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AI Raises the Bar, But It Doesn’t Remove the Builders

Every week, there’s a new headline suggesting that AI is about to make large portions of the workforce obsolete. Development cycles are collapsing. Models are writing code. Systems are improving themselves. It’s not unreasonable to ask whether the role of the human professional is shrinking. But that framing misses something important. AI is not simply reducing labor costs - it is raising expectations. And when expectations rise, the need for human judgment doesn’t disappear. It shifts. Acceleration Without Elimination Recently, while preparing a business demo, I leaned heavily on AI to troubleshoot and refine parts of the workflow. It generated SQL, suggested configuration changes, and dramatically accelerated the iteration cycle. But it also produced malformed SQL queries and confidently recommended an incorrect fix for a configuration issue. Each time, the system moved me forward faster, but it didn’t actually solve the problem. I still had to diagnose the root cause, constrain th...
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Invisible Mastery: Making the Difficult Feel Inevitable

Some time ago at a previous job, my manager performed a 360 review of my performance. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, a 360 review is one where your manager, peers, direct reports, and sometimes even customers are given an opportunity to discuss how well you perform your job. After the interviews had concluded, I was told that someone had commented:  " Larry is incredibly technical, but you'd never know it from talking to him. " Initially, I wasn’t sure how to interpret that comment. After all, I spent the first half of my career in highly technical roles and prided myself on my technical acumen. Was this a criticism or a compliment? And what was that person actually saying about my expertise and how I communicated it? After sitting with it for a while, I came to an unexpected conclusion: mastery, in its highest form, is invisible . Put another way, true expertise simplifies experience without sacrificing substance. It’s like a perfectly baked apple pie fresh out o...
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Finding Clarity in the Chaos of a Job Search

Job searches are humbling. They test your confidence, your patience, and your ability to stay motivated when things don’t move as quickly as you’d like. But they also teach you things about yourself that you might not have learned any other way. For me, the past few months have been a crash course in rediscovering what really matters: not just in a résumé, but in relationships, self-perception, and how we use technology to help tell our stories. Here are three lessons that stood out. Reach Out to Your Network (Long Before You Need It) Your network is a living thing. It requires upkeep, time, and attention, just like a flower garden. You can’t ignore it for years and expect it to bloom the moment you need it. Start planting early. Stay in touch with people whose paths you’ve crossed - colleagues, mentors, partners, even those you only worked with briefly. Drop a note once in a while. Comment on their posts. Share something that made you think of them. These small gestures are the sunl...
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The Assistant You Didn’t Know You Had

Everywhere you look, someone is debating AI:  is it useful, ethical, or even trustworthy? After all the noise, the verdict is still the same: inconclusive.  I’m not here to settle that debate. Instead, I want to show how AI can be used effectively without turning it from a tool into a crutch. Why the Bad Rap? First let's acknowledge something.  AI has an entirely different reputation depending on the context in which it is used.  In the corporate world, AI is often seen as a force multiplier while at the same time is derided as potentially displacing several thousand jobs.  The latter has most recently been seen in the elimination of 4,000 jobs at Salesforce all under the guise of AI being used to do mundane jobs that used to be filled by people.  (Whether this is true or not is a topic for a future discussion.) We've been trying to reach you about your automobile warranty. On a personal level, AI often gets dismissed, whether it’s in academics , fake Amazo...
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Time to Level Up!

With the recent news out of Salesforce and Oracle, it’s easy to understand why folks affected by layoffs might feel discouraged. Not only are they leaving companies they may have called home for years, but they’re also facing the daunting prospect of job hunting while headlines scream about “AI taking over human jobs.” Not long ago, another company I follow - let’s call it Acme  - went through a similar round of layoffs. Two employees in particular (we’ll call them Jim and John) showed how mindset can make all the difference. Jim had been at Acme for over 20 years. He was reliable, steady, and well-liked, but not exactly the standout type. When he was laid off, he decided to take some time off before even thinking about his next move. After all, he had a severance package. Didn’t he deserve a break after two decades of hard work? John’s story was different. Though he hadn’t been at Acme as long, he’d built a strong reputation and had both technical and leadership skills. Instead of...
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COSMIC Insights

Consider the following scenario:  you're a mid-level manager and find out that a layoff is coming.  You're about too lose one of your best direct reports, but you have no ability to influence the decision to lay them off. Oy! My head hurts! What do you do? Oftentimes, I find that people - when presented with situations where they feel compelled to act but have no ability to change the outcome - enter a state of mental lethargy.  They don't know exactly what it is they should do but, "gosh darnit!", something has  to be done.  When they realize how helpless they actually are, they start lamenting about the situation, how they are backed into a corner, etc. In a very real sense, they go through the five stages of grief . I'd like to offer the following alternative way of approaching these and other situations:  I call it the COSMIC method, not only because it sounds cool but also because I like science fiction (" Lisan al Gaib! "). COSMIC is an acronym...
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Overcoming Imposter Syndrome

Imposter Syndrome is a cruel partner in your professional journey.  If you're not familiar with the term, it is essentially the feeling that you do not belong in a particular profession or that you do not deserve a specific role or set of responsibilities.  (You may read more in the Wikipedia article .)  I did not hear the term myself until I participated in a mentoring group for young employees at my current job - some of the young employees said they had this, and I won't deny a bit of surprise when I read what it is. If you feel this way, you're obviously not alone.  A good friend of mine suffers from this in no small amount in spite of the fact that she's an upper mid-level manager at her company with an organization of approximately 40 people reporting to her.  She feels this way because she never completed college, but fails to realize that her hard work and dedication to being the best that she can be is why she has been repeatedly promoted through the ra...
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