Essay archive
Essays
Field notes, operating-model questions, and practical AI strategy for making AI useful inside real organizations.
2026
What the tutorials don't show you — including the part where the AI confidently led me in circles, and why that's actually the most important lesson.
Subtitle: What the tutorials don't show you — including the part where the AI confidently led me in circles, and why that's actually the most important lesson.
The build-in-public post I wish existed — including the ratio nobody talks about, and what it means differently depending on your role.
Subtitle: The build-in-public post I wish existed — including the ratio nobody talks about, and what it means differently depending on your role.
For leaders who believe their organizations are ready for AI — and haven't asked what they're actually ready for.
Here's something nobody in the AI conversation wants to say out loud.
Everyone is learning how to prompt.
For leaders who think AI is making their teams smarter — and haven't noticed what it might also be making them.
Let me say something uncomfortable.
Your company ran a successful AI pilot. Leadership loved the demo. The team celebrated. Six months later, it's still a pilot.
A practical guide for leaders who think they're doing AI transformation — but haven't made the leap yet.
Let me be direct: most organizations that say they have an "AI strategy" don't.
A practical checklist for leaders who need AI work to be defensible, auditable, and compliance-ready.
Let me be direct: the #1 reason enterprise AI initiatives stall isn't the technology. It's trust.
You wouldn't give a colleague a one-line instruction for a complex deliverable. AI deserves the same discipline.
You wouldn't walk up to a colleague and say: "Write something about business capabilities." Yet that's exactly how most people prompt AI. They type vague…
AI won't replace you. But someone using AI effectively will. Here's how to stay on the right side of that gap.
The fear is real: "If AI can do my work, why do they need me?" I hear this from experienced consultants, business architects, and analysts who've spent decades…
AI doesn't clarify ambiguity — it multiplies it. How to define problems clearly enough that AI can actually help.
An AI transformation project stalled after six months of intensive work.
The organizations achieving real ROI on AI share one discipline: they never start with the technology.
It's never a great idea to adopt AI for its own sake, but the AI-fueled organizations have clear business objectives for their AI technology initiatives.
The quality of your AI-assisted work doesn't matter if stakeholders don't trust how you produced it. Five language patterns that change that.
I've seen this mistake kill deals more than once. A consultant delivers a brilliant analysis—sharp insights, solid recommendations, 40 pages of documentation…
When AI makes a consequential decision and no one is accountable, the entire organization pays the price.
Here's a scenario that should terrify every executive: Your AI-powered procurement system just rejected a \$2M vendor contract. The vendor threatens legal…