TOOLS I'VE BUILT
Built around the places I get stuck.
INDEPENDENT EXPLORATION · SYSTEMS THINKING · CREATIVE TECHNOLOGY · INTERACTIVE PROTOTYPING
These tools grew out of gaps in my own processes that kept getting between me and my goals. Each is an experiment in using software and AI to make a useful behaviour easier: starting work, developing a thought, practising a conversation or writing something worth sharing.
WORK ENGINE
The need
Too many competing priorities meant I could spend my working time deciding what to do, then questioning the decision.
The response
Work Engine connects bigger goals to manageable tasks and serves up one next action matched to my available time and energy.
What I learned
I need room to explore when planning and fewer choices when executing. Separating those moments became the central design principle.
Favourite feature
Either the triangulation with personas feature or the ability to select my mood to change the task queue.
THE HANGAR
The need
I wanted to develop unfinished thoughts without losing the useful parts inside scattered notes and long AI conversations.
The response
The Hangar takes a rough thought through a focused interview, draws out what emerges, and lets me approve or correct what enters my personal library.
What I learned
Preserving my meaning needs an explicit checkpoint. “Mine”, “almost” and “not me” give me a way to judge the AI’s interpretation before keeping it.
Favourite feature
The way the interviewer asks me questions with the specific verbiage not only that I've used but the precise questions to lead me to the next thought on the tip of my neurons.
GROUND SCHOOL
The need
Verbal nods, speech tics and ambiguous phrasing were getting in the way of how clearly I communicated. I needed somewhere to practise and notice them.
The response
Ground School provides voice AI conversations and feedback for coaching, sales, podcasts and more, with a fully customisable talking partner.
What I learned
Practice with feedback helped me reduce those habits. Having something specific to work on made each conversation a useful rehearsal.
Favourite feature
Being able to set the tone of a conversation or coaching session to someone who is really disinterested or challenging to the way I work.
CONTENT ENGINE
The need
I had things I cared about saying, but the blank page was a recurring barrier to turning them into social posts.
The response
Content Forge uses AI to prompt me. I write from my own interests, while the software provides structure and support for citations and examples.
What I learned
Responding to a useful question helps me write more. The software gives me a starting point while leaving the ideas and writing with me.
Favourite feature
Once a first edit is produced, 'delighters' like related Behavioural Biases, Research papers or other useful information is presented and easy to append to the draft.
DOES THIS POINT TO A DIFFERENT FUTURE?
The evolution in technology is a wave I feel lucky to be, or at least trying to, surf.
In the blink of an iPod, a thousand things that would need individual licenses or its own installed software are available as integrations without so much as a semi-colon of code.
I've written about it before but I'm convinced that this is a signal that the SaaS world which replaced traditional technology houses, is also destined for the same fate. If I can integrate all of the key functions of a CRM in tools I already use and things work, then I can build to my preferences not at the mercy of constantly innovating tech-firms who neglect research with customers in favour of pizazz and celebrity hosts for their QBRs.
That is a long way to say, due to the tools we have at the end of our fingers, I'm convinced we're headed more into bespoke and disposable software fixing user specific gaps rather than ill-fitting and bloody expensive SaaS finance hell.
Granted, the reduced barrier to entry is letting things get made which, probably shouldn't, but thats a perspective for another day...
What a time!