Connected: Episode 3 — Working Differently

In the third episode of Connected, Ben Hollebon takes a deliberate swerve from the promised tools-and-approaches episode to talk about something more fundamental: how the Digital Transformation Programme is being run.

Four operating principles shape every decision the programme makes. The programme listens first, and keeps listening. It works in the open. It uses the tools that are available, including AI, in ways it can be honest about. And it's building everything to last beyond any one of us.

Ben names two pastoral concerns about AI authenticity that District Chairs raised independently this week, sets out the wider Church conversation on AI ethics across the AI Working Group, and Conference, and shares the question one colleague put to him in five plain words that now shapes how the programme designs everything it builds: "we ship it, and… then what?"

If you've got a perspective to share, say it on the Have Your Say form. The next episode will return to the tools — properly — including the early thinking on a Methodist mobile app and the question of whether the right answer is one app or a small family of them.