I am almost always thinking about something. Usually several somethings, and they have a tendency to multiply.
Some are directly related to my work. Others start with a question I encounter while doing something completely different and then refuse to leave me alone. A few eventually become projects. Some turn into articles. Others spend months bouncing around in my head while I collect information, test ideas and try to figure out what I actually think about them.
This is where I keep track of some of those threads.
Writing
I tend to write when I realize I’ve been having the same conversation repeatedly, when I need enough space to explain why the simple answer to something isn’t actually very simple, or when an idea has been rattling around in my head long enough that writing becomes the easiest way to figure out what I think about it.
The subjects vary considerably. I write about work, technology, communication, neurodivergence, relationships, systems, community, animal rescue, and the strange places where those things overlap. Some pieces are practical. Some are personal. Some begin because I encountered an idea I couldn’t stop poking at.
From LinkedIn
My professional writing tends to live on LinkedIn, although “professional” covers a fairly wide territory for me.
I’m interested in digital marketing, technology and AI, but I’m often more interested in the systems underneath them: how we organize information, how technology changes the way we work, what happens when a process designed for efficiency makes the humans using it less effective, and why so many workplace problems that look like people problems are actually communication or systems problems.
My LinkedIn newsletters give me room to explore those questions when they need more nuance than I can fit into a normal post.
Read my LinkedIn newsletters →
Ideas in Progress
This is probably the most accurate representation of how my brain actually works.
These are the questions I’m researching, projects I’m developing, experiments I’m trying and ideas that have moved beyond “huh, that’s interesting” but haven’t necessarily reached “I know what this is yet.”
Some will eventually become articles. Others may become tools, resources, systems or larger projects. Some will change considerably once I learn more, and some may quietly disappear when I discover the idea wasn't nearly as clever as it seemed at 11:30 at night.
That’s part of the process too.
The common thread
I’m interested in how things work, but I’m probably even more interested in why they don’t work the way we expect them to.
That question shows up everywhere for me. Why does a perfectly reasonable process fail when actual humans use it? Why does information that seems perfectly clear to the person communicating it become confusing on the other side? Why do we keep solving the visible symptom of a problem instead of looking at the system producing it? What happens when a new technology changes not only what we can do, but how we think about doing it?
Those questions can take me from AI to workplace culture to animal rescue to relationships with surprisingly few degrees of separation.
I don’t expect everything here to arrive with a conclusion. Sometimes the interesting part is still figuring out what the question actually is.
This is where I keep the questions.