Ash Mann - digital expertise for cultural organisations

Sign in Subscribe

Hi, my name is Ash, I'm an advisor, strategist and facilitator.

For nearly two decades I have helped cultural organisations sharpen their digital thinking and activity.

I am interested in helping you make the most of wherever people and internet technologies come together.

I can support you with projects, challenges and opportunities that involve strategy, leadership, change, users, technology and innovation.

Get in touch: [email protected].

Book a call Services About me Podcast

Ash Mann

Newsletter: Latest issue

Published — Nov 7, 2025

This week's best things

Playing an instrument helps keep the brain young. Also: a museum of web design, innovation vs infrastructure, antifragility, Aurora Orchestra’s learning platform, sensory sculpture, design systems at the NHS, the “futures cone” as a way to think about uncertainty, and the “Age of Worth It.”

More issues

This week's best things

Content strategy and why distribution matters; Cory Doctorow on reversing the “enshittocene”; Rijksmuseum’s relational search; digital exhaustion; art’s measurable health benefits; Hugh on the fact that “people like real things”; imagination in leadership; and Sarah Hughes on “The Likability Trap”.

This week's best things

Cleveland Museum of Art’s revamped collection site, Atkinson Hyperlegible font, James Meek on AI desire, Lauren Pope on translating content for leaders, my piece on digital strategy focus, AWS outage bricking smartbeds, Herzog on Instagram.

The discipline of focus, what makes a digital strategy work

Good digital strategies aren’t long documents or laundry lists. They’re about ruthless focus - choosing a clear direction and sticking to it, even if that means letting go of attractive ideas. Here are some of the characteristics that make them effective.

This week's best things

Exploring "aliveness", remixing digital archives, Instagram story likes as digital affection, Gen Z’s revival of radio and landlines, The Stasi’s role in gaming, AI as “superhistory,” change leadership traps, poor service design, and more.

Reimagining purpose, value, and dealing with pressure

Many cultural leaders admit their organisations feel unsustainable. True resilience comes from reimagining purpose, not outputs or buildings, but the core that makes them indispensable to the public.

This week's best things

Lessons from a museum cyberattack, Welsh AI content support, the EU’s plan to fix cookie law chaos, a doomsday prediction tracker, hat/haircut/tattoo decisions, why writing in books boosts memory, Amazon’s decline, team focus research, cultural bias in GPT, and sitcoms in Yugoslavia.

Not all decisions are equal (or why you shouldn't treat your hats like tattoos)

In cultural organisations, too many decisions are treated as irreversible. Using the “hats, haircuts, tattoos” framework could help leaders distinguish between low-stakes and high-stakes choices, speeding things up and building a culture of trust.

This week's best things

ACMI’s new experience principles, org design beyond charts, Neil Williams’ monthnotes, Tonga’s offline crisis, post-literate society worries, attention as agency, NGO ad parodies, Maintainers study guide, and positive results from Basic Income for Artists.

This week's best things

Copenhagen trips, upcoming talks on AI + digital failure, and a load of good reads: on daydreaming, content structures, gateopeners, the myth of engagement, and why prompting is a design act. Plus rain maps, Lego Globe, shark tracking, and a truly dreadful novel.