Writing · A growing library

Ideas taking shape.

Essays about reporting, organizations, artificial intelligence, trust, and the human side of better decisions.

Building RaceTwin: Lessons in Forward-Deployed Engineering

Building RaceTwin taught me how product judgment, engineering tradeoffs, user feedback, and real-world constraints shape a useful running app.

2026-08-31

Replacing a Manual Process With an App Isn't Always an Improvement

Building an app to replace a manual process feels like progress. Here's why that instinct often skips the real question, and what to check first.

2026-08-22

How to Write Prompts Like a Pro

Practical lessons from the people who build AI systems: give models better context, clearer constraints, useful examples, and room to express uncertainty.

2026-07-28

Ontology for AI: Why Machines Need a Map of Meaning

Why AI systems need structured concepts, relationships, and rules to move beyond plausible language toward grounded, explainable answers.

2026-07-28

What Is a Data Product? Real Examples, Old and New

A practical explanation of data products, from actuarial tables and recommendation engines to internal knowledge assistants, inventory tools, and reporting systems.

2026-07-23

How to Design a Reporting System People Can Trust

Trustworthy reporting is not created by a dashboard alone. It comes from clear decisions, shared definitions, visible ownership, deliberate validation, and a reporting rhythm people can understand.

2026-07-20

How to Build an Organizational Knowledge Base for RAG

A reliable RAG assistant begins with organized, governed, and retrievable knowledge. The model is only one layer in a system that must manage sources, permissions, context, citations, feedback, and change.

2026-07-20

How to Turn an Internal Workflow into a Usable Data Product

An internal data product succeeds when it improves a real decision and fits the work around it. That requires understanding users, rules, handoffs, exceptions, ownership, and adoption, rather than simply building an interface.

2026-07-20

Why Dashboards Fail Before They’re Built

A dashboard cannot repair an unclear decision, an unstable definition, or a process no one owns. The real work begins before the first chart.

2026-07-19

Documentation Is Organizational Memory

Good documentation preserves the reasoning, definitions, and handoffs that allow work to continue when people, priorities, and systems change.

2026-07-19

Every Report Tells a Story

Reports shape attention through what they include, what they compare, and what they leave unexplained. Responsible reporting makes that story visible.

2026-07-19

Building a Data Product by Applying Systems Thinking

How to turn recurring requests into a trusted data product by mapping the system, removing memory bottlenecks, and starting with the smallest useful loop.

2026-06-23