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My calendar says the year is winding down; my workload strongly disagrees. If you’re also juggling strategy decks, budget conversations and the occasional festive distraction, here’s a set of ideas worthy of your time: clever research, big trend drops, pitch craft and a reminder that AI’s reality still hasn’t caught up with its mythology.

Enjoy!

The most interesting list you’ll read this year

Every December, creative technologist Tom Whitwell drops his annual list of 52 things he learned, and it’s always eminently shareable. This year’s edition is full of intrigue: surprising data shifts (air pollution deaths down 21 per cent), market oddities (shrimp are now 51 per cent of all farmed animals), behavioural insights (your first name determines how trustworthy you seem at work) and technology side-stories that spark product ideas. It’s part trivia, part trend radar, part perspective shift – and a great antidote to linear thinking. Check out the list here – I think number 47 is my favourite.

How to harness TikTok in 2026

TikTok’s value is far larger than most businesses think. Fospha’s new 2026 Playbook shows that when brands rely on Last Click attribution, they capture just 1.9 per cent of TikTok’s real contribution. Because TikTok rarely gets credit for the final tap before purchase, its role in driving discovery, demand and off-platform sales is largely invisible – and most teams end up under-investing as a result. When you factor in halo effects on Amazon and TikTok Shop, the uplift is dramatic: ROAS on brand campaigns jumps 174 per cent, and TikTok Shop improves 20 per cent. If TikTok is already in your mix, this is a useful diagnostic check. Read the report here.

A smart guide to going it alone

Zoe Scaman has published a genuinely useful guide for anyone thinking about breaking away from full-time roles and setting up on their own. Her advice includes to ‘write to get into the room’ by publishing expert insights, diversify your income so you’re not beholden to any single client, charge for the outcome rather than the hours and build a buffer so you can say no to the wrong work. The timing feels pointed. As Omnicom folds IPG into a single mega-network and thousands of agency roles disappear, the logic of building your own portable reputation – rather than relying on holding-company stability – looks sharper than ever. Read her guide here.

M&A gears up for a strong 2026

New research from WTW suggests that big deals are back (eight $10bn-plus mergers in Q3), North America has finally turned positive after two years of sluggish performance and private equity is waking up again with $2tn to deploy and continuation funds going mainstream. Sector appetite is narrowing around energy, defence, biopharma and tech, although AI has its challenges. While it’s speeding up scouting and due diligence, it’s also creating new governance questions that deal teams aren’t used to wrestling with. Overall, the view is optimistic – 2026 looks set to be busier, with better opportunities for buyers who’ve prepared early. Find out more here.

ChatGPT gets an upgrade for group conversations

OpenAI made an important tweak to ChatGPT this week: group chats now run on GPT-5.1 Auto. Two practical implications for teams: your personal ChatGPT memories don’t bleed into group chats (and group chats won’t create new ones), and rate limits only apply when the model itself posts. For anyone using AI for collaborative work – workshops, ideation sessions, problem-solving, even choosing a venue for the Christmas party – this is a small but meaningful upgrade. The Verge has the story.

Why insiders make better CEOs

A new Yale study analysing five years of Fortune 500 appointments finds that companies consistently outperform when they promote insiders rather than bringing in an external “saviour”. The data shows that outsiders underperform particularly hard in their first year, often because boards only hire them when the business is already in trouble. The research also reveals that internal candidates are routinely underestimated because people remember their missteps as well as their wins – even though that learning curve makes them more effective. There’s a recurring governance failure too: boards often believe external automatically means better, even when succession planning has already produced credible leaders inside the business. Read the Semafor story here.

15 pitch lessons worth stealing

Veteran creative director Gerry Farrell posted a brilliant list this week on how to win more pitches – and while some of it comes from old-school adland, a surprising amount maps perfectly to how founders and teams sell anything: ideas, work, themselves.

A few standouts: rehearse twice (the second pass is the real one), use a devil’s advocate to kill complacency, tell the client how to judge the work, ditch bullet points, and win the room in the first 60 seconds. His broader point is the one I like most: be unforgettable. When your pitch feels like something that could only have come from you, everything else becomes easier. Check out the list here.

AI is everywhere in theory – and far scarcer in practice

In his November 2025 “AI Eats the World” deck, Benedict Evans highlights one of the most interesting gaps in tech right now: record-breaking investment and attention, paired with surprisingly modest day-to-day use. His take is that most AI capability will fade into the background – essentially becoming infrastructure – with value shifting to whoever owns the customer, the workflow and the data that refines the loop. In other words, AI is less a destination and more a new baseline – and the strategic edge will come from what you build on top of it. Get the report here.

The biggest trends drop of the year

Once a year, the internet gives us a gift: strategy guru Amy Daroukakis’s monster compilation of the world’s trend reports. The 2025 edition is here, and it’s a feast – 135 decks pulled from WPP, OFCOM, Deloitte, Mintel, McKinsey and even the Steel Founders’ Society of America. Two gigabytes of forecasts, shifts, signals and sector deep dives, all in one place. If you work in strategy, marketing, product or planning, block out an hour to investigate. Get the list of lists here.

AI prompt of the week: strategic trend analysis for 2026

Amy Daroukakis may have just dropped her annual compilation of trend reports but scanning that volume could be overwhelming. The smarter approach is getting AI to help you build a personalised filtering system that identifies which trends matter for your specific business throughout the year.

Help me design a practical trend monitoring system for 2026. My context: [industry, business model, key challenges]. Create: (1) A list of 5-7 specific sources I should monitor regularly (publications, reports, data sources), (2) A simple weekly/monthly review process that takes under 30 minutes, (3) A framework for evaluating whether a trend actually matters for my business (not just whether it's interesting), (4) Early warning indicators I should track that signal relevant shifts, (5) A decision tree for when to act vs. keep monitoring.

Sale prep simplified

Some founders assume due diligence is a paperwork exercise. It isn’t – it’s a stress test of how well the business runs without you. These six areas are where buyers form their first (and most lasting) impressions.

Drop me a line

I’m always collecting smart perspectives, contrarian takes and “you’ll like this” links. If you’ve got one, send it over – they tend to shape future editions more than you’d think.

Cheers!
Adam

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