Writing
Reflections on design leadership, AI adoption, hiring, and making research count at board level.
Fifteen Charts, Two Themes, Zero Dependencies
I needed dashboard charts that match my design system. None existed. So I built the library.
A complete SVG chart library — KPI strips, sankey diagrams, line charts with tooltips, funnels, heatmaps, treemaps, and nine more. Dark and light themes, designed from day one. Built solo in a working week, with zero runtime dependencies. Part 2 of 2 in a video series on AI-assisted analytics.
Read articleFrom a Monday-Morning Question to a Live Dashboard by Lunch
A Head of Year asked how her Year 4 students were engaging with maths this week. On the old route, the answer would arrive next Tuesday. On the new route, before the next bell.
An AI workflow that turns a teacher's plain-English question into a styled, deployed Vercel dashboard before lunch. One terminal command, one custom MCP server, one shareable URL. Part 1 of 2 in a video series on AI-assisted analytics.
Read articleWe Were Arrogant — And a School Administrator in Sneakers Proved It
The best solutions often already exist. They are just not in your building.
We had the degrees. The design reviews. The roadmaps. Twenty years of platform evolution behind us. And still, a school administrator in sneakers and jeans solved the permissions problem we had been avoiding for years — by building her own solution in Power BI and waiting for someone to ask.
Read articleHow I Built an AI Chief of Staff Using Claude Code
Most professionals use AI as a tool. The real unlock is building AI into your operating system.
Last week, I stopped using the Claude app entirely. Not because it was not useful. But I had hit a ceiling. Every conversation started from zero. No memory of past projects. No awareness of my priorities. So I built something different: an AI Chief of Staff inside Claude Code.
Read articleWhy I Stopped Trusting Job Titles When Hiring Designers
The title said senior. The capability said mid-level. Here is how I learned to spot the difference.
After hiring designers across multiple markets for over a decade, I have learned something uncomfortable: job titles are almost meaningless when assessing design talent. Here is the framework I use instead, built from hundreds of interviews across four countries.
Read articleHow 6 User Interviews Changed a 10-Year Roadmap
When the board says something is impossible, do not argue. Show them the data.
We had a 14-year-old legacy system. Engineering estimated a full migration would take a decade. The board shelved the project. Six user interviews later, they approved a three-year roadmap and unlocked millions in development investment.
Read article