My second book Love at First Launch: A Visionary’s Guide to Bringing Extraordinary Tech to Life is out now in hardcover and e-reader formats. Available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble online, Bookshop.org, and many other retailers. It’s an exciting moment and I’m thankful for everyone who had a hand in the production of this book.

Let’s look at some common business goals:

• “To get our employees to fill out their timecards correctly.”

• “To get things out the door on budget.”

• “To sell more of the stuff we have good margins on.”

• “To get customers to stick to their action plan instead of abandoning efforts partway through.”

There’s something specific all of these goals have in common: they are all behaviors that can be influenced by giving the user feedback. 

There’s perhaps no more introspective soul at a conference right now than the AI holdout. At every panel, there are earnest people who approach me after, glancing down at their shoes when they confess that they’re not sure about AI, and haven’t adopted yet. What follows varies in wording but the fundamental core is this: Am I alone to not be fully on board with this? If I open myself up to the idea, am I too late?

It’s a slightly perverse fact of being a visionary that the more serious you are about succeeding, the more you will have to share creative power.

I say slightly perverse, because taking control of the vision likely got you through the first part of the process. Having a single-minded goal, ignoring inevitable naysayers and nurturing a deep and slightly unhinged passion for solving your problem are often the first steps toward building something meaningful. And about when you’re getting comfortable with your own value as a visionary, you have to start to peel a bit of that off and give it to others.

When I was first introduced to the software world 28 years ago, ‘quality’ largely meant moving, storing and displaying data accurately. There was almost no weight placed on the look and feel of the application, the user experience, or the performance. If it got the bits and bytes where they were going, it was judged to be good. 

We celebrate stories of strong visionaries like James Dyson who had a single-minded commitment to a vision that seemingly only they could see. We’re familiar with this story and the glory that follows. But just as many would-be revolutionaries drive their companies into the ground remaining committed to their own vision in the face of evidence that a pivot is needed.

Amid all of the mudslinging between the Department of Defense and Anthropic this week, you may be asking yourself, “Where is this heading?” The high-pitched headlines make it sound like this is (yet another) AI inflection point, and yet for most consumers and businesses, there’s a lot more smoke than fire, at least in the near term.

Having well-crafted brand standards helps get you closer to the ballpark of something that works, but there are still all sorts of pitfalls. I’ll list a few common ones here but there are probably dozens of ways this can go wrong. If you’re struggling, feel free to get in touch with us for help.

Nothing generates passionate opinions quite like color. Over the years, I’ve heard more emotionally charged feedback on color than probably any other single aspect. 

I’m going to cover four experience-based generalizations this week (meaning these are things I feel in my bones vs. have been surprised by data on) and then we’ll see how those compare to the data-driven conclusions after we finish a report we’re working on aggregating data across hundreds of launches.

The hype is starting to cool a bit on AI, and that allows the business world to see a bit more clearly, and recognize that yes, this was another hype cycle and yes, this too shall normalize. But we’ve seen this before.

Despite AI technology that largely works as promised, a striking 95% of generative AI pilots fail to deliver measurable business value according to MIT research. The culprit isn't the tech itself, but rather a classic set of pitfalls that plague enterprise technology initiatives of all kinds.

Two of the biggest tech headlines this week were somewhat unexpected collabs: Apple and Gemini teaming up on a new Siri, and Eli Lilly and NVIDIA co-creating AI drug discovery lab. I’ll argue the through line here is that companies are recognizing the importance of data to advancement.

I have noticed a compelling pattern: years of heavy investment in internal systems are reliably followed by standout years of success. Though the process can feel like an exhausting march through the mud, the payoff is always worth the wait.

Ahh, December. The time when we wrap up projects from the current year, sigh a little, and start making plans for a fresh, shiny new year. It’s also a time to take stock of what’s ahead and any patterns we don’t want to carry with us into 2026.

After two years of squeezing development time between client projects, the author's company is finally on the verge of launching a pilot for Rover, an AI-enabled reporting product. Rover sets itself apart by operating at the application layer rather than the database layer, offering organizations a faster, easier, and more secure reporting solution packed with customizable features.

Over the last few days, the Q3 NVIDIA earnings reportspurred some dramatic gyrations in the stock market.

First, let’s put the earnings in perspective. Yes, chip sales are very strong. NVIDIA beat estimates of EPS by $0.04 per share, $1.30 vs. $1.26 forecast, about 3% better than expected. That’s a big achievement, but it’s not quite the drastic spike some news headlines at the time implied. 

Chatbots flopped for many companies. Discover 3 AI applications with proven ROI that carry both internal and external applications in highly regulated industries.

Discover why visionaries and operators clash in tech projects and how the right balance of vision and process prevents failure and drives innovation.

AI and personalization can create trust through the "I see you" moment. Learn how to avoid chatbot pitfalls and build user connections that last.