
think we’ve got the question. But if I can just take one big step back on the flip side, is there an example of an
10:36
insight about a user, about a member of the public that you wouldn’t have got unless you’d got face to face with them
10:42
in those sessions either because you realized the type of problem they were trying to solve or what they actually
10:48
needed wasn’t what you initially thought. There definitely there definitely is.
10:53
I’ll have to think to get a specific example. But I suppose it’s it’s a broader question about that whole process about
10:59
starting with um you know starting with the user needs isn’t it that whole thing
11:04
is and it could be anything um from driving license to voting. I suppose it’s like what what we thought was this
11:10
but what we actually built was something a bit different. Do you see what I mean? When you’re ready I’ll continue.
11:15
Did you do did you do focus did you do brainstorms internally as well to come up with ideas as you’re looking at it? Not really. No. I mean, we were I think
Watch what users do—not what they say
11:22
there’s there’s a big difference between there’s basically there’s a difference between what people say they need
11:28
and what they say they do and then what they and then what they you know what what they actually do. Yeah. Um, I’m really fascinated by the
11:35
flip side of um, what Victoria’s asked you about, which is when you got something right because of a particular
11:42
insight and uh, um, I suppose the theme we’re on here is that you’re tuning in
11:47
to what people need. Um, and you’re also listening to what they say they need. So, tell tell us a bit more about that
11:53
in practice. Well, I think um there are loads of examples and I I will I will
11:58
struggle to remember them, but I think the truth is you have to watch what people do, not what they say they do.
12:05
And that’s a big difference. And almost subconsciously, people don’t, you know, they say, “Oh, I always do this or I always click on this or I always do
12:11
that.” And then when you watch them, they don’t. And and that’s the trick. And I have I have a really nice story about this actually which is not to do
12:17
with government but shortly after um I left I left government went to work for
12:22
the co-op um and we helped rebrand them and relaunched the membership scheme and and build them a fantastic digital team
12:28
there and we were given 10 food stores that we could kind of experiment with
12:33
and try different things and one in particular that was sort of off the grid so the the weekly figures didn’t matter and we could really experiment with this
12:39
store and we tried all kinds of things in there. It was great fun and uh one time with my counter I’m on the digital
12:45
side and there’s a counterpart from the food business side and we work very closely together and um this would have
12:50
been 2016 2017 something like that so 10 years ago and I was trying to say we
12:56
should try a cashless store we should just experiment with card only because you know there’s a lot of evidence that
13:02
the co-op stores in the cities uh you know there’s one in Canary Warf where cash was like 1% of transactions or
13:08
something I I think that we should we should try that and they were very nervous about that for obvious reasons
13:13
and a lot of co-op stores are in rural or sort of uh you know non- city kind of locations. Anyway, um we had this store
13:21
um just it was in sale I think and uh this lady came in. She was probably
13:26
probably in her 70s and she was doing a shopping and she came up to me and this other guy and said you the management
13:32
you know like well yes I guess so and she talked to us about certain things and she had various complaints about various things and she was using the
13:37
self-service tiller. who’s talking to us and scanning her shopping. And so we chatted to her and then I said, “Oh, just I just wondered how would you feel
13:44
if we made this store card only? Uh, you know, how how do you pay for your shopping? How do you feel about that?”
13:49
And she said, “Oh, I think it’d be a terrible idea. I always use cash to pay for my purchases. You every week I get
13:54
my pension money and you know, and that’s how I I keep track of things. I don’t get in debt and I I pay for cash
13:59
for everything.” And she opened her purse and she had some cash in there doing her shopping the whole time. And we talked about this for a bit. She
14:05
finished her shopping and I I swear to God she put got a card out of her wallet, tapped a card on the thing and
14:11
then just walked off with her shopping in the thing and my colleague and I were both sort of staggered by this. But I
14:18
I’m convinced to this day that if we’d gone outside and asked her, she would have said she paid in cash. Yes. And because it’s just she thinks she
14:25
paid in cash and she partly she means not debt, you know, but I think she thinks I pay for things in cash. I have
14:31
cash, but she doesn’t. She pays by the card because of course you do. I think that’s just a really good example of,
14:36
you know, watching what people do, not what they say they do. The power of being in person. I remember interviewing the co-founders of Sky
14:41
Scanner who talked of the immense frustration of being behind that glass screen because what they wanted to do was heckle and say, “The buttons here.”
14:48
They had to force themselves to stand back. Um, two super quick ones. It always struck me in the early stages of
14:55
um of gov.uk and the government digital service, you were a bit sort of a maverick unit. It was unusually
15:01
entrepreneurial. So with the benefit of hindsight, what were the pros and cons of that? Have I got my diagnosis
15:07
correct? You did seem to be able to make a lot happen in a startup fashion in a very short amount of time. That won’t be
15:13
without its bumps on the road. Yeah. No, that’s true. I think we we definitely had that that mindset. I
Building GOV.UK like a startup
15:19
think there were some of us that thought don’t know how long this is going to last, so let’s you know, run as run as fast as we can and get as much done as
15:25
quick as possible. There was definitely um an idea that you know lots of things have to change and so you know just
15:31
let’s just get on with it. Let’s let’s not hang around. Um you never really know. We had a absolutely fantastic
15:37
minister in Francis Maud. You never know how long I mean turns out he stuck around for about four years but you never know how long a minister is going
15:44
to going to stick around. So I think we had this sense of the clock was ticking and then we did have a slightly startup
15:50
you know let’s do things differently and and sometimes we just didn’t know we didn’t know what the process was or we didn’t know that you needed to write
15:56
round and ask 10 people so we just got on with it and you know and we uh Mike Bracken who I’m sure you will know and
16:02
some of your listeners will know uh who was the sort of chief exec of GDS at the time he had this phrase the strategy is
16:07
delivery uh which was a fantastic phrase and that that really you know p emp power empowered us to you know we’re not
16:13
writing long strategy documents we’re not going to meetings. We’re just going to do stuff and we’re going to put it on the web.
16:18
Uh, you know, we’re going to prove what we’re saying by by delivery, by publishing, you know, doing stuff. Um,
16:24
that served us incredibly well. I think towards the end of the our time, so probably talking four years now, um, we
16:30
did need to change that mindset did need to change and and I think probably what we didn’t realize um, is we’d won the
16:37
argument and everyone was on our side and we hadn’t when we started, we hadn’t won the argument. Although people
16:42
welcomed us and realized there was a different approach, they weren’t sort of really familiar with what that was going to be. But a couple of years down the
16:48
line, you’ve won the argument and everyone’s, you know, is on your side and and then you do need to change, I
16:54
think. Um, and we probably didn’t quite realize that. So, we’re going to talk about what your work today involves. There was a phrase
17:00
that I just wanted to pick up on when you were talking about how governments are prepared or not. And you talked about an era of agentic AI. And what I
17:08
think you were hinting at was this idea that there’s a mass automation of notes coming into government and that could be
17:14
into departments or councils um presumably a little bit like we would have
17:20
made it really easy for someone to sign a petition or send a letter to their MP and I just wondered on the flip side of
17:25
that on the other side to what extent is the response to that already agentic
Is government ready for Agentic AI?
17:31
from the government’s side I don’t think it is there already I mean the government is is is doing lots of
17:38
things. I mean, we often say that the UK government has the least worst AI strategy of any government. Um, and I,
17:44
you know, I mean that I mean that genuinely and I mean that with lots of lots of fondness and they are um they
17:50
are doing some of the right things and they’re experimenting. I think every every government and every organization we talk to is experimenting. Nobody
17:57
really knows where it’s going to go and they they don’t know how to scale which experiments and they’re kind of
18:02
everyone’s waiting for what does good look like? you know what should we be doing and and looking for these reference points and that’s not coming.
18:09
I think the issue the sort of intellectual issue you have with a lot of government services and I mean this
18:14
all around the world not just in the UK is a lot of them have over the years friction has been built in to manage
18:21
demand and that’s the thing nobody talks about and no ministers talk about and the issue is AI will remove that
18:27
friction on both sides and then that could unleash incredible demand which governments either aren’t prepared for
18:34
can’t cope or certainly can’t afford and at the moment you know that’s covered by this friction and that allows you to
18:40
kind of to kind of get away for that. So, you know, the most obvious thing was would be imagine there was some kind of,
18:46
I don’t know, Martin Lewis AI bot that said, “Here, claim everything you’re entitled to. Um, click this button and
18:52
we’ll do it, you know, in seconds.” And you no government anywhere in the world is ready for that really, especially not
18:58
this government. And so, just to be super clear, at the moment, the UK government isn’t sending out I
19:05
mean, the closest to a gent would be some sort of, you know, out of office equivalent. we haven’t got automatic
19:10
messages being sent you know in the in the same way because my theory Ben is that there
19:16
the public sector might be quite a big step behind the private sector that’s exactly what customerf facing organizations are already doing across
19:22
the private sector well you’ve got companies for example where you’ve got job applications yeah you’ve got people automating their job
19:29
applications so cover note CV being sent off with AI and then the companies are
19:34
sorting and responding using AI so you’ve just basically got AI talking to AI in the p in the private sector.
19:41
Exactly. Well, and there there was a news story very recently where the AI got the job, right? Having been interviewed by an AI.
19:48
[laughter] So, but I don’t want to sort of miss I don’t want to sort of put words in your mouth then, but you know, if we think of leading energy companies,
19:55
retailers, they are automating all of this, but but we’re we’re not quite there.
20:00
No, I think that governments have this principle. um we talked about this recently actually and and I think it was
20:06
a um I think it was a sort of a judicial um statement from many years ago but the
20:12
government sort of has a principle that a human must always make the ultimate decision because it can have real
20:17
consequences on you know on people’s lives and I think you know by and large government is still is holding to that
20:24
which that’s different if you’re a corporation I think or if you’re a private sector company so I think a lot
20:30
of those decisions ultimately will be made so AI might make things more efficient, might make things quicker, might help you scan and filter, but
20:36
you’ll get a human making a decision. So, yeah, but the workaround is that the humans have made the decision and the messaging is just automated. All of the
20:43
guidelines and what goes into the decision, I suppose that that that will be what they’ll say. Yeah. Yes, probably. I mean, I I don’t I
20:50
don’t know if that’s happening at the moment. There is um government has a thing called I.AI and they publish a lot
20:56
of what they’re doing and what they’re working on. They are trying lots of really interesting um kind of experiments, things like that.
What Public Digital actually does
21:04
But I’ll go back to my question about public digital. So for people that don’t know the
21:10
business, what does public digital do and we’d also like to understand what organizations, governments, etc. that
21:17
you’ve worked with around the world taking this knowledge that you have with that you’ve gained from gov.uk and then
21:23
rolling out to others. So the very short answer is that we do gov.uk for other countries. That’s the
21:30
really really short, you know, elevated pitch. It’s obviously more nuanced and more complicated than that. And in in
21:36
probably 70% of our work is is governments and public sector, 30% is private sector. Um, but doing that might
21:44
mean it might mean working with a country, it might mean working with a city, it might mean working with a mayor, it might mean working with a
21:50
particular institution, it might working with the World Bank or something like that. And partly that’s because uh the
21:56
countries don’t have the same setup as the UK. The UK is actually very c centralized and in number 10 the cabinet
22:02
office can be quite powerful if they want to and you can you can push things through there. That’s not the same in other countries. It’s not the same in
22:07
America for example that states have a lot more power and a lot more agency over this kind of stuff in other
22:13
countries around the world. Cities are really powerful and they’re delivering more services for um citizens. So so we
22:18
work with all all those different levels um all around the world and um we might
22:24
be working on a wholesale transformation. We might be starting with a small one small transaction, one small service and trying to trying to um
22:31
build out from there. We might be working with the sort of political layer. Um might be trying to either get
22:37
them on side or or it might be [clears throat] um there’s a a sort of ground swell of
22:42
civil servants who are doing this work and need help connecting the layer. Um often we’re connecting the two. I mean
22:48
like more often than you would think we are saying you wouldn’t believe this but there’s a group of people you know in the building next door to you that were
22:54
already doing what what you were talking about all you need to do is go and meet them uh and we introduce politicians to
22:59
civil servants or vice versa. So um so we so we do a lot of that. So with the organizations the
Should governments build AI into public services?
23:05
governments you’re working with on their equivalent of gov.uk UK. Are you introducing AI elements into that that
23:12
you didn’t here in the UK when you first did the design or are there other elements that you’re introducing just from learning what you did from that
23:19
experience? Sort of a V2 if you like. Yeah, [clears throat] I mean we’re not we’re not introducing AI, I think, in
23:24
the way your in the way your question means. And one of the reasons we’re not is we don’t build anything. So we
23:30
because we think you need to you need to learn how to build it yourself or you need to manage a um a network of local
23:36
sort of an ecosystem of local suppliers and and local talent and you need to get good at at managing that because you
23:42
can’t you can’t build everything yourself and different countries are different but so we we would really be be thinking about what are the what are
23:49
the principles behind what you’re do what you’re doing and if AI is the answer to some of those things then yeah absolutely but we wouldn’t sort of go in
23:55
and say you know definitely use AI we would say try and work out what the problem is go back to those user needs.
24:01
Um, a lot of a lot of the things we work on and a lot of government services, but I would also say private sector services
24:07
too. The technology is commodity. It’s quite rare that you need very innovative technology. You know, if you if you
24:13
think about government, if I’m renewing my driving license or renew my passport, it’s a really really simple transaction
24:19
when it comes to technology. So, you know, you don’t need complicated um technology really. Um you actually we
24:26
talked about complicating or over complicating things and you gave the great example of a just a tap which has
24:31
been the same design for years and yet with digitization and this advancement
24:37
we are making we are making really simple things over complicated. Can you give us I could start I could start a whole
Why modern technology overcomplicates everything
24:43
podcast on taps. We could do we could do a whole other episode and um for for for people listening to this um let me
24:50
explain. So I um it is if you work primarily in government services which
24:56
we do firstly it’s quite hard to show other people other government services you know you don’t know what it’s like to renew a driving license in Peru or
25:02
something and it’s quite hard to get examples uh and then it’s it’s also hard to find examples of where these things
25:08
fail. So I’m always looking for kind of examples and then I’ve sort of worked out that it’s easier to bring this to
25:14
life with you know non government sort of services. So, what sort of failures do we have with design that everyone can
25:20
resonate with? And I think taps is just a perfect example because taps were
25:25
invented about 2,000 years ago. Nobody’s really sure whether it’s the Romans or the Egyptians, but that’s the kind of
25:31
time taps invented and it’s basically stayed the same for 2,000 years. Everyone knows how to use one everywhere
25:37
in the world. You don’t need to speak any language. Kids can use them. You know, baby, everyone can use them. And
25:42
then it seems in the last I don’t know five to 10 years we’ve made them incredibly complicated. And I’m in fact
25:48
I’m sure if you go out into the office here where we’re recording this podcast somewhere there’ll be a tab with an A4 notice next to it with a series of
25:54
instructions on how to use it which I I just think is incredible. You know we know how to use taps and now you have
26:00
instructions and um I think there’s two things going on here. One is postcoid
26:06
there’s a big obsession with um no touch and so lots of these things are trying to be designed and failing frankly but
26:12
trying to be designed so you don’t as a little touch as possible to get these things to work but there’s no sort of
26:18
standardized behavior for that yet so it’s quite difficult people are figuring that out why you see people in bathrooms waving their hands around because they
26:24
don’t know how to make the taps come on so that that’s one thing but I think the I think the bigger problem is you are
26:30
seeing a software approach to management that’s coming into physical things and
26:35
what I mean by that is a sort of management growth hacking approach to software would be how can we add more
26:40
features and how can we add more if we add more features we can make more money or get more get more monthly users
26:46
whatever etc etc etc you are now seeing that being applied to physical products where somebody somewhere has gone we’ve
26:52
got this tap it’s fine but can we add more features and you know probably started with the boiling water tap but
26:58
now you have sparkling water or now you have cold or now you have lukewarm and you just have this these things that have become really over complicated, no
27:05
standardized ways of interactions. And so you just end up with this crazy scenario where there are A4 notices next
27:12
to taps and suddenly nobody can use the taps anymore. Yeah. And you can’t make your cup of tea in the morning.
27:18
The hot water tap’s broken. There’s no kettle which which I think is absurd from something that’s so simple and so
27:23
enduring and so well designed. It now has you know been over complicated frankly. So the motto of future forum is
Leave Your Lane: lessons from multiple careers
27:29
leave your lane and you of course have your career has spanned so many different areas technology leadership
27:36
publishing design. So what I’d like you to talk about is um what you’ve learned
27:43
from all of these different lanes. You know that you’ve brought them all beautifully together into your career.
27:50
Talk to us about that. We said earlier I have learned about the focus on the user whatever it is you’re
27:55
trying to I’ve worked in advertising. there’s not much not much focus on the user there at all. Um it’s much more
28:00
about novelty. But you know trying to relate things back to the user um really helps. I think there is always a simple
28:07
route. Um and often as one of the the government design principles that we wrote when we were there, I think my
28:13
favorite one is do the hard work to make it simple. Um and you you really do have to do that. It really takes a lot of
28:20
work to make things simple. You don’t just turn up and say remove that, remove this. you know, you really have to be
28:25
thoughtful and considerate and figure out what the real what the real problem is. And then once you’ve done that hard
28:31
work, the simp the simplicity comes really really easy. I think you can apply that to all the different things
28:36
in my career really. Um and then my sort of you know my goal really is let’s just make things simple for you know ordinary
28:43
regular people. You know everyone’s super busy. Everyone’s got tons of things going on in their life. So whether it is um you know renewing your
28:50
passport or whether it is ordering some cornflakes online or whatever it is you booking a taxi nobody wants that to you
28:57
nobody wants that to take any longer than it has to. So you know let’s just try and make that as simple as possible
29:02
for people and then they can get on and do better things in their lives. It’s like that lovely quote which is um
29:08
sorry I had to write such a long letter. I didn’t have time for a short one. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. It’s absolutely that same
29:13
kind of thinking. Um we spoke about optimism in leadership which really resonated with me. You know it’s a very
29:20
tricky time [clears throat] at the moment to be a leader. Um and you are responsible for a team navigating all
29:26
these different challenges. We’ve talked about AI just being one of them. We’ve got politics etc. So talk to us about
29:32
that that perspective and optimism in leadership and why you feel so strongly about it. Well, I I I mean I’m a anyone
Why optimism is a leadership advantage
29:39
that knows me, I’m a I’m a you know natural optimist that my optimism is dialed up to 100 all the time. You know,
29:45
it’s almost almost to the extent where there’s something wrong with me. I’m just constantly optimistic. That’s just
29:50
my personality. And I think I probably worried about that when I was younger and when I first started being a leader and you know, maybe shouldn’t be
29:56
optimistic all the time, but I’ve now I’ve learned two things. one, you can absolutely use that um in your career
30:03
and in your leadership style. And and secondly, if you are, you know, I think
30:08
a mistake leaders often make is when they get a leadership job, they spend all their time thinking, well, these are the things I can’t do, so I must work on
30:15
those. When actually the people that have hired you have hired you for the things you can do and they know that and
30:20
they’re probably thinking, well, we’ll hire this person, they do this things, this other stuff, we’ll get somebody else to cover that, you know, or another
30:26
part of the leadership team can deal with that. So I think I’ve learned to lean into that optimism uh you know and
30:32
and really embrace it. And I think these times absolutely require for optimism otherwise you you know you you’d send
30:39
you send yourself mad. Um I went to a conference organized by Lewis Silkin who I’m sure lots of your listeners will
30:45
know. Um organized by them just before Christmas and um Dominic Sambrook the the you know he does a very famous
30:51
podcast the history podcast. He opened the the day and he said it’s very common at the moment to say we live in
30:57
unprecedented times and he said that couldn’t be further from the truth. He said the unprecedented time is really
31:02
the sort of peaceful prosperous time postwar to probably the kind of early 2000s. We had peace prosperity growth
31:09
all that kind of stuff. World War II you mean? Yeah. Post World War II. Yes. That’s unprecedented because the entire rest of
31:15
history has been you know chaos, financial crashes, wars, you know, strong strong man mostly leaders and you
31:22
know etc etc. And he said we are just back in that period and so kind of buckle up because it’s it’s going to be
31:28
like this and that really resonated with me and I think if you’re a leader that does change how you think about this
31:33
because it does sometimes feel like this is a this is a period but it’s not. this is back to normal and you know people in
31:40
your organizations your clients the externally they are looking for optimism to sort of guide them through this I
31:46
think so I think it’s really really important and I think often people do some of their best thinking when times are hard
31:53
you know in covid you had some incredible entrepreneurs coming coming out of the woodwork and you know businesses were having to completely
31:59
pivot themselves um so actually when it’s easy maybe people get complacent
32:04
about things so yeah completely I mean If you if you talk about digital transformation during COVID, what we saw was people do things
32:11
that they’d said totally weren’t possible or would take years. They did that in days or months because all their
32:16
physical stores were closed or you know etc etc. And I think that that does require an optimism to say okay we can’t
32:23
do anything about COVID but you know we still got to keep the lights on. We still got to run a business. What can we do? And you can you can do amazing
32:28
things with that mindset. The other thing that that time forced was some pretty radical new
32:34
collaborations wasn’t it? saying was trying to work out what might force that um in the absence, heaven forbid, of a
32:41
of a global pandemic. Do you see that being done? I mean, clearly not to the
32:47
same extent, but how does that happen in practice? Because you need very unlikely alliances to solve some of these big
32:54
problems. I think you need you need really bold leaders that aren’t afraid to get it
32:59
wrong, aren’t afraid to take risks, um afraid to do something differently. I
33:04
think you are seeing now um in the you are seeing now in in the private sector
33:10
um you know kind of companies that they’re just not getting the growth they need or they’re not getting the results
33:15
they need and they’ve got to try something different. They’ve got to um and lots of sort of you know if you’re
33:20
an organization that’s been around I don’t know 50 years plus. um if you if you if your organization existed before
33:27
the before the sort of web really they’re the ones that struggle most still with kind of digital
33:33
transformation and they are getting left behind and so they need to do something completely different and and if they’re
33:39
wise to that that can that can lead to that sort of behavior you talked about. I suppose what you were making me think
33:45
about in terms of future collaborations is if you’re a government and you need to connect with the public on a whole
33:51
range of issues and that might be to communicate to engage them then there’s a massive opportunity there to work
33:57
alongside the private sector and back to your comment earlier about novelty and advertising presumably all
34:03
too often that just shows up as advertising yeah which is quite a lowgrade creative option I mean I’m talking about
34:09
advertising here but if if if the only output of a public private sector partnership. Yeah. In terms of citizen
34:14
engagement is advertising. We probably need to go back to the drawing board, don’t we? Yeah, we do. I mean, I think all you
34:20
know all ministers suffer from announcibility and you know all politicians just like
34:26
to to announce things which you can understand but I think where that breaks down is is in thinking the announcement
34:32
is the thing or the announcement is the you know the thing and then it’s done. So we announce the thing and it’s done
34:37
great. And really the announcement is the thing you know you should do last. Um again at GDS and we we still have it
34:44
at public digital we had a phrase which was let’s talk about what we’ve done not what we’re going to do. And it’s so much
34:50
easier to say you know today we’re launching X and you can you can use it right now not it’ll be live in a month’s
34:56
time like right now today you can use it [snorts] and it’s a much much better way of communicating. And if you do that,
35:03
what happens over time is you build up trust and you build a reputation for delivery and for trust and what these
35:09
people say actually happens and that carries an immense power actually both within your organization um but also
35:16
with you know government’s case with citizens it’s very different and are there any examples of that in
35:22
terms of crossing between worlds and sectors? I’m thinking um one case study
35:27
which fascinated um us was um the donor register the organ donor register where
35:33
of course the default settings matter and this is well known the thing that actually ended up driving more people
35:38
than ever to sign the organ donor register was when Boots put it as a checkbox on their club card and they
35:44
said while we’re filling out this card would you like to be added to the organ donor register and it’s just that opportunity if you think about the
35:50
challenges we face particularly at the moment could be in terms of public health so many different areas. There
35:56
must be an opportunity for future collaborations here. Yeah, I’m not familiar with the boots
36:02
example, but um we did a similar thing uh with DVLA in GDS. So, um you know,
36:08
lots of people are are renewing their driving license or applying for their driving license or they’ve lost one, they get a new one, etc. It’s one of the
36:13
um uh sort of highest used transactions in government. And there’s when you when you go through like any transaction,
36:19
there’s a sort of thank you page. At the time, it’s called a golden page. And in the sort of private sector, that would
36:25
be the page where they try and sell you something else or they try and spin you up somewhere else. But you don’t do that in government because nobody says, “Oh,
36:31
great. I’ve paid my tax. Wonder what other taxes there are. You know, wonder what else I can do. It’s really cool.” That doesn’t happen. But this page gets
36:37
really high traffic. And we thought, what could we do with this? And so we experimented with exactly that um donor
36:43
registration. And the same thing, it just click here if you want to be added to the list. And and you know, the numbers went through the roof. Loads
36:49
loads and loads of people did it. Um, so that’s not a private sector collaboration, but there’s definitely
36:54
opportunities to do things like that. Yeah. And joining the dots right across lots of different lots of different worlds and opportunities really helpful.
Digital sovereignty explained
37:02
Let’s talk about digital transformation and uh digital sovereignty a little bit more. So I know that um you have a
37:09
definition of digital sovereignty and you have a book that you have got coming
37:14
out I think in September about this. Yeah. You obviously feel really passionately about this. Yeah. you know and right now
37:20
in the world we’re in it there’s geopolitical ramifications around digital sovereignty so could you please
37:27
talk us through that yeah sure I think so let’s rewind it a little bit digital sovereignty is
37:32
something we’ve talked about for a long time probably since we started public digital and in the kind of global south
37:38
it was been a also been a hot topic for a long time but now um uh mostly because
37:43
of sort of political and technological goings on in America it’s suddenly it’s a hot topic everywhere for for every
37:48
government and because we’ve been talking about it for a long it’s also one of those things I think that
37:53
everyone knows the phrase but it’s very abstract you know what what does it mean and at public digital we like to be
37:59
really practical and go okay like how can we help you understand this and navigate this so we have this definition
38:05
which which I will read which is the agency digital sovereignty is the agency
38:10
and capacity of any organization to make intelligent informed choices to shape its digital future
38:17
And so that’s that’s the what sovereignty means. Can you make choices? You know, do do our book is on digital
38:23
sovereignty is called the power to decide. Do you have that ability to decide? Um and I think like I say it’s
38:31
it’s I mean it’s a redhot issue. Every government in the world is thinking about it. There’s all different you know
38:36
ways to kind of address this problem. um we’ve got a book coming out in September
38:41
just called digital sovereignty the power to decide where we discuss some of these issues and we talk about our sort of um knowledge and stuff um around the
38:48
world but I think it is it is a really important issue and um most [clears throat] governments are behind
38:54
in in their thinking about it and their and addressing it if they don’t get it right what are the ramifications of of um not not grabbing
39:03
digital sovereignty properly and driving it forward well you saw um [clears throat] as we
39:09
record this podcast, you saw at the weekend that the US government had placed an export restriction on um uh
39:15
one of anthropic’s latest kind of models. So, you know, if you were reliant on that, suddenly overnight you
39:21
can’t use it. I mean, that that could be that could have huge ramifications for any any government or any organization,
39:26
frankly. Um so, yeah, that’s why we say you need the the agency and the capacity
39:32
to be able to decide and make your own choices, not not have those choices made for you by somebody else. It sounds
39:38
there, sorry, Victoria. It sounds there, Ben, like you’re making the point that sovereignty and ownership are linked
39:46
potentially, but they’re not the same because it can very often sound like they’re the same. We must own these
39:51
systems. We must own these platforms for a corporation. I mean, that’s obviously literally not possible.
39:57
Um, it’s more about the ability to make choices and decide. Yeah, absolutely. You can’t own that. I
40:03
mean, you know, you can’t start your own large language model if you’re a sort of organization, but you can say, are we
40:09
relying on one, you know, or do or do we have a few um or are we relying on are
40:14
we relying on one long contract or, you know, we able to get out of that contract as easily as we got into that
40:20
contract? You can also say I think do we have anybody in the organization that actually understands
40:26
how these things work or the the contract we’ve signed or or you know are we just are we just taking taking the
40:32
technology and deploying it or you know do we really have people that understand where it’s used and how it’s important and that’s that’s sort of what we mean
40:38
by agency. Yeah, that’s super helpful. It kind of makes from what you’re saying there it makes me think about uh the
40:44
entrepreneurial nature of the UK and the fact we need our own homegrown businesses here as well. um you know AI
40:51
and and future technology. Yeah. Um you know we need to be encouraging that rather than relying on other
40:57
Yeah, we really do. And I you know I think we’re always we’re always so close uh in the UK. We have incredible talent.
41:03
We have incredible startups. of incredible technologists and you know tons and tons of them move to America
41:08
every year and you know I mean the classic story is you’ll be really familiar with you know deep mind was was started in the UK and you still still
41:15
based in the UK but um you know we have incredible talent in this country and yeah the government should do more to encourage encourage that talent and
41:22
support that talent absolutely how concerned should businesses and governments be about this cluster of of
41:28
uh technology companies that we’re seeing increasingly becoming fewer and fewer
41:34
um concentrated as you know a lot in America and in China as well. What are the what’s the downsides of that for
41:40
government? Uh I think it’s it’s that you don’t have control and that it can be it could be
41:45
turned off um at any minute and you don’t have control over it and you’d have agency over it. So um yeah, I think
41:52
I think you should you should be concerned. I mean, some of these some of these technologies are fantastic and will make real differences to people’s
41:57
lives, but like I said, are you are you relying on one are you relying [clears throat] on talent that’s not in
42:03
your organization? It’s external to your organization. Do you have you understood, you know, the contract you
42:08
signed? It’s it’s it’s it’s pretty simple stuff really, but you should take it seriously. Yeah. I I just wanted to loop back um to the
42:15
work public digital is doing around the world. presumably there must be certain countries where you’re able to um really
42:21
be quite innovative in terms of things that the UK might not be quite ready for. So I just wonder uh if we were to
42:28
uh look across the world, is there any example that comes to your mind in terms of what is now possible in terms of how the public engages with a government or
42:35
or do you think the UK continues to lead in that?
42:40
Um well, I’ve got a different answer to your question. I think broadly I mean we
42:45
we very recently we’ve been working with Barbados and we’ve been working with the Dominican Republic. Um and I think it’s
42:52
I think it’s true that the smaller countries can get more done quicker because there’s just less layers of bureaucracy and you can you can reach
42:59
everyone you need to reach quicker. So they they are moving a lot quicker. Those um sort of smaller countries are
43:06
moving quicker. They’re doing more. They’re experimenting more. I’m sure they will probably uh you know embrace
43:11
AI quicker than than larger um countries which just have more bureaucracy. So you
43:16
are definitely seeing that. I mean there’s a similarity there between smaller organizations and larger you know private sector companies. I think
43:22
so you’re seeing that. Are there any sort of um innovative examples? Unfortunately, I don’t think there are
43:29
in the sense you mean because um lots of government transactions are just pretty straightforward and they’re pretty
43:35
simple and the you know, like I said, the technology is commodity. It’s just it’s just not that exciting. The big
43:42
exciting part is getting it right and when somebody uses a service and goes, “Wow, that wasn’t terrible.” That’s that’s the bit that’s really exciting
43:49
and actually the bit that you know that people really really do enjoy and love in in some cases. Um but it’s not sort
43:57
of innovative in the sort of private sector way if you were. Yeah. I suppose the thing that fascinates me about that especially
44:02
across a government where you might have multiple departments doing lots of different things. The same might be the case in you know larger corporations.
44:09
You know Amazon famously had its two pizza rule of keeping teams quite small. Companies like um 11 Labs uh partly
44:17
headquartered here in the UK have sort of 20 person micro teams. And so I suppose the challenge is whilst I get
44:23
the idea of breaking a corporation up into smaller, more agile, nimble,
44:28
experimental teams, the bit where presumably it gets very tricky is how then you coordinate between those teams
44:36
to work out what’s actually working in practice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s I think that’s somewhere where AI could
44:41
definitely help and certainly could speed that up. I think there are a bunch of people working in the arena I work on
44:48
that look at the way government’s set up which is you know still based on the system of patronage and you know who
44:53
helped the prime minister get elected effectively that all governments around the world are like that that’s not the way corporations are set up you know
45:00
that’s not the way Amazon’s set up it’s not the way Google’s set up and I think you’re always looking for which which
45:05
government will go first in trying to do that approach again Estonia have tried some of that type of stuff but the sort
45:11
of the way government is set up doesn’t match the way services are delivered. Um, and that’s still a big problem. Um,
45:18
and I’d love to see some government, you know, try, you know, changing that. You know, I am I am the minister for money
45:24
being paid in. I’m the minister for money being paid out. You know, I am the something like that would be fantastic
45:29
to see some government try that. Um, but but I’ve not got my I’ve not got my hopes up. But I think that is somewhere
45:35
where AI could could um or technology in general should be able to make that process smoother and quicker.
45:41
Yeah. Really interesting. way of thinking. Um, the other thing I just wanted to ask you, Ben, because
45:47
sometimes when particularly for future leaders, if they announce to their family or their parents, I’m going to
45:52
work in design and [laughter] I’m um I’m I’m being a little bit tright here, but
45:58
the the family member might say, oh, you know, will it are you going to design tables or lamps or chairs? I mean, we we
46:04
and yet you have demonstrated design means something entirely different. So, I just thought I I might sort of chance
46:10
my arm and say, what does that word mean to you? You’re in the design week call of fame. You’ve been unbelievably
46:15
acknowledged for your design credentials, but what does it mean? Well, design means lots of of different
What design really means
46:21
things. A question I get asked a lot actually. What it means to me is designing things people can use. So, one
46:27
of my favorite definitions is is by a lady called Ellen Lupton. And she says, “Design is art you can use.” And I
46:33
really really like that. Really like that definition. you know, you can use it and it’s beautiful. And there’s some
46:38
types of design that, you know, aren’t that, but that’s the type of design that that I like. Yeah. Love that. And thank you for how
46:44
you’ve applied it to how we interact with public services as well. If only more people had done it over the years.
46:51
I’m guessing you quite liked art at school then. Yes. Yes. Yes, I did. Yeah, I absolutely
46:56
did. I did. Yeah. So, just talk us through that the route to where you are. Well, there’s a sort of a famous story that when I was 13, we
47:03
had this careers day at school and looking through a book and um actually there was a thing called advertising
47:08
artist, which I think is would be an artworker now if that if that [clears throat] role sort of still exists. And that looked to me like the
47:15
the perfect combination of art, but you can have a job and it involves design. And so, you know, great. So, I’d do that. And then you do these A levels,
47:22
you go to university, you study graphic design, you do all that stuff. Great. Went home, told mom and dad, right, decided what I want to do. I want to do
47:28
this. uh you know and you know they said okay yep sounds fine what do we need to do know probably signed some forms but
47:34
this is what I want to do they said okay great um and I just went down that path and I did exactly that I went to
47:40
university I studied design I work in design now um and the two things that are strange about that is firstly I
47:46
thought everyone had that same story so if I met you and you at university and you studying geography I think oh you
47:51
really passionate you want to be a geographer and people would say no no absolutely not definitely not you know
47:56
and I just thought everyone had that journey but of course they It’s it’s incredibly rare and I’m incredibly lucky that I did I didn’t feel like that but
48:02
but it wasn’t like that at all. And then uh secondly until only very recently my
48:08
mom said to me that I my I’d always said oh mom and dad are really supportive you know do design be fantastic. Mom told me
48:14
very recently that that wasn’t the case and they were terrified that I wouldn’t be able to get a job and how is I going to you know get a job working being a
48:20
creative but said you you seem so confident that’s what you wanted to do and so headstrong we just we just went along with it and said he thinks he
48:26
knows what he’s doing just leave him just leave him be. Um and then my brother when I’m sometimes when I tell
48:32
this story my brother says yeah it’s amazing and um advertising artist imagine what would have happened if you’d looked through the other letters
48:38
in the alphabet. [laughter] strikes me you could have gone into
48:43
technology or anything and made it just as successful. [laughter] It’s it’s it’s such an inspiring reframe
48:48
I think for me anyway on design away from you know how things look not just how people use them as you say but but
48:55
that that raises such big questions about who doesn’t use things you know it can be rating the experience
49:01
itself but also what could they have done had that experience gone better um either through reusage or through
49:07
then diverting through to using that thing for other things because all of it builds that trust and confidence and the
49:14
the slightly unmeasurable bit is when we stop using something that yeah there’s a hidden cost to that.
49:20
Yeah. For a country I mean there’s a huge hidden cost to it. Yeah. I mean there’s there’s definitely a very
49:25
real productivity cost. I think if if things are difficult to use and if you if you add that up across the course of
49:30
a day and a week and a month and Yeah. I think there’s a very real cost to that. Yeah. What would you love to redesign?
49:36
Taps. [laughter] Put them back to what they were.
49:42
You’re [laughter] pretty you’re pretty fixed on that. You don’t go hot and cold on that. That’s terrible, Ollie.
49:47
[laughter] I I’ll turn myself off at this point. All right. Keep it flowing. Go.
49:52
So, what excites you about the future then, Ben? What What do you get most revved up about?
49:57
Uh, well, I’m This is a very boring answer, but I get very excited about public digital and what we’re doing. You
What excites Ben about the future
50:03
know, we’re nearly 120 people now. There was four of us when we started not that long ago. We’ve got fantastic people
50:09
working all around the world. um growing, you know, we’re growing at kind of 30% a year, year on year, which is
50:15
just not a story you certainly it’s not a story I hear when I talk to other people in a similar position who very
50:20
gloomy. Um you know, there’s lots of doom and gloom around about the economy. Um but we’re doing phenomenally well and
50:26
and I see that continuing. So that’s that’s genuinely very exciting. Um, and I think all the things we’ve talked
50:31
about, whether it’s AI, whether it’s design, whether it’s the sort of uncertainty in the world, you have to be
50:36
optimistic that, you know, better things will come out of that and and I think they will. So, um, yeah, I still have that optimism that we can come come
50:43
through the other side in a in a much better place. So, Ben, [clears throat] we ask all of our guests on tomorrow to leave a memo
Ben’s Memo to the Future
50:49
to the future. So, if you were leaving that memo about technology and AI and
50:55
design, what would it be? Uh my memo to the future would be if you
51:00
are thinking about technology or AI or anything like that in the future to remember that it’s almost never about
51:07
the technology. It’s about the culture and it’s about the people and it’s about all the things that flow from that and
51:13
so spend your time working on those things and then the technology becomes really simple and really easy.
51:21
Love that. Perfect. Thank you Ben. It’s um Victoria. I think
51:26
um I mean my mind is lit up with lots of examples of where we could deploy clones of Ben Terret to [laughter] to to
51:33
redesign lots of different things. Um before we um before we draw a line under
51:39
this conversation any any any final questions? What did you take away? I mean I was fascinated by when you look
51:44
at a structure like a website actually how much human engagement went in behind it and it’s the human understanding and
51:51
the fact that a designer has actually come up with that rather than a te a technology person. I I had no idea that
51:57
that kind of thinking would go into it and also the the failures and the successes from the the research that
52:04
you’re doing with real consumers and that’s what’s made it a brilliant success. I will never use that website
52:10
again without now thinking about Ben while I go on to pay my tax. [laughter] The other thing that’s got me thinking
52:16
is just this power of small committed entrepreneurial teams with the right amount of air cover on
52:23
high and in that case it could be chief executive could be ministerial being allowed to get on and do stuff. But I
52:29
love the idea of announcing what you’ve done or what you’re going to do. We can get very tied into the latter at future
52:35
forum in general because we always want to know what’s coming next. But the idea of building trust and momentum by saying
52:40
we’ve done this and you can you can try this today. There’s something really powerful about that. Yeah.
Final reflections
52:47
Thank you so much Ben Terret for joining us on tomorrow. You’re welcome. Thanks for having me on. It’s been great. Well, there we are. A glimpse into the
52:53
future of design. But the message that we take I think on tomorrow is that capacity to join dots. In Ben Terret,
53:00
you see somebody who’s moved between different sectors uh from government to
53:06
retail uh helping people uh to collaborate across lots of different
53:12
countries. Um Victoria, another great guest. Thank you for bringing Ben uh on
53:17
to the podcast. Another great chat. Thanks, Ollie. I know we’ve got more still to come, but
53:22
uh there we have it. A fascinating glimpse. Thank you for tuning into this episode. Please do share it with anyone
53:28
you think would enjoy it. Uh I’m Ollie Barrett joined by uh my co-host Victoria Usher. This has been Tomorrow. Thank you
53:34
for joining us and until next time, goodbye.
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