Hi, I’m Barnaby
I write here to sharpen my thinking; publishing forces clarity. It also gives me a space for a more personal voice than the macro, sector and strategy research I author for KPMG.
It’s also a visual archive. I am obsessed with composition, colour and light – whether that’s street, landscape or portraits in my Galleries, or translating abstract business concepts into graphics. The site hosts the visualised mental models I rely on in my work – and in most decisions I make.
There’s a long-running log of the coffees I brew, articles on design, and notes from the books and podcasts that have shaped me.
It’s unapologetically an eclectic mix. The older I become, the more I feel it’s a mistake for people to become too centered on one discipline.
Thanks for visiting my corner of the web.
Bali, 2024
Visualised Mental Models
Charlie Munger often said that with 80 to 90 mental models you could navigate the world far more effectively. I’m a visual learner and thinker, so to really absorb them I started drawing the models he used — along with others I’ve picked up through work and life.
The Coffee Log
I’ve been keeping a running log of every Indonesian coffee I brew — now more than 70 single origins from 20 roasters across the Archipelago. Each page records the basics (origin, process, roast) but also the stories: how it tasted to me, what the roaster says, and where it came from (with maps!). It’s a growing directory of Indonesia’s coffee, one cup at a time.
Notes From
Notes from the books and podcasts that shaped my thinking. I write these for the same reason I publish essays — to understand ideas properly, and to have them at hand when I need them.
Browse the essays
All That Glisters: The Gold the MPF Won’t Let You Hold
Data visuals on 10 years of HK’s MPF with narration from the great Bard.
Making it up, changing my mind, and learning to COPE with AI
AI’s effect on your job is still anyone’s guess. The practical response is getting good at directing it, and COPE gives you a framework for doing exactly that.
We are all going to have to become engineers
What tinkering with agents at home taught me about deploying them at work
America – A Wider England
An eyewateringly large dinner, a business class seat that doesn’t recline, and a NASA engineer who changed history with a nine-page memo. First impressions of America at forty-five.
Strategies and Tools for Coping in the Agentic Age
The bottleneck used to be information overload. Now AI handles the mechanical work — and the real challenge is knowing what to pay attention to.
China – Singapore at Scale
Perfect highways, better consumer products than the West, and a surveillance state that makes it all feel slightly too clean. Notes on a country that builds while others deliberate.
photography
Galleries
Presentations
Selected talks and data decks — interactive on desktop, each with a PDF for reading on the phone.
Visualised Mental Models
Pareto Principle
20% of effort drives 80% of results
Find the vital few inputs and focus there first.
Circle of Competence
Operate where you understand cause and effect
Stay inside the circle, expand it deliberately, and partner outside it.
Eisenhower Matrix
Importance beats urgency
Sort every task into one of four moves: do it now, schedule it, delegate it, or eliminate it.
The Coffee Log
I keep a log of every Indonesian coffee I brew — single origins traced back to the farms and highlands they grow on, right across the archipelago. Each entry records the basics — origin, process, roast — alongside how it tasted, what the roaster says, and exactly where it came from. A growing directory of the archipelago’s coffee, one cup at a time.
From across the archipelago
Gayo Highlands
Highland gardens around Lake Laut Tawar, wet-hulled in the Sumatran way.
I get flavours of malt, barley and orange from this region.
Kerinci
Smallholder plots beneath Sumatra’s tallest volcano, in cinnamon country.
I get flavours of chocolate-orange and malt sugar from this region.
Bandung Highlands
The Parahyangan ridges where the Dutch first put coffee in Javan soil.
I get flavours of chocolate, orange, apple and tobacco from this region.
Ijen Plateau
Smallholder rows on the ash-fed Ijen plateau.
I get flavours of raisin and brown sugar from this region.
Kintamani
Grown in black volcanic sand on Batur’s caldera, between rows of orange trees.
I get flavours of dark spices, bitter chocolate and molasses from this region.
Batudulang
A forest village above Sumbawa Besar, the coffee shaded under tall candlenut trees.
I get flavours of chocolate and nuts from its one entry so far.
Bajawa & Manggarai
Ngada villages under Mount Inerie, coffee drying on bamboo mats between thatched roofs.
I get flavours of chocolate, black tea and brown sugar from this region.
Toraja
High limestone ridges where tongkonan roofs rise above the gardens.
I get flavours of earth, dates and orange from this region.
