Essays
On AI and human judgment.
I retired my horse a year early. When’s the last time you retired a program that still works?
Twenty-five sound years, one lameness, and a decision that came a year early. What that has to do with the marketing programs nobody ever decides to stop.
Of course your AI agrees with you. That doesn’t make it true.
Two people took the same disagreement to their own AI assistants. Both came back right. What that means for AI training, governance, and human judgment.
Ageism and AI
Baby Boomers didn’t watch the digital world happen. They built it. Why seasoned professionals belong at the center of the AI conversation.
Why AI can’t replace human connection — especially in branding
Brands are built in the spaces between people. AI knows the mechanics. Timing and feel are purely human.
Wait, you mean AI can’t do it all?
The best outputs don’t come from better prompts. They come from better people.
Stand out or fall behind
Talent used to set an agency apart. It doesn’t anymore — and if AI isn’t part of your story, prospects assume you’re behind or afraid.
If your team dreads you showing up, you’ve already left the room
Crisis-only leadership corrodes trust faster than silence — because the little contact you do have is tied to stress rather than support.
Archive
Written in the moment.
Five pieces, each responding to something in the news that week.
Your AI governance policy is a PDF nobody has opened
In a survey of large companies, 98% have an AI governance policy. 47% have skipped it for an urgent deployment. Governance isn’t the document. It’s the stop.
The caveat that didn’t travel
A newsletter trimmed a quote down to eighteen words and the caveat didn’t survive. What caught it was AI. What caught the AI was me.
When the reflection feels real
A viral story about ChatGPT’s “eerily effective” responses missed the real headline: a human made it that way.
No shutoff? No excuse.
Delegation is not abdication. Power without oversight isn’t innovation — it’s negligence.
When the algorithm echoes the architect
When a model starts consulting its founder’s feed to form opinions, you haven’t built a neural network. You’ve built a neural monoculture.