It’s 1970 and ELTON JOHN takes out a crumpled piece of paper and plays “Tiny Dancer” for the first time in front of his lyricist BERNIE TAUPIN and Taupin’s wife Maxine (for whom Taupin wrote the song).
Tom Scott
@tomscott.name
Chief Digital Officer @PLOS.org. Previously responsible for Wellcome Collection’s digital transformation, Director of Product at Springer Nature, BBC /nature, /programmes /music &c. Oenophile and Type 1 Diabetic. https://tomscott.name
Happy diaversary to me! Seven years ago today I was diagnosed with diabetes #t1d tomscott.name/2020/07/9/on...
One year on…
A personal account of being diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes after diabetic ketoacidosis, and learning to live with the daily chemistry of insulin, food, illness, and technology.
tomscott.name
I’ve written a thing about AI agents and cultural inheritance where both successful strategies and false theories persisted beyond their originators. You might find it interesting. tomscott.name/2026/09/9/wh...
What survives the agent
The Hugging Face incident suggests that AI risk lies not only in what agents can do, but in the ideas and behaviours they pass on.
tomscott.name
We’re looking for a Senior Product Manager to join us at PLOS for 12 months. Interesting problems and a chance to rethink how research gets published, shared and used. Fully remote, UK based. Come work with us (or send this to someone who might) 👇 job-boards.eu.greenhouse.io/plos/jobs/49...
Senior Product Manager - 12 Month FTC
UK-Remote
job-boards.eu.greenhouse.io
I wonder how many images on Snapchat are of ceilings &c.? How many photos are shared to maintain the streak? Could this be used to measure how addictive the UX is?
It seems very silly that there is no BTEC L3 equivalent to an A Level grade B. It creates a significant cliffedge and places BTEC students at a disadvantage.
I’ve written a thing about our recent trip around Namibia. Not really a travel log, more of an essay about landscape and time. tomscott.name/2026/08/13/t...
The shape of time
Southern Namibia felt ancient and monumental, shaped by forces acting over spans of time that are difficult to comprehend. Further north, the abundance of Etosha surprised me by making the landscape f...
tomscott.name
I've written a thing about diabetes, service design and why the highest achievement of a complex system is not sophistication, but invisibility. tomscott.name/2026/07/14/t...
The body had no user interface
Type 1 diabetes is not only the loss of insulin production, but the loss of an invisible bodily system that once kept me alive without asking for my attention.
tomscott.name
GDS really need to take control of the domains used by different government (procured) services... e.g. electoral canvass is at registersecurely.com, medical NHS messaging is provided by multiple providers (all of which sound like they are toys). It's a data breach waiting to happen.
Everytime The Archers comes on the wireless, I'm reminded of Billy Connolly’s suggestion nay belief that the theme tune would make for a much better national anthem.
If Burnham allowed local authorities to raise eg income tax, then made them responsible for funding policing or schools or whatever in their area and redistributed the central govt money from policing/education/whatever to something else would that fit with the Labour Manifesto?
I've written a new thing about platforms, AI, and why we keep trying to fix the feed instead of asking what should exist beyond it. tomscott.name/2026/06/23/the-commons-after-the-feed
The commons after the feed
The open web was messy like a street. Platforms replaced it with something more like a mall: lively, useful, crowded, but privately governed. AI has made that enclosure visible. Now we're trying to ma...
tomscott.name
They should plant reeds (Phragmites australis) in the Reflecting Pool. Obviously I’m assuming eutrophication is the problem…
If scientific publishing is your thing you might be interested in this thing I’ve written. tomscott.name/2026/06/14/t...
The scholarly record does not need a chain
The article can no longer carry the whole record of science. Rather than replacing databases with blockchains, we need a connected, correctable scholarly record: research objects held where they are b...
tomscott.name
I've written another thing; this one was inspired by a discussion on @trientertainment.bsky.social 'The Vibe Shift', about culture, tech and the new. It might not last, but I'm enjoying blogging again. tomscott.name/2026/06/7/th...
The migration of the new: from the avant-garde to the algorithm - TOMSCOTT.name
A community wants to find its people. A movement wants to change the world. What happens when platforms satisfy the need to belong before it becomes the pressure to make something new? The new has not...
tomscott.name
A movement turns not-belonging into a new world. A platform turns not-belonging into a recommendation.
I've written a thing about why I think an education in history is particularly useful in the land of LLMs. tomscott.name/2026/06/4/th...
The answer arrives without its archive - tomscott.name
One of the strange things about large language models is that the answer arrives already composed. It has shape. It has tone. It has paragraphs. It
tomscott.name
As a T1D, my phone controls my insulin pump and monitors my blood glucose. Sometimes I need to use my phone in this sort of situation, I wish I didn’t need to. I worry about this sort of story.
The Guardian@theguardian.com · 4mo agoRosamund Pike criticises audience member for texting during West End play
If scholarly publishing and open access are your thing, you might be interested in this. It's been a lot of work, by a lot of people. Really proud of what they've achieved.
PLOS@plos.org · 4mo agoToday PLOS publishes Redefining Publishing: Practical pathways to open science, the public report from our 18-month research and design project. The report asks how publishing can better support open science. Explore the report: plos.io/4o3bsun #OpenScience
Inspired by some of the ideas in @naomialderman.bsky.social's book "don't burn anyone at the stake today" I've written a thing: tomscott.name/what-societi...
What societies expect to remember - tomscott.name
Reading Naomi Alderman’s Don’t Burn Anyone at the Stake Today (which is excellent, by the way) got me thinking about how each major communication
tomscott.name
@naomialderman.bsky.social - really enjoyed 'don't burn anyone at the stake today' :)
Saw the balletic ‘Our Town’ last night. What a lovely production, full of heart. @mchshe.bsky.social is as you would imagine brilliant, he anchors the production but does so in a way that creates the space for others.
If you’ve worked on how science is communicated and helped design modern digital services at scale, this might be for you. I’m hiring a Director of Product Management at PLOS to set product strategy, grow our PM practice, and lead a great team. job-boards.eu.greenhouse.io/plos/jobs/47...
Director, Product Management
UK-Remote
job-boards.eu.greenhouse.io