business – Cubicgarden.com…

1 year ago I left BBC R&D, what’s happen since?

1 year ago I officially left the BBC after just short of 21 years.
Looking back at the post I wrote about how I had been since August 2024, when I first learned my position was at risk and the one I wrote in March 2025. A heck of a lot has happened in the last year. I now have my own business doing a number of different things, but all still focused on the public space. Although it’s been pretty stressful, especially at the start I have found some moments of joy and pleasure.

One of the simple but simple but hardest things is rethinking my role. I still occasionally use a bio which mentions working at the BBC as the Senior Firestarter. I have been calling myself Founder & Firestarter, which is ok. But thanks to Angie & Jennifer, I now have a better description of what I’m doing.

I’m a Digital futurologist, using data and insight to change people’s lives for the better.

Within the BBC, I was always a bit of an intrapreneur always pushing for new projects and approaches. I tended to bend the rules because they were not fit for purpose, be it forwarding calendar invites to my one and only calendar (separation of work and pleasure was never going to be the same for me). The result of this meant my network was vast and diverse. It was never just work, it was driving to a societal public purpose. I was never going to switch to a capitalist stance, and struggled when going to a few new networking events.

I become an advisor to quite a few different projects/organisations. Starting with the Amplify project (the only media related thing I’m doing now), then for the Open Rights Group (something I couldn’t ever do as a BBC employee) and Johannes asked me if I’d be interested in doing the same for the Fediforum. This was just before the future of social report was finally made public, thanks to existing colleagues (Bill, Antonia, Tristan, Todd and others).

My interest in the future of social connected with where I wanted to go and had pushed hard for the BBC to take a lot more seriously. I’m starting to push a bit harder on the social stuff as I have a big interest in how people meet, date, play and less alone lone generally. Currently I have a podcast series around modern intimacy, ideas/plans around the next generation of social platforms (the fediverse = Activitypub & ATproto) and finally my own book which I likely will self publish along with the dating manifesto.

My main work which actually pays is working with New_Public on the Public Service Incubator. It’s a good position and hope to be doing a lot more with them as the project matures to the open web.

During the year I did have some other roles I was asked about but I turned them down as I felt I moved on from a lot of the media stuff. Although Perceptive and adaptive media stuff is waiting for the right time. to rethink it Likewise, I had a lot of people ask about AI related stuff, which I have spoke about at a few events already. To date AI still doesn’t feature on my CV.

Screen of awardees at Mydata 2025 conference — You can see my face on the 2rd row, 3 from the right

My interest in data is still important with the digital legacy work, especially the machine readable wishes project with the first workshop at MyData 2025. It was also great to be given an award for my impact on Mydata over the years. Another place I have been focusing on more then previously. At FOSDEM 2026, I gave 2 talks. One a workshop on the machine readable wishes and the second one around Human data interaction, its a talk I thought about while at My Data 2025 and participating into their updated constitution.

Ian and Sam talking digital legacy from the FOSDEM social stage — Sam talking alongside myself at FOSDEM 2026

I have also met a few people on the way, a couple of them starting working for me (as such). Sam, was introduced to me by his mother who I knew from BBC World Service. He’s a highly skilled developer and interested in socially important projects which work for people. Hence the machine readable wishes was a ideal connection point. I have been thinking about the setup like a work experience with mentoring. The strange thing is that Sam isn’t the only one…

Ian Forrester talking in London to a crowd — Me talking about AI to the private heathcare industry

Currently I’m at a crossroads because I agreed to myself I would give the business one year… Its been just over a year now. I actually setup the business in mid April.

I like the freedom of running my own business but I don’t like the instability of chasing jobs. I have also made things tricky by working on multiple things. I had some advice from Jennifer who was slight shocked when I said I would give it a year and see (one of the decisions I made with my coaching. just before leaving the BBC) .To be honest the business isn’t doing too bad but I really hoped I would have some lecturing to add to the part time work and startup projects.

Balancing what it would be like to go back into full time work with the interesting life of running my own business is top of mind. I’m also super aware of the difficulty of getting a full time job right now. So many of my older friends are struggling with applying, gong through many rounds of interviews and unrealistic salaries. The tech industry is so full of lay-offs and insatiability. It seems to make sense to take advantage of personality, thoughts and build something for me.

As a whole its amazing where I was a year ago and wouldn’t have imagined I would be where I am now. But I can’t rest, I need to move forward as I have much I want to do, setup and achieve…

Maybe the firestarter is still apart of me… ?

My new years resolutions for 2026

Me and Alison sat at a bar looking at the camers

Following my review of last year… here’s my New Years Resolutions for 2026 which follows on from 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008 ones.

Work smarter with the business
With the new business, I’m getting to grips with the general running of it. However there is a load of things to learn including some of the possibilities had not considered before like the benefits of being a digital nomad.
Finish my dating book
Another throw back to 2025, As described in my review; Hannah is having one last review before it heads out to the list of agents and publishers I have found. I’ll give a bit of time but afterwards I’ll be self publishing it myself by the end of 2025. Alongside this, myself and Jess have started a currently unreleased but very related podcast. I would be foolish to not mention the online datingmanifesto.cc.
Do more with the scooter
I recently MOT’ed my currently scooter but considering I should keep it or sell it? I have been looking around at buying another scooter. I recently spotted a Yamaha TMAX 650 in Barcelona which looks so great and a better choice than the Honda Forza 750, which has poor storage. The dreams of a electric maxi-scooter have all but gone however.
Listen to 28 Audiobooks in a year
Its surprising how many books I’m going through but this year I’m going to push a bit more. Next year is 30 which will be a leap but a good stretch goal, encouraging me to listen when I tend to just play some of my mixes.
Create a DJ hackday
It’s time for a DJ hackday, I just got a early alpha of the Drift DJ one and I just can’t help but think its time for change.in the DJ market. Especially reading this post about the Pacemaker device, which spurred me to look back through my old presentations about how ground breaking it is/was.
Spend more time with family
My parents are getting older and I am quite far away from them. My dad has a degenerative disease and its weighed heavy on my actions and mind. Spending more time with them and the rest of my extended family is something I can do better in 2026. I still have a lot of time for friends and want to get a bit more serious about them, rather than leaving it to the last minute. Of course Alison is someone I think about a lot; now being engaged, I’m thinking a lot more about our future together and how to make this the best it can be together.
Personal knowledge management and task re-managed
I’m a little torn. Vikunja is good, so is Anytype.but the hard part is the initial capture. Something I started doing is using the notes to yourself in Signal to do the start of something I guess I should be using Anytype but I feel like I need to do the categorisation at the same time. I also wonder if I actually trust anytype? With Joplin, its all local and I can understand the model, anytype I find more tricky.
Vikunja’s dependence on the UI does bug me, as one of the big selling points was the CALDav integration. Then I find the login a pain every single time, i reboot I’m going to try self hosting it again and find a way to do a 3 way sync if possible?
Go to a new Rollercoaster park or ride a new ride
A regular resolution but a good one with a twist. I recently went back to Helsinki and seriously enjoyed Taiga at Linnanmäki. Certainly in my top 10. I still haven’t been on Hyperia either, although waiting in the queue for a long time. 2026 has to be the year!

Copyright by Justin Garvanovic – https://rcdb.com/7722.htm
Learn when to self-host and when to not
Related to the one above, I am getting the message about self-hosting. I think its great but there are times when I need to be more thoughtful. With this, its likely a good idea to either considering owning a VPS (which I have done in the past) or shell out money for hosted solutions. To be fair my Vikunja is exactly that and so is my Wallabag and even this blog. Both I could self-host but have decided to just pay the money and use the export to satisfy ownership needs.
Get more experimental with my Sourdough bread
I have quite enjoyed baking bread thanks to my friend Paul sharing his starter. I’m not planning to get super serious about it but listening to the chapter titled Air in Cooked, I feel I experiment a bit more. Its ben fun and playing with Spelt and other flours is just the start.
Go to a new country
As always this a good one and I’m looking at you Switzerland, Czechia and Austria again. Although I am also thinking South Korea after needing to cancel in the pandemic and part of me wants to head to Taiwan but maybe I’m going to be too late?
Learn to drive a car
I’m keeping this one alive, especially since seeing some of my god/page children driving now. I know its been in my new resolutions for ages but maybe 2026 is the year finally?

How capitalism is supposed to work?

Thanks to Herb for sending me this clip from CNBC. The news anchor literally can’t believe what Chamath is saying. But there is so much sense in what he saying. You can feel the old world thinking (pre-Covid19) talking out of the news anchor’s mouth.

Ironically if you put aside the new normal, big companies being bought by others is the way capitalism works. Its super clear capitalism has been warped to such an extent in favor of the 1% of billionaires.

So much for the American dream.

Is silicon valleys dystopia the public sectors utopia?

I was listening to the start of This week in Tech on Monday morning as they talked about the Guardian piece titled Smartphone addiction, Silicon valley dystopia and other related stories. I couldn’t help but feel something was missing from the discussion.

The discussion focused on how to solve some of the points about unethical attention manipulation, filter bubbles, smartphone addiction, etc; all from an North American point of view. There was a sense if this was left to the government to regulate it would be a very bad thing but they were searching for a middle ground and failing. They acknowledged companies need to make money and making their services addictive/sticky is a part of this, but there was a feeling there has to be something in the middle?

Of course they never mention the public sector, as it doesn’t really factor? Its very binary and thinking about it, even in Tristan’s essay there is little notation of the middle ground.

I wonder if silicon valleys dystopia could be the public sectors utopia? However if the message is North American, it’s very unlikely to include anything about the public sector, just governments and business?

The barbershop world is ripe for disruption

I was talking to a guy in VividLounge recently and we were talking about the new trend for barbershops to create high quality promo videos for themselves. In actual fact when I was getting my hair cut last week at Barberboutique, Damien mentioned the new trend for videos to be taken out side the shop rather than inside. The whole idea of pictures of people in the chair having their hair cut is old news it seems.

Look at whats on Youtube, theres some serious videos and theres a certain house style which is starting to emerge. Lots of them have taken the gentlemans therapy to another level with Coffees, Whiskey and even Champagne. But I feel theres plenty of room for disruption… Especially around the business models.

We need more social and community focused startups

I wrote about a number of people who JFDI and how this may have the ability to make gentrification and other social conflicts a little more easier on a community.

On top of that I’ve been thinking how the traditional business models of shareholders wanting continues growth year on year is causing so many issues (well that and diversity). Anyway it got me thinking, maybe social and community startups are the new (ecstasy! I’m kidding, just following my previous post) thing. Don’t get me wrong theres been social enterprises for many years but this is something slightly more appealing.

Just flipping do it already!

Without knowing it, they are embracing the same approaches and plans as startups. Crowd funding, flat structures, lightweight project management tools and an attitude of just fucking do it . All are the hallmark of the following projects. James Headifen who runs the Ancoats Canal Cleanup project. Pam Warhurst who started something in Todmorden (still need to visit) by simply doing something which is highly copyable and makes people happy. Homebaked a co-working space, bakery and the cornerstone of the local community, MadlabUK and DoES Liverpool a hacker and community space, giving room to a number of different types of niche hobbies and activities. Run very much in a JFDI style.

Chewing the fat with Chris

Me and Chris Northwood were in Vividlounge having breakfast thinking/talking about where startup culture starts to go wrong. We talked about the built to flip mentality and how that mentality is poisonous. Build your algorithm, get your users and market for me users. Nothing new and interesting for developers or designers to be involved in. Chris thought suggested it might be anti-developer , while I think it might be ultimately anti-human and progression.

Too many entrepreneurs, he believes, have a “built-to-flip mentality, as opposed to a built-to-last, built-to-change-the-world mentality.”

I mentioned this blog post I was writing in my mind, and talked about the examples I listed above. Social enterprises, ethical startups, what ever they are called… We need to foster and support more of them (this links to Adrian Hons talk from TedxLiverpool about supporting those who are brave enough to take up this challenge). But if you were starting a social enterprise, where would you go?

When I show people around Manchester’s northern quarter, I tend to have a story which I tell people. If you are setting up a business, the coffee shops of the northern quarter are a great place to get inspiration and get work done. But if you wanted something a little more focused,there is a co-working spaces in Madlab on Friday and there is the classroom. If you wanted more, the next step would be Techhub Manchester and beyond that you could get yourself a little office.

The local spaces on your doorstep

Chris suggested Libraries could have a role in this? University libraries are fruitful places supporting students for hours and hours working alone and together. Why is the public libraries not the same? Unlike Techhub which is driving you towards a more traditional startup outcome. Imagine a library as a co-working space with focused advice on how to run a social/ethical/community business… In return you get a free space and access to more resources including maybe funding?

For example we have our islington wharf residents meetings in the local NHS centre which has plenty of rooms not in use after 5pm. Because we are a local and non-profit organisation, we can rent the rooms for free. Certainly beats trying to hold a residents meeting in bar/cafe or one of our living rooms. There are tons of places like this which are underutilised but we pay for out of our taxes. These places can be the difference between a small gathering in a coffee shop and a place to actually bring people together. The library is ideal in my mind.

I’m aware of things like the Coworking directory but there is something interesting about supporting other non-profits in a public space.

Talking to Davemee one of the founders of Madlab, this blog might seem slightly simplistic, native and may misunderstand the extreme difficulties in getting a social/community/non-profit business off the ground. But I argue it should be as simple as setting up a startup and what a time to do it…

Freemium dating gone horrifically wrong

Lunch time at work is a interesting experience. Somehow we got into a discussion about online dating and Elizabeth asked me what kind of sites I’m on, out of curiosity. I mentioned I only do free dating sites and before you knew it we were on to a discussion about freenium dating sites vs paid sites.

The logic seems to conclude that a paid for sites would attract a better match, however in my own experience this is not true. Actually the opposite seems to apply, with the tricks the paid for dating sites pull on you. But we started wondering… If you were really evil or lack in moral judgment, what kind of things would you do?

Here’s some suggestions,

Default all profiles would be ugly (there was a suggestion of green on brown with comic sans) unless you pay for colour changes and font faces changes.
There would be a charge for every character over 320 characters (it was suggested 140 actually). Bit like plenty of fish’s extended profile.
Depending on the time of the month certain words would cost less and more. Of course there would be a algorithm working out the most likely used words in profiles. But the cost would be reversed, as to charge the most for those words in their prime like selfie. Likewise Phrases go down in price depending on over use of the word across the site.
There would only be allowed one photo like eBay use to have. More photos can be added at a cost of course. Oh and the one photo would be restricted to 256 colours and a size of 640×480. If you need colour, you can choose a animal photo which best represents you. One photo to impress… make it a good one.
Messages can only be accessed on the site or the application. There will be strict limits of 10 meg storages and of course all messages will be monitored and fiddled with. So there will be no swearing, rude or lude content (lots of dating sites do this to kill off email and phone number exchange in messages). It would also have the right to change words and sentences to aid with communication. Well I say aid but expect all type of nonsense and mucking around.
All messages will start at 200 characters maximum and grow by 10 characters based on the messages exchange. You
Matching algorithms will be switch depending on paid membership. If you want the super-dooper algorithm you got to pay. And remember you have no idea how good it is till you try it out, at which you are offered the mega search for another upgrade in membership… Of course this time it includes advance options, thankfully. Okcupid already has multiple methods/algorithms for search and some are only accessible to paid members.
Conditions for using the site is allowing the site to have access to your Facebook account. Not just for authentication but so it can read and write to your friends. If you want to stop the spamming, you need to pay for the yearly membership. Remember when Plaxo and many others did this to convince your friends to join?
Don’t even get me started on adverts, you never seen adverts like this before, well maybe. Not only will you see them on the site, but also in your facebook timeline because you allowed us to do so, duhhh stupid…! Of course we could hijacking your cookies for even more fun, unless you pay the subscription money but that would be so… wrong!
Feeling the pitch when it comes to the matches, well don’t worry most of them will be automated bots sent to lure you into paying even more or at least another few months of subscription. Hummm where did I hear this before?
Of course our starred profiles will be ranked highly and you will need to digg through those before you get to the cheapskates. As a free user, you will have to do this with no sort and no option of how many users per page. Good luck with that…
Did I forget to say, how our search doesn’t work correctly for free users. You will have to search through male and female users from all over the world till we can find a way to fix it. Of course paid users get access to the beta server which does support these (some people say) essential things.
Random username allocation. Don’t like your username which was randomly given to you? Well if you pay the money, you can change it. Don’t pay, and you will have to put up with snugglemuffin666 or even snddjoidjidb81.

I could go on but frankly you go the picture. Some sounds a little crazy while others you may recognise from being on paid for dating sites. Free dating sites are rarer than they should be, but the freemium sites are going to be the next big thing. Don’t believe me? Look at Tinder.

Sell the sizzle not the steak

I attended a networking workshop at the BBC the other day. I was wondering how it was going to go, because sometimes the workshops at work can be hit and miss. The trainer for the workshop was down to earth Darren Jenkins from digienable. Darren was good and his advice was welcomed.

Now I know most of you are saying why the heck are you (mr social butterfly and social geek event organiser) doing at a networking workshop? Well most of the things I do are picked up after working it out for myself rather than learned. When I signed up I wanted to understand what other people were told because I’ve seen some weird stuff.

Anyway during the workshop, I listen and chipped in now & then. But what got me thinking in the middle of the workshop is the similarity to dating. I hadn’t really thought about it in this way before, but the more Darren talked and I thought about it. The closer to dating it sounded.

Most of you will be thinking “Duhhhh yes of course, relationships are relationships be them business or a love interest” Laid out on paper it makes sense, but I’ve never really put it on paper like that.

Some key points, which really hit home…

First date, first contact
The politics of who pays extends deeply into networking. Darren talked about trying to buy the first coffee or paying for everything to make a good impression. Of course I disapproved. But at least he told it as it was… “Its a power play…”

Selling the Sizzle
You got a short time (1min) to tell the other person about yourself, what you do and your general thoughts about things. Sounds like Speed dating, but no were actually talking about networking.

One thing which I’ve not been doing recently is selling the sizzle. When speed dating recently I’ve been under-selling how great things are for myself by describing what I actually do rather than the effect. Not sure why I’ve been doing this but it certainly applies for dating as well as networking…

Social object theory
Of course no workshop would be complete without a bit of give and take. Darren was good enough to remind me to sell the sizzle, so I thought I’d talk about social object theory. He never heard of it but had been using it, regardless.

It was a good workshop and funny to hear Darren is partner to Liz Hardwick from Manchester Girl Geeks.

When the buisness model gets in the way, its time to move on?

By now everyones seen the ravings about Twitter changing the developer API and telling developers not to build twitter clients.

In a statement issued today by Twitter on its official developer mailing list, the company informed third-party developers that they should no longer attempt to build conventional Twitter client applications. In a move to increase the “consistency” of the user experience, Twitter wants more control over how its service is presented to users in all contexts.

The announcement is a major blow to the third-party application developers who played a key role in popularizing Twitter’s service. More significantly, it demonstrates the vulnerability of building a business on top of a Web platform that is controlled by a single vendor. The situation highlights the importance of decentralization in building sustainable infrastructure for communication.

This I feel will have a massive chilling effect through out the developer community. Ideally people would move to status.net but I fear even this change isn’t enough to push people over and if the people won’t go the developers are unlikely to change focus to status.net and identi.ca.

I can’t quite link the two but in my mind there along the same lines. Cory Doctorow did a interview about why DRM is no friend of business. A very good interview which hits all the right points but theres something about twitter’s api change which is related. Maybe its about building a business model on shifting ground. If there business model and your business model don’t match or go in the same direction, maybe its time to move on?

A Rant About Women by Clay Shirky

If you’ve not been following the heat/blowback from Clay Shirky’s rant about woman then its worth reading and following some of the strongly formatted comments which follow.

Personally I see what Clay is trying to say, but I don’t think its written as elegantly as he was thinking. That or he’d felt like causing a bit of a storm on the internet for a while. I wanted to pick up on two comments which sum up my thoughts…

Simon St.Laurent says:

There are two basic problems with this piece.

First, telling other people that the way to fix their problems is by being more like you is rarely a good strategy. It might work one-on-one occasionally, but the larger the cultural boundary this approach tries to cross, the less likely it is to produce much besides sparks.

Second, the behavior prescribed is behavior that a lot of us – men included – would like to see reduced rather than increased, punished rather than rewarded. That the first two examples both involved telling lies, however white they might seem from this perspective, doesn’t help make the case.

Stepping back and asking about how people listen seems to me a lot more likely to work than telling people they need to change how they talk.

There is a certainly amount of arrogance is asking someone to be more like yourself… I certainly don’t like it.

Marcus Brody says:

You’ve got the problem backwards. It isn’t that more women (and men) should act like hierarchical assholes, it’s that those assessing performance shouldn’t be so lazy that they only notice assholes. Your argument boils down to: people who assess performance are lazy and don’t bother to think critically so they are easily swayed by false aggrandizement. If you want to change the assessors opinions you should lie because the assessors don’t put in the effort to tell the difference between falsehoods and reality.

And you know what, most assessors are lazy, so lying does pay off. The call to action, though, shouldn’t be for more lying, but rather, less indolence on the part of those who are in a position to judge others.

Unfortunately for Clay, your starting to see this type of headline come up – Shirky: Women Need to Strap On Some Balls . Geez, wonder how long it took to create that headline…