The Mail, a new look, a whisky sour and some peanut butter

On Sunday morning I popped down early to my local cornershop to check something. There was a queue of elderly people who’d come to buy their Sunday papers. I joined them to pick up the Mail on Sunday. I bought it and took it round the corner and started rummaging through the many pages hurriedly. A tooth care supplement. Is it here? A kids puzzler. No. Is it here? Then I found it, my bylined feature all about Station F in Paris!

We’d mentioned in our Business Leader newsletter that I was taking a trip to Station F in Paris, billed as the largest campus for start ups in the world, with 1000 under one roof. A senior editor at the Mail got in touch to suggest a collaboration.

I’ve written a longer piece about this remarkable place which will appear in our next Business Leader magazine. I also shot a video report there on my iPhone, which we’ll put out soon.

Plusnet

Monday’s video was a milestone. Firstly we have a new name for the business advice and inspiration videos I’ve been making: My Business Leader Secret. This aligns better with the branding and mission of the wider Business Leader company. Also, our amazing in-house design team has made new graphics and other design assets to give the series an identity across all platforms. It also happens to be a brilliant episode because Joanna Carman of Plusnet gave such a thoughtful, honest and well-articulated contribution. Watch it here on LinkedIn to share or here:

Edinburgh

This week I paid a flying visit to my home town of Edinburgh. One of the great things about being a journalist is that you learn about cool and intriguing places. I took my family to visit the vertical whisky distillery in Leith called the The Port of Leith Distillery , which I’d made a video about for Business Leader (podcast still to come).

Now the clocks have changed the views from the top floor bar were different, though the skyline in the dark had a charm of its own. My father also treated us to some food and drink. I sampled a whisky sour. Good luck to Paddy Fletcher and Ian Stirling with the project.

Up next...

This week I’ve been busy editing. Next week’s podcast on Tuesday is due to be the interview I recorded with Eran Zinman of Monday.com. I also finished the edit for my podcast interview with Fraser Smeaton of MorphCostumes on the train to Edinburgh, so we’ll get that out soon too.

And this morning I interviewed Pip Murray of Pip & Nut | B Corp , so that’s another one in the can. I’m recording fewer interviews for the next few weeks as I’ve built up something of a backlog, having been too greedy! Too many entrepreneurs, too little time!

Good to Know

Here's some random bits and pieces I found intriguing this week.

• Some revealing data released this week in LinkedIn’s Work Change Snapshot: 10% of workers hired this year have job titles that didn’t exist in 2000. It also found that while 80% of UK business leaders see the potential of AI to improve their team's performance, only 8% feel their organisations are leading in AI adoption. This reflects something I've noticed. The rapid pace of change in workplace culture and recruitment is reflected in the rise of the Chief People Officer at many companies. More and more HR professionals are being elevated to C-suite roles (similar to the rise of the CFO post-Financial Crisis). AI, hybrid working and cultural differences in a multi-generational workforce make these HR professinals more valued.
• Rude Health has been acquired by Finnish plant-based company, Oddlygood . Camilla Barnard is the co-founder of Rude Health and one of the first people I interviewed after joining Business Leader. She will also be speaking at our Summit, see below!
• Thinking of a present for Christmas already? Our editor-in-chief Graham Ruddick has a book out called Risk Roulette. It's riding high in the business book charts at many book shops, check it out in store or online too.
• You can still get super early bird tickets for the Business Leader Summit happening in March in London. If you are an ambitious medium-sized business with aspirations to grow, this is an event super-relevant to you. Check out here for tickets.

Thanks for reading!

Dougal