The Optimist's Operating System -- Press Kit

Everything you need. Nothing you don't.

Key facts, story angles, copyable quotes, data snapshot, press release draft, social copy and direct contact. Updated May 2026.

57 Live assets
10 Named beliefs
200+ Diagnostic responses
15 Companies audited
8 Categories

The story

1

The diagnosis

Britain does not have a skills problem. It has a belief problem.

Strategist Mike Litman spent years watching brilliant teams stall. Not because they lacked talent, funding or ideas -- but because they could not agree on what to believe about the future. The working assumption of most leadership teams was, implicitly, that better was not really possible. The OOS was built to name that problem and give teams something to argue with.

2

The framework

Ten beliefs, each one a working orientation -- not an aspiration.

The OOS is ten named beliefs about building in uncertain times. Not values pinned to a wall. Beliefs you can use in a meeting tomorrow. Each one has an essay, a diagnostic question, a salary case, a belief brief, and a set of AI applications. The framework became the infrastructure for a body of work now spanning 57 assets.

3

The scale

One person. 57 public assets. All built with AI. All live.

The OOS is not a consultancy document or a slide deck. It is a functioning product ecosystem: an interactive diagnostic, a Chrome extension that spots beliefs in any text, a daily automated news pipeline, a weekly belief index, an unsolicited audit of 15 UK companies, a UK regional belief map, a press kit. All of it built by one person. All of it live at mikelitman.me.

4

The moment

AI made this the right framework for right now.

Every organisation is navigating AI adoption. The ones getting it wrong are not failing on capability -- they have access to the same models. They are failing on belief. They do not believe iteration is the method. They do not believe the future is still to be written. The OOS addresses this directly. The /oos-ai page maps all ten beliefs to specific AI failure modes.

Story angles

Business / Strategy

The strategist who built a 57-asset framework instead of waiting for a job

Mike Litman has worked with Nike, Google, Unilever and McLaren. He is also not currently employed. Rather than job hunting conventionally, he built a public framework with 57 live assets, an automated daily pipeline, and a Chrome extension. It is either the most elaborate portfolio in British strategy -- or proof that the OOS is real.

Technology / AI

An AI reads the news every morning and scores it against 10 beliefs

Every day at 7am UTC, a script fetches BBC Business, the Guardian, City A.M. and Sifted, passes the top stories to Claude Haiku, and publishes a scored page at mikelitman.me/beliefs-vs-news. Each story is tagged against one of the ten OOS beliefs and marked as VALIDATES or CHALLENGES. Every Sunday, the data feeds a belief index at mikelitman.me/belief-index.

Business Data / Investigative

M&S scores 72. BP scores 44. A new index ranks UK companies by how optimistic their news coverage sounds

The OOS Anti-Audit scores 15 major UK companies against all ten beliefs based on their recent news coverage. Nobody asked them. Marks and Spencer leads at 72. BP trails at 44. The methodology is transparent, the data is public, and the companies will find it when they Google themselves.

Human Interest / Opinion

Why one strategist thinks British business has a belief problem, not a talent problem

The standard diagnosis is that Britain needs more engineers, more capital, more ambition. Mike Litman argues the actual bottleneck is belief -- the undeclared assumption in most leadership teams that better is not really possible. The OOS is his response to that diagnosis. He is available to make the case on any platform.

Education / Workplace

Should "optimism" appear in your job description? There is now a salary case for it

The OOS Salary Pack makes the business case for treating optimism as a professional competency with a measurable premium. It is designed to be printed, handed to a line manager, and used in a pay review. It has been downloaded and shared by strategists at senior levels in major organisations.

Copyable quotes

"Optimism is not a mood. It is a technology. And like any technology, it can be learned, practised and deployed."

Mike Litman -- The Optimist's Operating System

"Britain's problem is not capability. It is belief. The OOS is the operating system for people who have already decided to build."

Mike Litman -- The OOS Manifesto

"The most dangerous thing in a leadership team is not pessimism. It is undeclared pessimism dressed up as realism."

Mike Litman -- The OOS Framework

"AI adoption is a belief problem before it is a capability problem. The teams getting it wrong have access to the same models. They just don't believe iteration is the method."

Mike Litman -- OOS x AI

Data snapshot -- OOS Anti-Audit

15 major UK companies scored against all 10 OOS beliefs using recent news coverage. Scored automatically. Nobody asked. Full data at mikelitman.me/anti-audit

Company Score / 100
Marks & Spencer 72 Leads
Diageo 70
Unilever 68
Next 65
Sainsbury's 62
HSBC 58
Vodafone 55
Shell 50
BP 44 Trails

Draft press release

Ready to use. Edit the bracketed fields. One-click copy below.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

London-based strategist builds 57-asset public framework arguing British business has a belief problem, not a talent problem

LONDON -- A London-based strategist has published a 57-asset public framework -- the Optimist's Operating System (OOS) -- arguing that British business is failing not because of a skills gap or a funding gap, but because of a belief gap: the undeclared assumption in most leadership teams that better is not really possible.

The OOS, created by Mike Litman, is a framework of ten named beliefs about building in uncertain times. Unlike conventional strategy frameworks, it is entirely public, entirely free to access, and backed by a functioning product ecosystem: a daily automated news pipeline, a weekly belief index, an interactive diagnostic used by 200+ respondents, and an unsolicited audit of 15 major UK companies including Marks and Spencer, BP, HSBC and Unilever.

The Anti-Audit -- one of the 57 assets -- scores companies against all ten OOS beliefs using their recent news coverage. Marks and Spencer leads at 72 out of 100. BP trails at 44. Nobody was asked. All data is public.

Litman said: "Britain's problem is not capability. It is belief. The OOS is the operating system for people who have already decided to build -- the working orientations that turn good intentions into shipped work."

The framework is available at mikelitman.me/oos-hub. Media enquiries: hello@mikelitman.me

-- ENDS --

Notes to editors: Mike Litman is a strategist, builder and published author based in London (BCS, 2024). He has worked with Nike, Google, Unilever, Meta and McLaren. The OOS is at mikelitman.me/oos-hub. The Anti-Audit is at mikelitman.me/anti-audit.

Ready-to-use social copy

Published content

▶
The OOS Manifesto
500 words -- the whole argument in one piece of writing
 ▶
The Ten Beliefs
The framework reference -- shareable
 ▶
Beliefs Versus the News
Live daily pipeline -- today's UK business news scored against OOS beliefs
 ▶
The OOS Anti-Audit
15 UK companies scored -- M&S leads, BP trails
 ▶
OOS x AI
How the 10 beliefs apply to AI adoption -- one application per belief
 ▶
The Full Hub
All 57 assets across 8 categories

For media -- exclusive offer

We can provide custom data cuts from the OOS Diagnostic and Anti-Audit for your story -- including belief score breakdowns by sector, region and company size. We can also offer exclusive interview with Mike Litman, embargo-friendly data previews ahead of publication, and custom Anti-Audit scores for companies not yet in the dataset.

Contact: hello@mikelitman.me

About Mike Litman

Background

Strategist, builder and published author based in London. Career spans digital strategy, brand and product at agencies including R/GA, MediaMonks and AnalogFolk. Clients have included Nike, Adidas, Google, Meta, Gucci, BMW, EA, Netflix, Sony, TikTok, McLaren and Unilever.

Credentials

BIMA 100 Tech Pioneer. Published author, BCS (British Computer Society), 2024. Creator of the Optimist's Operating System. Founder of Cultural Capital Labs. 20+ live AI-native projects shipped.

Media contact

All media enquiries, interview requests and data requests:

hello@mikelitman.me

Response within one business day. Embargo respected. Happy to provide high-resolution assets, additional data cuts, and background briefings.

mikelitman.me LinkedIn Full OOS Hub Anti-Audit data