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Marketing and business strategist, founder of ethical Ai consultancy Obsolete.com, brand…
Articles by Jon
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Jon Bains reposted thisJon Bains reposted thisDear friends, I originally built edition.pm as an alternative to Webflow for hosting fluxus.io. How hard can it be these days 😄 ? Well, after that _total rabbit hole_, during which Edition developed all kinds of features and a mobile app I hadn’t envisaged, I have finally published the new Fluxus site on it. Pride of place goes to the AI Product Studio, where you can see all the products in one place. Hopefully next time someone asks the polite question “what have you been up to?” I will no longer deliver a two-hour monologue. Fluxus can build products like these for you, quickly and at a sensible cost, because we’ve already built and tested rather a lot of the underlying components. The accounts, permissions, billing, model gateway, tests and deployment machinery are already there. All on standard AWS serverless services, so running costs scale down when things are quiet, as well as up when they aren’t. Iso and Ting are particularly interesting new products in development. I keep bumping into companies building bespoke internal versions of what Ting does as a general model. There seems to be a fairly clear market signal there for software factories. At the heart of this is the tricky business of verification in agentic apps. How do you know the thing has actually done its job? What needs checking, what needs another go, and where does a human come in without becoming the bottleneck? Iso takes that further. It treats “software factory” as one configurable workflow among many, which could equally include customer support, legal intake, document validation and so on. As proof of the pudding, Ting is now built on Iso, which supports multi-tenant isolation, a visual workflow editor, and can be driven directly or via API. Anyway, please have a look: https://fluxus.io It’s a new age.
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Jon Bains shared thisWe do a weekly 'Show and Tell', topics vary immensely week on week discussing the various new 'things' going on - sometimes tech, sometimes policy, sometimes politics. It's all over the place. Anyway this week it got very heated and *very dark*. Decided to turn it into a debate deck. It looks long but it's a flickable 2 min read. Comments welcome. To be or not to be, as it were. Troy Norcross Brian Fitzpatrick Nicole Bachmann Iain Bennett Benjamin L. Greenaway MBCS Rebecca Allen Scott Lawson Jake Shaw Eva Pascoe Julian Tinayre-Blom Allison Alexander Laura Jordan Bambach Daniel Bambach Sam Collett
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Jon Bains reposted thisIt's Party Conference season again; but a scan of the programme for the Labour Party Fringe suggests less activity around #creativeindustries and, in particular, working conditions for #freelance creatives, than at any time in recent memory. So, in the interests of not letting this important issue drop off the agenda, here's a reminder: https://lnkd.in/p/eF9fvKB6 Leila D'Aronville FRSA Elizabeth Crump, MBE Creative UK Jon Bains https://lnkd.in/esVKVmyKJon Bains reposted thisNo freelancer gets left behind ✊ Cultural and creative industries consultant, Iain Bennett, lays out the importance of collating accurate, representative data on the creative freelance workforce, in order for the government and wider sector to know how best to support and champion them. #creativefreelancers #freelancing #freelancinginUK #creativeindustries #culturalsector
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Jon Bains shared thisThe attached is a bit of an explainer / discussion doc about alignment and control. It’s deliberately easy access for non-techies. The TL;DR isn’t the exam question: ‘Is AI going to kill is?’ Which is all over the news right now. It’s the wrong question. A better one is ‘Who gets to tell the machine what to do?’ Many approaches - lots of noise - no responsibility. Thoughts?
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Jon Bains reposted thisJon Bains reposted thisNo freelancer gets left behind ✊ Cultural and creative industries consultant, Iain Bennett, lays out the importance of collating accurate, representative data on the creative freelance workforce, in order for the government and wider sector to know how best to support and champion them. #creativefreelancers #freelancing #freelancinginUK #creativeindustries #culturalsector
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Jon Bains reposted thisI love it when a plan comes together. THE FIFTH SECTOR LIMITED (myself and Jon Bains) was invited by Liverpool City Council to carry out a feasibility study into a new music tech hub for Liverpool, prompted by a conversation at Founders Forum delivered by MusicFutures. We delivered our report in February and House of Music & Entertainment (H.O.M.E) will launch in its new location at Liverpool's Royal Court this month - an almost unheard of turnaround for a project of this kind - with the inward investment facilitated in partnership with LCC and Liverpool City Region Combined Authority. This announcement builds on the Liverpool Music Mapping Report (link in the comments),on which we collaborated with Mathew Flynn at Institute of Popular Music - another piece of work commissioned by the City Council in partnership with the University and MusicFutures. Moral of the story, with a topical slant: devolution works when all the partners collaborate to achieve shared objectives.Jon Bains reposted this🎵 Welcome to Liverpool, H.O.M.E. This is fantastic news for our music, creative and technology sectors. This new international hub will connect Liverpool City Region businesses and talent with global networks, investors and opportunities, further strengthening our position as a leading centre for music innovation. We look forward to seeing H.O.M.E thrive in Liverpool and support our next generation of creative entrepreneurs and innovators. #MusicTech #CreativeIndustries #LiverpoolCityRegion #Innovation #MusicFutures https://lnkd.in/eRMz5rZd Steve Rotheram, Mayor of the Liverpool City Region I Katherine Fairclough I Richard McGuckin I Kirsty McLean I Tim Games I Camilla Mankabady I John Fogarty I Claire McColgan CBELiverpool set to host new international music tech hub in city centre - Liverpool ExpressLiverpool set to host new international music tech hub in city centre - Liverpool Express
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Jon Bains reposted thisJon Bains reposted thisSunday reading for long-term impact. Take 10-12 minutes to read this essay which sets out: why we have a four-tier creative economy; how we should understand, measure and support every part of it, from established institutions to invisible freelancers; and why we need to act now to secure and grow it in the face of threats from #ai and #austerity. https://lnkd.in/ey8cegdD #creativeeconomy #creativeindustries Martin S.Working the whole: how we sustain and grow value in the creative economy — The Fifth SectorWorking the whole: how we sustain and grow value in the creative economy — The Fifth Sector
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Jon Bains shared thisThis is very cool if I so say to myself ;-) Having fallen down the 'bad' data rabbit hole it's been a journey trying to 'find that which is hidden'. Our foresight is engine for the creative industries which looks at 'where the puck will be' in a few years time - only if we can confidently say 'Where the puck is now' - which is harder than it looks! Took a minute but we got there. This particular use case is a niche of a niche - however the cluster bids have the opportunity to really genuinely help the creative industries where they are. Good luck to all those going for it - the industry needs the support!Jon Bains shared thisAwaiting news on your UKRI Creative Industries Clusters outline stage application? If you're invited to take part in the full stage, you'll need to evidence a cluster that addresses the gaps UKRI is looking to bridge, particularly those at the intersection of creative industries and digital technologies: human-computer interaction, robotics and haptics, responsible AI, extended reality, audio/visual/speech technologies. Here's the challenge: these cross-disciplinary sectors don't appear in any national register. No SIC codes. ONS can't see them. Companies House can't classify them. Your cluster may be forming, but the official data says it isn't yet. FORESIGHT solves this. We surface these invisible sectors, validate them through expert review, and create an audit trail that UKRI assessors can verify. What you get within four weeks of placing an order: - Company map of every candidate firm in your chosen geography (core creative industries, adjacent and emergent sectors, contested classifications, and the ones no register will tell you are there) - Two views: map (where they are) and graph (how they relate) - Exportable audit trail with every decision logged (reason, date, evidence, confidence, reviewer) - Bid-ready evidence pack in four weeks; ready a month before you present Don't wait for confirmation that you’ve been successful at the first stage to figure out your evidence for the full bid. Start the day you're shortlisted and have your evidence pack ready before the submission deadline. Book a 30-minute walkthrough now so you're ready to hit the ground running. DM me or see link in comments #CreativeIndustries #UKRI #ClusterMapping #ResearchFunding #UniversityInnovation #AHRC #Createch Jon Bains Sam Collett Anna Whitelock Graham Hitchen Andrew Chitty David Prior Rupert Lorraine Ghislaine Boddington FRSA John McAuliffe Richard Wormwell Martyn Evans Hon FRIBA Chris Couzens Sarah Steed Adam Morley Charles Freeman FRSA Tom Campbell Hasan Bakhshi Giorgio Fazio Josh Siepel Richard Hurford Mark Adamson FRSA
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Jon Bains shared thisI could do one of those posts about walking down the street - staring at lamp posts, glancing at the manhole covers and thinking about how we need to reshape our leadership coaching techniques for the modern age. But I won't. This is the delayed part two of 'why the AI Bubble is going to burst... from the human perspective.' - there is more than enough out there about the dodgy economics of it all, and IMHO we need to talk about impact. Last one was about the ripple effect of people being AI Washed. This one, directly out of a section of our Foresight causal model 'The Burnout Coefficient'. Meaningless, but sounds 'cool'. This was actually going to come later in the series but when Jake Shaw pointed out that me spending 18 hours over the weekend building "a university course comparator predicting graduate outcomes" for my son probably wasn't healthy. It occurred to me he was probably right. Even if I was watching Star Trek: Picard season 3 for most of it (again). No lamp posts or manholes but pretty damn good 'bad guy' ;-) Given that I know *alot* of people who are hardcore in the their AI journey - I imagine there will be a comment or two on this one, probably from bots, looking at lamp posts pondering the manhole covers and wondering what lies beneath. Oh and if you want the actual report - ping me - this is just the headlines.
Jon Bains commented on a post
4w
Next week? 🤣🙄
Jon Bains replied to a comment
5mo
It's especially nuts btw when you go down the 'skills' rabbit hole - all the data is out of date so the amount of inference and cross referencing stuff is insane - then you have to propagate that into the future with a degree of accuracy/confidence - in the age of AI - so much noise - but there are clear signals if you look hard enough!
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Jon Bains liked thisJon Bains liked thisA Saturday morning thought, prompted by a Barclays cash machine telling me it's closing down. In 2000, I was asked to help take Ogilvy UK from an analogue world into a digital one. I jumped at the chance, excited by everything technology could make possible with 'digital transformation.' Fast forward to 2027, and if someone asked me to do it all over again, I'm not entirely sure what I'd say. I've spent much time exploring the idea of 'human as tech', increasingly convinced that the most extraordinary technology we have is actually us. Meanwhile, we purchased a 'wind up' transistor radio and have started keeping a little cash under the mattress. Not enough to interest any would-be burglars, just enough for bread and water if the power goes off or a cyberattack brings everything to a halt. 😂 Am I getting older? Is it the relentless fear, media headlines, and clickbait? Or have we genuinely created a world that's becoming too complicated and fragile for its own good? But seeing another cash machine disappear this morning made me think about how much we're giving up in the name of progress. I still love technology, but I'm finding myself increasingly drawn to the analogue and physical world. Real people, real conversations, experiences, things we can touch and feel, and the simple things that make us happy. https://lnkd.in/ecYz6Jtz #saturdaythoughts #people #planet #purpose #ai #technology #beinghuman #humanastech John Caswell
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Jon Bains liked thisJon Bains liked thisDear friends, I originally built edition.pm as an alternative to Webflow for hosting fluxus.io. How hard can it be these days 😄 ? Well, after that _total rabbit hole_, during which Edition developed all kinds of features and a mobile app I hadn’t envisaged, I have finally published the new Fluxus site on it. Pride of place goes to the AI Product Studio, where you can see all the products in one place. Hopefully next time someone asks the polite question “what have you been up to?” I will no longer deliver a two-hour monologue. Fluxus can build products like these for you, quickly and at a sensible cost, because we’ve already built and tested rather a lot of the underlying components. The accounts, permissions, billing, model gateway, tests and deployment machinery are already there. All on standard AWS serverless services, so running costs scale down when things are quiet, as well as up when they aren’t. Iso and Ting are particularly interesting new products in development. I keep bumping into companies building bespoke internal versions of what Ting does as a general model. There seems to be a fairly clear market signal there for software factories. At the heart of this is the tricky business of verification in agentic apps. How do you know the thing has actually done its job? What needs checking, what needs another go, and where does a human come in without becoming the bottleneck? Iso takes that further. It treats “software factory” as one configurable workflow among many, which could equally include customer support, legal intake, document validation and so on. As proof of the pudding, Ting is now built on Iso, which supports multi-tenant isolation, a visual workflow editor, and can be driven directly or via API. Anyway, please have a look: https://fluxus.io It’s a new age.
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Jon Bains liked thisA brilliant evening celebrating the best of commercial craft delivering sharp brand strategy with relentless creative courage. The UK jury for Little Black Book’s The Immortal Awards 2026 selected seven winning projects, which advance to the European round of judging. The #ImmortalAwards stand out with notoriously high category-free, unfiltered judging that strips away the fluff to ask one question: will this work stand the test of time? Award contenders | The Ordinary, Anthropic, Waitrose, KitKat, Channel 4, Kneecap and Columbia Sportswear Thanks LBBonline - Little Black Book Ralph (Robin) Pope capturing the room so well! Thomas Elsworth-Smith Ketan H Raval Jon BainsJon Bains liked thisIn Pictures : The Immortal Awards 2026 UK Winners Night. The UK jury for Little Black Book’s The Immortal Awards 2026 selected seven winning projects on October 21, 2026, which advance to the European round of judging Vittorio Giannini Laura Ricketts Cheryl Payne Guy Savin B.F.E. Allison Alexander Thomas Elsworth-Smith
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Jon Bains liked thisJon Bains liked thisToday, we’re announcing our $1.3M pre-seed round to build the home for creative collaboration starting with Music. Led by Bridford Group, with participation from Amuse and a group of investors and operators across the global music industry. The way music is made has changed dramatically. A single record can move between artists, producers, songwriters and engineers across different cities and countries before it’s ever released. Yet the infrastructure surrounding that process has barely evolved. Conversations live in WhatsApp, files in Dropbox and WeTransfer, lyrics in Notes, and credits and contributions are often lost somewhere in between. The tools work individually. The process does not. I started CHAOS because I experienced this firsthand. As a young producer, I found myself fighting for credits on records I’d worked on and chasing unpaid fees, with little more than scattered messages and files to prove my contributions. I realised the problem wasn’t just inefficient workflows. There was no single source of truth for how music was actually made. So we’re building one. CHAOS is a unified home for the entire creative process - bringing the work, communication, collaborators and provenance behind every record into one place. In just a couple of weeks, over 15,000 creators have joined our waitlist ahead of our October 29th launch. We’re building the infrastructure the creative process has been missing. Music is just the starting point. Thank you to our incredible investors and team. LFG! https://chao.so/
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Jon Bains liked thisJon Bains liked thisFresh from building GTM architecture: executive reporting dashboards, deal-risk calculators, and automated MEDDIC scoring engines, my focus turns to the fundamental shift taking place across enterprise technology. TLDR: The Prism - issue 006 • Lisbon Fintech Meetup, where the core conversation wasn't about what AI can generate, but where it must be governed. • We are entering the era of the High-Impact Individual Contributor (HI-C): senior professionals using AI-native "systems of action" to collapse costs and carry entire workflows from hypothesis to commercial outcome. • Why proprietary observation beats proprietary data in 2026 (imho) • Ecosystem spotlights: Barbara Gottardi (Finbridge Global) on solving bank-fintech procurement friction • Vladimir Shipov (Invoice Reminder) on automated working capital velocity. Read the full briefing below and join the discussion. #GTM #Growth #Scale
Experience & Education
Publications
Projects
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Azza Fahmy Website (Phase 1)
- Present
Planned and developed new boutique for Azza Fahmy. First stage of an ongoing digital marketing program.
Other creatorsSee project -
Unwatchable
- Present
Campaign to raise awareness about the links between conflict minerals and weaponised rape in the D.R.C.
Other creatorsSee project
Honors & Awards
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HOT 100 2016 - Champion
BIMA (British Interactive Media Association)
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HOT 100 2015 - Champion
BIMA (British Interactive Media Association)
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