Sam Knowles
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Articles by Sam Knowles
How IRA and BIL grantees can prepare for termination of the Green New Deal
Since January 20, 2025, the federal government has been actively reviewing, suspending, and terminating certain contracts and grants that are not aligned with the Trump Administration’s policy goals. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), for example, has issued stop-work and suspension orders across a significant portion of its contract and grant portfolio.
8 Ways Cos. Can Prep For Termination Of Their Enviro Grants
By Thomas Daley, Sam Knowles and David Lacker ( February 19, 2025, 5:35 PM EST) -- Since Jan. 20, the federal government has been actively reviewing, suspending, and terminating certain contracts and grants that are not aligned with the Trump administration's policy goals. The U.S. Agency for International Development, for example, has issued stop-work and suspension orders across a significant portion of its contract and grant portfolio.... Law360 is on it, so you are, too.
8 Ways Cos. Can Prep For Termination Of Their Enviro Grants
By Thomas Daley, Sam Knowles and David Lacker ( February 19, 2025, 5:35 PM EST) -- Since Jan. 20, the federal government has been actively reviewing, suspending, and terminating certain contracts and grants that are not aligned with the Trump administration's policy goals. The U.S. Agency for International Development, for example, has issued stop-work and suspension orders across a significant portion of its contract and grant portfolio....
Like Dracula running the blood transfusion service
In the mid-1990s, I was the subject of sustained abuse in the media and public eye, usually in the form of analogy. “Like asking Al Capone to run the Chicago police department” “Like leaving your cat to look after the goldfish and budgie when you go away on holiday” “Like Dracula running the blood transfusion service” It was nothing personal, you understand.
Keep it simple - Insight Agents
This is the second in a series of blogs to mark National Storytelling Week 2017, focused on the words companies and brands use to tell their stories. When physicist Richard Feynman was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics, he was asked if he could explain in just three minutes why he’d won the prize.
Nice! - Insight Agents
It’s said that English is an easy language to learn. Despite the oddities of pronunciation – cough, bough, enough – modern English is largely non-inflected; it doesn’t force lots of awkward endings and agreements on the building blocks of language. Verbs, nouns and adjectives. I’ve no idea whether English is easier to learn than other, more inflected tongues, either as a first, second, or subsequent language.
I’ve seen the future of learning - and I like it
Through persistence, making enquiries at the right time, and a healthy dose of good luck, I was privileged to attend last month’s RSA President’s Lecture. I was pleased to do so in this, the first year of my Fellowship of this most excellent organisation. The address was given by Simon Nelson, Founder of FutureLearn. He talked about “the importance of digital technology and place-based communities of learning in meeting our future societal needs”.
5 brilliant reasons why #ThisGirlCan
On Saturday, my gorgeous, gutsy, sassy wife took her Lewes Ladies veterans football team to Southampton to play in the first round of the FA People’s Cup. They played six, won four, drew one, lost one. Runners up on the day, and through to the next round in March. I couldn’t be more proud. Lewes Ladies Vets before their first-round glory in the FA People’s Cup.
12 things we learned @APGLondon’s #StrategyVsRobots conference
Earlier today, the excellent Account Planning Group held its annual conference. Dubbed #StrategyVsRobots, the event brought together a typically eclectic blend and roast of some of the best thinkers around. Not just in marketing and planning and digital. But also neuroscience, design thinking and thinking per se. It was an afternoon of light yet profound metacognition where, wilfully separated from our day jobs, we were actively encourage to think about thinking.
Use data and statistics to tell your tale
This is the fourth in a series of blogs to mark National Storytelling Week 2017, focused on the words companies and brands use to tell their stories. In their very readable book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, brothers Chip and Dan Heath quote the following statistic with self-conscious irony: “After a presentation, 63% of attendees remember stories.
On the power of story, empathy, and insight #PRCA2017
The glitterati of a corner of the communications industry mired in scandal gathered at BAFTA last Friday. Not coke-addled movie stars or angry young TV folk. Not even the shady moguls who earns millions from wonky programmatic algorithms misplacing ads on extremist, hate, and porn sites. No. The corner of the media industry that came out to play on Friday were the earned media chapter of the Hidden Persuaders: PR folks.
Measurement, shmeasurement
Twice during yesterday’s excellent PRmoment.com #PRanalytics conference, the verboten three-letter acronym AVE was used. On both occasions, there was a sharper intake of breath than when one speaker, during a panel session, spelled out the C-word. In full. AVE. Advertising Value Equivalency. There, I only went and said it. The bane of the PR measurement industry. A practice that signifies nothing and doesn’t give the value or the worth of anything.
Happy birthday, dad
My late father, Kenneth Guy Jack Charles Knowles, was born 110 years ago today. He tumbled into a privileged existence in early Edwardian England. He was the grandson of the original Polish builder, Julius Kino, who’d arrived penniless 40 years before, but then built Bayswater and left a small fortune to his four children. £1.6m in 1900; about £190m in today’s coin, but who’s counting?
Asking Smarter Questions: How To Be an Agent of Insight
Asking Smarter Questions: How To Be an Agent of Insight ISBN | Quantity: Shopping Cart Summary Items: Routledge & CRC Press eBooks are available through VitalSource. The free VitalSource Bookshelf® application allows you to access to your eBooks whenever and wherever you choose. Mobile/eReaders – Download the Bookshelf mobile app at VitalSource.com or from the iTunes or Android store to access your eBooks from your mobile device or eReader.
How Have Quarantine, National Unrest Impacted Data Storytelling?
by Sam Knowles , 6 minutes ago Data storytelling has emerged as the most strategic of modern marketing practices. It helps us align data’s underlying meaning with our calls to action -- and in the art of it all, craft our most resonant and compelling stories. Narrative is the way we simplify and make sense of a complex world. Quality narrative resonates, connects and compels, serving us well as marketers, as we seek to engage our audiences, customers, and communities.
In praise of curiosity and timeout | Opinion
Curiosity and taking time out are sometimes overlooked, but are especially important for researchers in times of change. Sam Knowles offers some practical tips for thinking curiously. As the world starts to adjust to what living with coronavirus really means, we have never needed insight and the transformational power of insightful thinking more. Insight is the superpower that drives innovation, and the human capacity for innovation is what gets us out of holes and ensures we evolve and survive.
Hey Joe: are you experienced?
05/12/2019Sam KnowlesInsight Agent's Blog The Harvard Business Review is a beguiling publication that divides opinion. Some think it stuffy. Some think it elitist. Others yet think it relevant only to the biggest of big businesses whose first box on the recruitment checklist is “Does she have an MBA?” The reality is rather different, and I’ll hazard that those that think it stuffy, elitist, or judgmental haven’t read it recently or regularly.
The Brighton Summit - a narrative told in numbers
12/10/2019Sam KnowlesInsight Agent's Blog And it’s a wrap. At 5.15pm on the nose last Friday evening, Julie Roff, the President of the Brighton & Hove Chamber of Commerce drew the 2019 Brighton Summit to a close. Number seven in sequence, but number one in delivery, at least in this data storyteller’s opinion. To be fair, I’ve only been to the last three, was a curator of last year’s (so couldn’t – fairly – judge it). But this year’s was truly the stunner.
How to be insightful
Provides a novel framework and a structure for generating insight. Managing research projects Market research quality standards Turning research into insight Strategy The Princeton psychologist Daniel Kahneman is fond of remarking that: “Thinking is to humans as swimming is to cats; they can do it, but they prefer not to.” While we’re the smartest species on the planet, each of us in possession of the most... WARC subscribers can sign in to keep reading Not a subscriber?
DoD suggests flexibility with cybersecurity compliance deadline | JD Supra
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How to Tell Powerful and Purposeful Stories with Data, 1st Edition
Description Shortlisted for the Business Book of the Year Awards in the Sales and Marketing category. As jobs become increasingly similar, there are two skills that everyone needs if they’re going to thrive. These are the ability to interrogate and make sense of data, and the ability to use insights extracted from data to persuade others to act. Analytics + storytelling = influence. Humans are hardwired to respond to stories and story structure.
Defense contractors – the time has come: December 31 is the deadline for cybersecurity safeguarding compliance
Defense contractors and subcontractors that handle certain types of defense information must be in compliance with Department of Defense (DoD) cybersecurity requirements by the December 31, 2017 deadline. Affected contractors – particularly those that are still working towards compliance – should take note of recent guidance issued by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Prime contractor found nonresponsible based on undisclosed vendor-vetting process - contingency contractors beware
Contingency contractors should take note of a recent bid protest decision from the Government Accountability Office, which approved the Department of Defense's use of a special, non-transparent database to determine the responsibility of foreign-owned contingency subcontractors.
Whatever happened to advertising?
When the last episode of the seventh and final season of Mad Men aired in May 2015, it was like the last bunch of grapes being lovingly twisted from the vine. A sign that something good had come to an end, and that a period of retrenchment – and a whole lot of fertilizer – was necessary before new growth would come again.
Simplicity. Humanity. And purpose
Sam Knowles Sam Knowles Published Nov 16, 2016 Consumers have a paradoxical relationship with grocery products. Individually and day-to-day, they take up a vanishingly small part of our attention. Those that we use every day – from toothpaste and shampoo to tea and coffee – become part of our automatic habits and rituals and so they don’t even impinge on our consciousness.
Why yes/no questions can yield surprising answers
Was the Iraq war caused by the West’s desire to control access to Middle Eastern oil? Do you want this man or that woman as your leader for the next four to eight years? Should we stay or should we go? There’s been a lot of soul searching in the past month about the wisdom or otherwise of asking simple yes/no, binary questions.
A Practical Guide to the Story Cycle and Transformational Business Languages
A Practical Guide to the Story Cycle and Transformational Business Languages In this Business of Story podcast, Sam Knowles, Founder and Managing Director of Insight Agents, takes us through his personal and professional journey using the story cycle process. With a doctorate in experimental psychology, Sam provides his insight on business storytelling techniques with a unique, data-driven perspective on human motivation and behavior.
Why brands need to #standforsomething
Purpose is the new vision, mission, CSR and employee engagement strategy all rolled into one. Companies and brands that define and articulate their purpose – their why – are more successful than those that don’t. Who says so? Jim Stengel, the former CMO of P&G no less. Brands like Apple with its products designed to improve our quality of life.
Why didn’t Microsoft create Google?
Why didn’t Kodak create Instagram? Why didn’t Facebook create WhatsApp? Why didn’t the Intercontinental Hotel Group create AirBnB? Once they reach a certain scale and age, even the most innovative businesses can find themselves outflanked by smarter, nimbler upstarts who make one-time disruptors move with all the grace of the corporate dinosaurs they themselves once outfoxed. The anti-establishment becomes the establishment, made redundant by the very forces that once were their lifeblood.
Why brands need to avoid jargon in their storytelling
To celebrate National Storytelling Week, corporate and brand storytellers Insight Agents commissioned Sussex University’s Innovation Centre to interview senior figures in the UK retail sector to tell us the challenges they face in telling their brand stories. Today Sam Knowles, our Founder & MD, takes a personal look at jargon – and argues that brands should avoid it at all costs. For 12 years after graduation, I worked in public relations.
Why brands need to be authentic in their storytelling
To celebrate National Storytelling Week, corporate and brand storytellers Insight Agents commissioned Sussex University’s Innovation Centre to interview senior marketers in the UK retail sector to talk to us about the challenges they face in telling their brand’s stories. In this week-long series of blogs, we’ve been exploring the major themes from this research, as well as giving advice on how to overcome barriers to better storytelling.
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