We wrote something under this title a few years ago. It has since wandered off somewhere, as things on the internet quietly do, so we are writing it again. A little older, and we hope a little clearer about why we made the choice we did.
The thinking started with a book. Shoshana Zuboff's The Age of Surveillance Capitalism had not long been published, and it named something a lot of us had felt without quite putting words to it: that a great deal of modern technology isn't built to help you live your life. It's built to harvest it.
Around then we started sorting technology into two rough camps. Call them outward and inward.
Outward technology helps you act in the real world. It helps you communicate, build things, make meaningful change. A shared document, a well made tool, a system that simply does its job. You pick it up, you use it, you put it down, and your day is a little better for it. It serves you, then it gets out of the way.
Inward technology does the opposite. It reaches into your life and sets about changing what happens there. It is designed to hold your attention, shape how you feel, and keep you coming back. It doesn't want to be put down. Its success is measured by how much of you it can keep.
When we were honest about it, social media sat firmly in the second camp. Not because the people who build it are wicked, and not because nothing good ever happens there. But because the design points inward. It is a hook for your time. It draws on you. However thoughtful your intentions when you open the app, the app's intentions for you are rarely as kind.
We want to be fair about this. The line between the two camps is not clean. The same tool can be outward for one person and inward for another. A message to a friend is outward. An hour lost to a feed is inward. Most technology carries a little of both, and there is genuine tension in deciding where something belongs. But when we sat with the question honestly, we couldn't make social media come out on the right side of it. Not for us.
There is a second reason, and it may be the more important one.
Much of what we do is confidential. We are often invited into organisations at difficult moments, when things are uncertain, when people are worried, and when the truth of how a place really works is finally being said aloud. That is a privilege, and we treat it as one. The trust that makes our work possible is the same trust that would be quietly worn away if we turned every engagement into content. So we would rather be respectful than visible. There is plenty we can say about how we work, and we say it gladly. The names, the specifics, the vulnerable moments, those stay where they belong.
None of this means we are against technology. Quite the opposite. We have built our whole practice around technology that points outward: systems that give people back their time, take away friction, and then disappear into the background so the human work can happen. That is the kind of technology we believe in. The kind that serves, and then steps back. It is a small idea with a simple test. Does this help a person do their best work, or does it just want more of them?
So this is us as we would most like you to meet us. Considered, warm, and human. Being our best selves has never meant being reserved. It has meant showing up as people, with judgement and care and the odd strong opinion, rather than as a brand performing for an algorithm.
If you want more of us, and a fair bit louder, there is yopla.studio. Same people, same convictions, with the volume turned up. Here at yopla.app, we share the consultancy and platform behind the work. You can explore the whole Yopla family at yopla.co.uk.
We won't be turning up in your feed. We would rather earn a small place in your working life instead.