Now-ish

Where: Marseille.

I went to the Savoie in early March to slide in semi-controlled ways down some mountain slopes. The control loop connecting intentional action and achieved outcome is particularly short in snowboarding — and the control intention is transmitted imperfectly through the tool of the snowboard. On the train back to the south, it was only natural to write something about intention transmission as a criterion for deciding what makes a tool good, and how this gives us a framework for deciding what tools to make. (Especially crucial to think clearly about this as AI tools proliferate.)

Then to London to move some consulting work along. Some conversations there led me to try and put words to my nonstandard consulting approach. What I call amorphous consulting is fundamentally different from the usual consulting model of selling specific, concrete expertise that fills a need that clients already know about and can articulate. Amorphous consulting is about intentionally not-knowing what to sell, and the not-knowing is a path to figuring out what the client needs but can’t yet put words to.

Hampstead Road.

Updated 27 March 2024