Conversations on enterprise service management and digital transformation.
Hosted by Barclay Rae and Ian Aitchison, the podcast explores the practical realities of modern IT and service leadership, covering technology, service management, people, governance, automation, and business change.
Episodes usually include a short trivia segment and feature the podcast mascots, a cockroach and a mouse.
Regular guests join the discussion and try to get a word in.
Ep 136: How AI is changing what software engineering means, with Brian Parks
Barclay and Ian are joined by Brian Parks of Synapse Software, who spent twenty years as a software engineer, three of them at Cherwell, and now runs a business archiving ITSM data for organisations coming off platforms that no longer exist.
Brian still calls himself a software engineer while admitting he barely writes code, which opens up a longer conversation about what the job has become. His team leans on AI for the boilerplate, the database layer, the API endpoints, the first version of a UI. Vibe coding, in his view, is something else entirely and shouldn't be confused with engineering. What he's found is that the time freed up goes into requirements, testing and validation, all the things he says he should have been doing more of anyway.
On AI initiatives, his warning is about data. Foundation models handle general questions well, but organisations asking AI to work with their own knowledge base need that knowledge base to be good. He also makes a case for retiring the word generative in favour of synthesising, on the basis that nothing is being invented from nothing.
Barclay raises the environmental cost, and Brian, who lives in a farming community, has strong views on data centres being built on farmland. It goes into sustainability, whether the green movement has reached AI at all, and the fact that nobody can properly account for the cost of training a model. Ian brings in Ford rehiring hundreds of senior engineers after replacing them with AI and recalling vehicles as a result.
Trivia this week involves Doom running on a display made of E. coli cells, at roughly 599 years per playthrough. Barclay's camera also gave up, so he spends the episode as a voice.
Watch the full conversation below.
15 Jul 2026
ITSM tool churn and why organisations keep replacing them, with Stephen Mann
In this mini episode, Barclay Rae talks to Stephen Mann of ITSM.tools about one of the industry's most persistent habits: replacing the ITSM tool every three to five years and hoping this one will be different.They discuss why the tool usually gets the blame when the real issues are organisational, what needs to be in place before any selection decision is made, and why treating ITSM tools as business applications rather than technical ones changes who should be involved. They also get into the current wave of AI-first marketing and why capability without the people side rarely delivers.
18 Jun 2026
Episode 135: Alistair Reid-Pearson on Better Stories in Tech, Neurodiversity and Mental Health
Barclay and Ian are joined by Alistair Reid-Pearson, Chief Digital Information Officer at Greater Manchester Mental Health and author of Bit Bob: Artificial Earth.
The conversation focuses on storytelling in a business context, and the missing "so what" behind the dashboards, charts and ticket volumes that dominate ITSM reporting. Alistair makes the case that data needs a story alongside it to mean anything, particularly in environments where the work has real human consequences.
They also get into neurodiversity and how Alistair's autism shapes the way he communicates and writes, why the IT industry needs to move on from the superhero complex of dramatic fixes toward quieter preventative work, and what shift left looks like inside the NHS ten year plan and mental health services.
Plus a 46,000 year old worm, a proton beam therapy centre built in Minecraft, and postcards from the future. Because why not.
Who has been a guest on Enterprise Digital - the podcast
Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.
Vicky Hunter
Faith Thomas
Dr Ewelina Kurtys
Barclay K
Sophie Hussy
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
YouTube views
1,159
Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025
Spotify
5.0 / 5
3 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 51 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
48
Social presence
0
YouTube
68
Engagement
68
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Guest appearances
Does not typically book guests
Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
Questions about Enterprise Digital - the podcast
Who hosts Enterprise Digital - the podcast?
Barclay and Ian and Barclay Rae and Ian Aitchison host the show. Published by Barclay Rae and Ian Aitchison.
How often do new episodes come out?
The show publishes monthly, based on its RSS feed.
Does Enterprise Digital - the podcast take guests?
The show does not typically feature guests, based on episode analyses.
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