Essays
Communications
Essays, tips, and strategies on effective communication in our age. Learn how to foster meaningful connections and enhance your interactions.
Beyond the Mirror: Principles for Work in the Age of AI
A manifesto for work in the age of AI: shared purpose, a living commons, coordinated autonomy, and shared gains that give people a meaningful part to play.
The Backlog Doesn't Blink
A hip-hop musical-theater song lyric about IT delivery, backlog pressure, enterprise risk, compliance, security, legacy systems, QA, citizen builders, and governance.
Shadow App Serenade
A hip-hop musical-theater song lyric about shadow apps, citizen builders, hidden automation, business-critical workarounds, governance, support, and enterprise IT.
Prompt Me a Palace
A hip-hop musical-theater song lyric about AI builders, prompt-driven workflows, agentic automation, prototype speed, system overload, governance, and enterprise architecture.
Build It. Ship It.
A hip-hop musical-theater song lyric about citizen builders, AI builders, enterprise IT, security, data governance, operations, architecture, and the tension between speed and coherence.
Ticket in the Queue
A hip-hop musical-theater song lyric about backlog pressure, citizen development, shadow IT, governance, and turning a workaround into a resilient shared system.
Two A.M. in the Understructure
A song lyric in character voices about enterprise operations, night-shift engineering, shadow IT, citizen development, observability, and the invisible labor that keeps systems alive.
More IT in IT
A song lyric about AI, citizen development, low-code platforms, and the need for more technology craft, architecture, security, governance, and accountability inside modern IT.
Agents Don’t Click
A thesis about how agentic workflows change software: systems of record and governed APIs become the durable value, while many UI-heavy workflows become synthetic, generated approval and audit surfaces.
The Pancake Protocol: an Agentic Kitchen
Using a pancake-making kitchen as a metaphor, this essay breaks down the emerging standards behind agentic AI systems. It explains the Model Context Protocol (MCP) as the wiring that connects hosts to tools, resources...
How to Communicate in a World of AI
AI speeds up producing documents, but it doesn’t preserve the intent behind them. This post argues that specifications—clear goals, constraints, and success criteria—are the shared language that aligns people and AI. ...
Communications [Ted's Writing Style]
Professional communications [ted's writing style] prompt designed for high-quality content generation and structured analysis.
The Lighthouse and the New Lens
A parable of a lighthouse keeper adopting a new lens illustrates why reskilling matters. The article connects this to current workforce shifts and offers a practical AI-powered prompt for consistent, fair RFP evaluati...
Prompting ChatGPT-5 Specifically
GPT‑5 acts as a router model that can think, browse, code, write, and orchestrate tools. This guide distills six moves that reliably raise output quality: set the reasoning and verbosity dials, explicitly name tools a...
Tell Me if Anything was Ever Done
Explore how Leonardo da Vinci’s unfinished works and perfectionism offer timeless lessons for creators. Learn why shipping your ideas, even when imperfect, can inspire the world and leave a lasting legacy.
Bespreekbaarheid: The Missing Ingredient in IT Organizations
Explore the concept of Bespreekbaarheid, a Dutch term that encourages open dialogue and transparency, and discover why it's crucial for success in IT organizations. Learn how it fosters innovation, enhances problem-so...
The Tasmanian Paradox: A Lesson in Collaboration and Innovation
An insightful look into the isolation of Tasmania's Aboriginal people 10,000 years ago and the loss of their technologies. This article explores the profound lessons that can be drawn from this historical event, parti...
Defending the Commons: Lessons from Robin Hood on Building Community
A thoughtful exploration of the concept of community and the common good, using the story of Robin Hood as a metaphor. This article delves into the core questions about what binds a community together, how to nurture ...
Enhancing Collaboration in the Corporate World: A Comprehensive Model
This article explores the intricate dynamics of collaboration in a modern corporate environment. Through the lens of Information Technology, it identifies key problems and offers a detailed model for improving collabo...
Building Engaging Conversations: From Clueless to Creators
This article reveals the four categories of people in conversations and explores strategies to transform clueless individuals into engaged consumers, commenters, and creators. By breaking down barriers and using the r...
The Three Types of People in Conversations: A Guide to Engaging Your Audience
This article examines the three fundamental roles in any conversation: starters, participants, and observers. Drawing parallels between social gatherings and website engagement, it explores how these roles dynamically...
The Power of Collaboration Tools: Treating Them Like Pen and Paper
This article explores the importance of treating collaboration tools with the same unrestricted access as conventional office utilities like pens, papers, or telephones. By avoiding barriers and encouraging free use, ...