Let’s start with you. Who are you, and what lens do you bring to understanding people online?
I’m the Founder and CEO of Listen and Learn Research. I’ve spent much of my career trying to understand how digital culture both creates and reflects the unwritten norms, expectations, and beliefs that shape consumer choice.
What’s always fascinated me is how quickly those expectations move. Digital culture never stands still - and brands often feel like they’re chasing something that’s already shifted.
Our role is to help brands find their place within that movement, using three lenses:
- How do they show up in digital culture today - and what are people seeing, feeling and saying about them right now?
- Who are their customers of tomorrow - and how are their expectations starting to change? And,
- How do they stay relevant in the future - and what does that open up for growth and innovation?
What’s a working theory you have right now about how people behave online?
Online behaviour feels more complicated than it’s ever been.
A lot of that comes down to AI. I see it as both an extraordinary creative tool and, at the same time, a shortcut to a lot of forgettable content. As it evolves, it will become harder to tell what’s artificial and what’s human, but not harder to tell what’s thoughtful and what isn’t.
Alongside that, there’s a sense of platform fatigue. Social media no longer feels novel, and as features blur, platforms lose their edge. Younger generations are responding by doing what they always do: finding new spaces and deliberately distancing themselves from what came before.
And yet, despite all of this, digital culture remains deeply useful - for connection, entertainment, learning, and shopping. That tension is where I think the most interesting behaviour is emerging.
What’s an insight you surfaced that you still think about? What one stuck with you?
What stays with me is the grounding that comes from working inside digital culture - seeing the world through the eyes of the people actually living it.
I’ve seen first-hand how traditional research and analytics can struggle to escape their own frameworks. In contrast, digital culture lets you watch change as it happens. You can see ideas form, spread, stall, and suddenly take off and you can see who’s driving that momentum.
That perspective matters because digital culture increasingly shapes wider culture. And culture, at its heart, is about choice. The closer you get to those choices, the more clearly you see where growth truly comes from.
What’s the weirdest rabbit hole your work has ever sent you down? And what did it teach you?
A project on the future of sex and the rabbit holes were deeper than expected.
It was fascinating, but it was also sobering. It taught us a lot about human behaviour in all its complexity, and it forced us to think carefully about responsibility. When you work with data in its rawest form, you have to protect not just the people whose lives you’re analysing, but the people doing the analysis too.
That lesson has stayed with me.
What skills or mindsets do you think the next generation of analysts will need?
Insight has always been about spotting patterns, deciding what matters, and telling stories that create action. That hasn’t changed.
What has changed is the breadth of inputs. We’re moving beyond quant and qual towards an insight stack pulling from a much wider mix of data, platforms, and tools.
Alongside core skills, I think the next generation will need a strong imagination: curiosity about what’s possible, and the discipline to turn new capability into something genuinely useful for clients.
What’s a niche community, account, or corner of the internet you’re watching right now? And why?
The GLP-1 community.
We’ve spent a lot of time immersed in it, and it’s one of the biggest disruptions I’ve seen in my career. Its impact stretches far beyond healthcare into food, identity, and everyday behaviour. The implications for brands and whole categories are only just starting to unfold..
Last non-work thing you read that shaped your thinking?
I’m re-reading The Source by Tara Swart. I keep coming back to it for its perspective on how the mind works and how to use it more intentionally.
And I’ve been loving Night People by Mark Ronson - a great reminder that creative paths are rarely linear, and that curiosity often matters more than a plan.
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