A place to notice before moving.
Idle Hour
I build AI. I also know when not to use it.
An introduction
Strategy, systems, and human judgment—with a stubborn soft spot for the analog world.
Good systems begin with an honest read of the humans inside them.
The thread
A career that makes more sense when you stop trying to make it linear.
Communications
Making the complicated clear, useful, and worth caring about.
Digital systems
Connecting the story to the structure underneath it.
AI + automation
Building with the tools while keeping humans in the room.
Peak Ventures + Idle Hour
One foot in the future. One firmly planted in real life.
For the record
Some evidence of a whole person.
Not credentials. Coordinates.
Technology should make work more human, not less.
A working conviction
A partial list
- Film camera + paper journal
- Black belt in tae kwon do
- Deeply interested in every dog
- Usually thinking near water
A useful promise
I’ll tell you when you don’t need me. It happens more than you’d think.
Send the messy version ↗
A place I keep
Carrabassett Valley
A mountain place for slower mornings, longer trails, and the occasional useful disappearance.
Stay link to comeThe pause before the pace.
Moving can look like strategy—even when the real question is still unclear.
A live question
What deserves to stay human?
The working method
Notice. Name. Then move.
Most teams are not short on ideas or tools. They are short on protected space to decide what matters.
Read the room.
Listen for the tension underneath the stated problem.
Make it legible.
Give the messy thing language people can gather around.
Protect judgment.
Tools can accelerate a choice. They cannot decide what is worth choosing.
Build the next useful thing.
Enough structure to act; enough openness to learn.
One more thought
Efficiency is a measure. It is not a mission.
Useful at the intersection of people, story, and systems.
HUMAN, STILL. ANALOG, OFTEN. HUMAN, STILL. ANALOG, OFTEN.
People are not workflows.
Efficiency is not the only measure.
Memory lives outside the cloud.
Think of me when
The problem is real, but the brief is not.
Everyone is moving. Nobody agrees where.
The tool is impressive. The experience is not.
The story and the system stopped speaking.
You need outside perspective without outside theater.
Flexible shapes
A few ways in.
One conversation
A sharp outside read, a working session, or help finding the question beneath the question.
A focused piece of work
Strategy, narrative, research, systems thinking, or a prototype that makes the next move visible.
A longer collaboration
An embedded thought partner for work that crosses teams, tools, and disciplines.
The company I keep
Keeping
good company.
I want to make useful things with people who are trying to leave something better than they found it.
That may mean climate, health, justice, community, or business for good. It may also mean artists, storytellers, creative instigators, and people building exchanges of energy bigger than themselves.
Right now
My availability is selective. My curiosity is not.
Words, photographs, things noticed.
External collection
On SubstackPhotographs
View the full photography portfolio. ↗
Words
Essays, working ideas, and occasional dispatches. ↗
A mixed shelf
Latest, loosely defined.
Photograph / around town ↗
The future needs editors.
A placeholder for a current idea, ready to be replaced when the content pass begins.
What if the most useful automation is the one that gives an hour back?
Photograph / side doorsBring the messy version.
The question does not need to be tidy before we talk.