Adrian Howard

@adrianhoward

Drinks less coffee than people expect. Enjoys helping people solve problems in the messy cross-disciplinary spaces where strategy, research, & delivery overlap. Does coaching with senior practitioners & leaders. adrianhoward.com | quietstars.com/coaching

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Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· 23d

I know he's not officially started the job yet — but I do think I called it on Burnham.

Screenshot dated Jun 29th reading:

"I’m not gonna be disillusioned — coz I don’t have illusions about him to start with :-)

He’s a politician not a manager — so it’s a massive step up from Starmer. But I think some folk who are expecting Burnham to be pushing labour towards the left on social issues, tax, benefits, etc. are going to be sadly disappointed"

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· 26d

BLOOD FOR CHOCOLATE! BLOOD FOR CHOCOLATE! BLOOD FOR CHOCOLATE! BLOOD FOR CHOCOLATE! BLOOD FOR CHOCOLATE! BLOOD FOR CHOCOLATE! BLOOD FOR CHOCOLATE! BLOOD FOR CHOCOLATE! BLOOD FOR CHOCOLATE! BLOOD FOR CHOCOLATE! BLOOD FOR CHOCOLATE! BLOOD FOR CHOCOLATE! BLOOD FOR CHOCOLATE! BLOOD FOR CHOCOLATE! BLOOD…

Blood coming out of Adrian's arm at the blood donors

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· Jul 7

July's #MonthlyAlbum

Photo of The Coup's album "Party Music" on CD — illustrated with a fiery cocktail glass.

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· Jun 29

Monday off to a good start with an unexpectedly early delivery of @grimalkina.bsky.social's new book! Looking forward to digging in!

A copy of "The Psychology of Software Teams" by Cat Hicks being held up by some old beardy dude.

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· Jun 20

June's #MonthlyAlbum

Photo of the Belly album "Star" on CD — illustrated by the band name in an ornate serif font in white against a psychedelic coloured oval.

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· Jun 13

Google Docs is trying to correct "occasional" (spelt correctly) to "casual". Sigh.

Screenshot of Google Docs suggesting I replace "occasional" with "casual".

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· Jun 6

Cocky cock robin is cocky:

Photo of a mail robin by some green leaves staring insolently at the camera.

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· Jun 3

You couldn't ask for a better example for Betteridge's law of headlines:

Screenshot of a headline reading "Is Kemi Badenoch getting better at being Conservative leader?"

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· May 30

Feeling this old hellsite post again today — "make the logo bigger", "make it pop" etc.

Screenshot of a tweet by Adrian Howard reading:

At points in my career I've hung around creative folk in photography/video/illustration — and watched talented creatives working with great clients and with terrible ones.

And man… a whole big chunk of the "AI" art stories give me really strong "terrible client" vibes.

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· May 10

May's #MonthlyAlbum

Photo of the Special Interest album "Endure" on CD - the cover is a styled as white paper with torn edges, with the word "ENDURE" all caps in a large vertically stretched block sans serif font covering the bottom 3/4 of the cover.

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· May 6

More from the storage boxes :-)

Photo of a book titled "Human-Computer Interaction" by Jenny Preece, et al.

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· May 4

Been unpacking some old storage boxes recently — and I'd forgotten that I had the edition _before_ the title change to "The Design Of Everyday Things" #ux #design #nostalgia

Photo of a hardback copy of the book "The Psychology Of Everday Things" by Donald A. Norman — a white cover illustrated with an "impossible to use" teapot with the handle and the spout on the same side.

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· Apr 15

Surely that is something at my window lattice; Let me see then what thereat is, and this mystery explore Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; Tis the wind and nothing more! Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately … Raven?

Photo of a seagull staring belligerently at the camera through a second story window.

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· Apr 12

April's #MonthlyAlbum

Photo of the PJ Harvey album "Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea" on CD — illustrated with a photo of the artist crossing a New York city street.

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· Apr 2

Getting to look after the neighbour's tortoise for a week :-)

A very small tortoise looks out from a cave made of half a coconut shell across some red and grey gravel.

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· Mar 8

Reflecting on the last quarter can be summarised by this. Again. I should know better at my age :-)

Painting of a bearded and helmed Viking style character with a red cloak.

Text reading…

Pick your battles.
Pick fewer battles than that.
Put some battles back.
That's still too many battles.

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· Mar 7

March's #MonthlyAlbum

Photo of tha Blackstreet album "Another Level" on CD sitting on a wooden table.

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· Feb 18

What's a legacy organisation? I'm fond of the Michael Feathers line about legacy code being "code without tests" — for hopefully obvious reasons. Back when I was on the hellsite I pondered "If legacy code is code without tests… what's a legacy organisation…" 1/2

Screen shot of a tweet from @adrianh in Jan 2017 reading "If legacy code is code without tests… what's a legacy organisation…"

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· Feb 15

February's #MonthlyAlbum

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· Jan 11

January's #MonthlyAlbum

Photo of the Adia Victoria album "Silences" on CD sitting on a wooden table.

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· Dec 31

Congratulations on surviving 2025 everybody!

Still from the Princess Bride showing the Dread Pirate Roberts with the quote from the film "Good Work. Sleep Well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning"

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· Dec 19

Somebody's metric is not moving the way they would like it to…

A screenshot of a slack message reading "Hey, adrianh! A lot has happened in Slack this week 🎉 You have 5 more Al search previews. Let's summarise what happened in Slack this week."

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· Dec 12

The walk to my physio appointment isn’t terrible

Photo of a pebbled beach, with green hills in the distance under a lightly clouded sunny blue sky.

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· Dec 7

December's #MonthlyAlbum

Photo of the Florence + the Machine album "Everybody Scream" on CD — the cover is a photo of Florence Welch reclined languidly while staring at the camera with petticoats astray.

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· Dec 7

#Brutalist December

Photo of the December page of the 2025 Brutalist Calendar — illustrated with a black & white photo of the Urban Furniture, Sanctuary of Merciful Love, Italy — a curving half tube open on the side to a paved area, with rounded rectangular windows looking outward.

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· Nov 20

blood for chocolate Blood for Chocolate BLOOD FOR CHOCOLATE BLOOD FOR CHOCOLATE!

Two photos — one of Adrian's fat hairy arm getting blood removed from it — the other of a Kit Kat next to a leaflet titled "Important safety information after you have given blood".

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· Nov 16

Well done to whoever at Inkbird thought it would be a good idea for my freaking _CO2 sensor_ to send me adverts. <switches off notifications> <adds Inkbird to my boycott list>

Screenshot of an iOS notification reading "Up to $190 off … It's the kind of deal you'll brag about all season"

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· Nov 10

#Brutalist November

Photo of the November page of the 2025 Brutalist Calender illustrated with a photo of the Albert Einstein School and Cite du Parc, France — a multi-story angular concrete building with multiple balconies and staircases

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· Nov 6

November's #MonthlyAlbum

Photo of the Brass Against album "Brass Against II" on CD with a Bauhaus style illustrated "BA" in red, orange, green, and yellow.

Adrian Howard@adrianhoward· Oct 12

Posting me from a different era