The case for effective assistants

Unlock the hidden potential in your organization by leveraging effective assistants to save time and boost productivity.

“Too often, this happens because the busiest people in an organization are often the same people who need to give final approval to, or budgetary support for, an idea. Or, they don’t believe that they have the time to explain to someone else how a project should be done. To coin a kind of reverse power law, there’s probably a lot of untapped value in most schools simply because the person in charge doesn’t have fifteen minutes (right now) to activate that value, see it through, and as a result, save fifteen hours (over the next six months).”—Making the Case for Effective Assistants

Featured writing

Why customer tools are organized wrong

This article reveals a fundamental flaw in how customer support tools are designed—organizing by interaction type instead of by customer—and explains why this fragmentation wastes time and obscures the full picture you need to help users effectively.

Infrastructure shapes thought

The tools you build determine what kinds of thinking become possible. On infrastructure, friction, and building deliberately for thought rather than just throughput.

Server-side dashboard architecture: Why moving data fetching off the browser changes everything

How choosing server-side rendering solved security, CORS, and credential management problems I didn't know I had.

Books

The work of being available now

A book on AI, judgment, and staying human at work.

The practice of work in progress

Practical essays on how work actually gets done.

Recent writing

The most important thing a leader can build is the conversation that happens when they leave the room. Today, five departments started sharing fixes, cracking jokes, and solving each other's problems — without being asked.