Ben Holliday
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benholliday.com
Ben Holliday
@benholliday.com
Design and digital transformation | Chief Design Officer at TPXimpact | UK Lake District
Reposted by Ben Holliday
Good reminder that AI companies have been playing whack-a-mole against AI generated misinformation and prejudicial bias for a decade
Health experts: Your synthetic text "AI" overviews are misleading, for example see this about liver function tests.
Google: Okay, we'll block "AI" overviews on that query.

The product is fundamentally flawed and cannot be "fixed" by patching query by query.

A short 🧵>>
‘Dangerous and alarming’: Google removes some of its AI summaries after users’ health put at risk
Guardian investigation finds AI Overviews provided inaccurate and false information when queried over blood tests
www.theguardian.com
January 11, 2026 at 2:53 PM
Reposted by Ben Holliday
At this point, I'd be happy with someone just spraying a white circle around them so I can avoid hitting them
And this pothole map connects to pothole reporting services where people can report potholes in England (or wider UK)?

Or understand who's responsible for a particular pothole?

Or even track progress (if there's enough need for that...)?

Yes?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Potholes map rates council road repair progress
Thirteen local authorities received a
www.bbc.co.uk
January 11, 2026 at 12:53 PM
And we're back.. Day 1 of work in 2026 complete. All the things at once to remind myself why I don't normally do 2 day compressed weeks!
January 8, 2026 at 5:33 PM
Reposted by Ben Holliday
If you're new here and happen to see this, here's a Critical Tech starter pack, full of interesting folk to follow go.bsky.app/VFxSES6 And if you have a small account (<10k followers) and would like to be added for visibility, let me know! (Although response times may be slow)
January 8, 2026 at 12:27 PM
Reposted by Ben Holliday
It's always an exciting moment when we can say #CampDigital is happening THIS YEAR! 🎉

🎤 Our brilliant speakers for 7th May include: @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social, @himal.bsky.social @dasbarrett.bsky.social, @laurayarrow.bsky.social

Early birds available till end of Jan at:

tinyurl.com/2s35kfd9
January 8, 2026 at 10:52 AM
Reposted by Ben Holliday
Looking ahead to #UKGovCamp - coming up soon 🎉

We’ll be there as Gold Sponsors of this public services unconference on 17 Jan. Come say hi 👋
January 8, 2026 at 3:39 PM
Reposted by Ben Holliday
Wrote about my first 7 months transforming the technology underpinning the national breast screening programme: lizlutgendorff.substack.com/p/lessons-le...
Lessons learned after 7 months at NHSE
Not what I expected but in a good way.
lizlutgendorff.substack.com
January 6, 2026 at 10:57 AM
Reposted by Ben Holliday
First working day back for many. It can be easy to get swamped, especially if you’re compensating for gaps.

Wrote this to cover something I’ve seen in many places: effort masquerading as capacity, leading to burnout, how it affects some more than others, and how to not let it become normalised.
Effort Is Not Capacity
Why interest-driven nervous systems burn out in systems that confuse effort for capacity
himalmandalia.medium.com
January 5, 2026 at 11:41 AM
Reposted by Ben Holliday
Don’t worry gang, no one actually starts their New Year’s resolutions on the 1st. And you’d be silly to begin on a Friday, best save it for Monday. But Monday is the 5th so you’ve kind of missed the boat anyway and can safely put it off for next year.
January 1, 2026 at 9:17 AM
Happy New Year to everyone I know or have connected with here 2️⃣0️⃣2️⃣6️⃣🎆

I’m halfway through a much needed Christmas break from work… No reflection posts from me this year - I ran out of time and energy in 2025.

Here’s to doing our best and being our best selves in 2026 #keepgoing
December 31, 2025 at 7:07 PM
Reposted by Ben Holliday
Meanwhile this is *machine learning* and what it is *good at*. Not generative AI bullshit, actual useful predictive statistical models. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...
AI being used to help cut A&E waiting times in England this winter
Forecasting tool predicts when demand will be highest, allowing NHS trusts to better plan staffing and bed space
www.theguardian.com
December 29, 2025 at 12:35 AM
Merry Christmas everyone 🎄 …with four children and a busy household we’re at the *falling over the line* stage of life on days like today. I’m just glad we made it and everyone seems healthy and happy this morning. Hope you all have a good one 🥂
December 25, 2025 at 10:54 AM
Reposted by Ben Holliday
The Top 10 (non job links) from my newsletter this year -

About the GOV Reuse Library
reuselibrary-dev.apps.cloud-platform.service.justice.gov.uk/about.html

...was top by a country mile.
About the Reuse Library
reuselibrary-dev.apps.cloud-platform.service.justice.gov.uk
December 11, 2025 at 12:01 PM
💡 New short read about false positives in user-centred design.

This is an analogy I find helpful when thinking about how user-centricity is really shaping, directing and impacting the work of digital teams

#digitaltransformation

benholliday.com/2025/11/27/f...
False positives and user-centricity
Are there false positives in the user-centricity of your team, programme, or organisation?
benholliday.com
November 27, 2025 at 12:42 PM
Reposted by Ben Holliday
I *love* the torn one that just has "you don't have to accept this future" written in regular handwriting. That's what I keep repeating to anyone who will listen to me at my institution. We don't have to participate in reinforcing this one possible future; there are others we can imagine and make.
Yesterday my partner and I counted all the ads along Chicago's Brown Line for "Friend," a company selling an AI chatbot pendant, and tallied how many of those ads were defaced.

Still working on a longer piece on this, but here's the quick and dirty: we counted 104 "Friend" ads total, 42 defaced.
November 24, 2025 at 12:36 AM
Kendal Mountain Festival has taken over our small town again this weekend - it’s wonderful seeing this international festival growing each year… busiest I’ve ever seen it around the town yesterday #UKLakeDistrict
November 23, 2025 at 7:13 PM
Reposted by Ben Holliday
One brilliant thing about Twitter was that for a lot of us, it made networking not networking.

You posted about what you were passionate about it, and it had more of a chance to get in front of someone relevant. It wasn't networking, it was caring about something in public.
I made friends with game developers. I did my own work. And it happened. That’s all there is.
November 23, 2025 at 4:07 PM
"…we need a discussion about the added value that admin teams bring to patients, particularly those that struggle to navigate the NHS."

Interesting ideas here: "Imagine if GPs, not admin staff, were the first point of contact for people wanting an appointment."

www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-...
Who Picks Up The Phone? Different Approaches To NHS Admin | The King's Fund
Improving NHS admin isn’t easy – but some solutions are surprisingly simple. Julia Cream looks at two real life examples of admin done differently.
www.kingsfund.org.uk
November 22, 2025 at 12:31 PM
Nice short read: highlights the importance of thinking about audiences (senior leaders and stakeholders) when presenting the outputs of mapping work #servicedesign

medium.com/@katie.dicke...
How we can map services better
For service designers, maps are the things that we can point to and say, “Look, I contributed this to the project.” But here’s the thing…
medium.com
November 22, 2025 at 11:59 AM
💡 Good new TPX design blog by Weronika Tokaj (not on BSky)…

I'm often asked where the examples are of teams using design/research as part of policy spaces? Here's a great example with some practical insights

#ServiceDesign #UserResearch #UserCentredPolicyDesign

www.tpximpact.com/knowledge-hu...
Designing for users who don’t exist (yet) - TPXimpact
How we approached building a new service alongside emerging policy at DESNZ, and working with proto-personas as living hypotheses.
www.tpximpact.com
November 22, 2025 at 11:23 AM
Vendor lock in. The same obvious tactics in 2025, just increasingly applied to AI tooling, or being sold more explicitly as productivity solutions

www.theguardian.com/society/2025...
Microsoft has ‘ripped off the NHS’, says MP amid call for contracts with British firms
Samantha Niblett highlighted government’s multi-billion-pound deals with Microsoft and ‘getting locked in’
www.theguardian.com
November 21, 2025 at 10:42 PM
Reposted by Ben Holliday
If people in your team or organisation are using AI notetakers as a way of coping with too many meetings and a culture of presenteeism, there's not a technological fix for this. The answer is to have fewer, better organised meetings www.careful.industries/blog/2025-11...
November 21, 2025 at 7:13 AM
I’ve been listening to @naomialderman.bsky.social’s new book this week - about living through an information crisis. It asks lots of important questions, which I’ve found really thought provoking #books
www.penguin.co.uk/books/469677...
Don’t Burn Anyone at the Stake Today
What’s the most useful thing you could know about your own life? In this era-defining book, developed from her groundbreaking Radio 4 essay series, Naomi Alderman turns her boundless curiosity and in...
www.penguin.co.uk
November 20, 2025 at 7:06 PM
‘Tis the season for cancelled and/or delayed trains #trains #winter
November 20, 2025 at 6:57 PM
London bound today. This morning has that ethereal winter feeling. Everything slowly defrosting as the sun rises #trains
November 20, 2025 at 8:25 AM