An occasional publication from The Sensible Plan

The Sunday Supplement

Notes on marketing, systems, AI and things that should have been simpler.

I was raised on Sunday papers, not personal brands.

Published · September 13, 2026 · Issue 03

Higher Education Doesn’t Have a Content Problem. It Has an Ownership Problem.

Publishing faster is useful. Knowing which answer is true is rather more important.

Difficulty ★★★★☆G&T ★★★☆☆
Read the edition →
Previous edition

From the archive.

The useful bits do not expire on Monday.

02
Sep 6, 2026
They Asked for a Poster. I Automated the Problem Instead.
The transaction data and the display already existed. The manual update did not need to.
01
Aug 30, 2026
Make Sent Me to 1969.
I tried to automate a weekly events email. The useful discovery was that the process needed fixing before the automation did.
Next editions

What’s on the desk.

No content treadmill. Just the ones worth writing.

04
Sep 20, 2026
The Numbers Are Skewed. And?
“Skewed” has a habit of ending meetings. I have three questions before it’s allowed to: what’s causing it, how much does it matter, and does it actually change the decision?
05
Sep 27, 2026
I Built a Website. I Still Don’t Want to Be a Developer.
AI can get an idea to a working website remarkably quickly. The difficult part is still deciding what you’re building, who it’s for and what should happen when somebody arrives.
In the queue

Things I haven’t quite left alone.

We Have a Communications Problem. Obviously, Let’s Add Another Channel.

An app was proposed before the communications process underneath it was fixed. I can advise on the sequence. I cannot, apparently, confiscate the app.

Adding another tool to a broken process doesn’t fix the process. It gives the problem another address.

I Stopped Asking Which AI Is Best.

The useful question is which tool helps with the job in front of you — and what judgment still belongs to you.

A QR Code Is Not a Strategy.

Making something scannable does not make it useful. The destination and next step still have to earn the click.

One Form Shouldn’t Create Five More Jobs.

Intake should reduce administration, not distribute it more efficiently.

The Work Should Survive the Person.

If everything breaks when one person is unavailable, you do not have a process. You have a dependency.

Stop Updating the Same Thing Twice.

Every duplicated update is another opportunity for the information to drift.

Sent Is Not the Same as Done.

A process does not end because you emailed somebody. The handoff still has to give the next person what they need, when they need it, in a form they can actually use.

Seemed sensible at the time.

Sundays used to mean the papers. Tea. Newspapers spread across the table. Enough time to read something properly and disappear down a rabbit hole that had absolutely nothing to do with what I was supposed to be doing.

This is my digital version: something I tried, what broke, what worked, what I learned and whether I’d do it again.

Mostly marketing, data, AI, automation and systems. Occasionally G&T-assisted. After work, obviously.