Blog

  • Scouting Frozen Terrain: How Microsoft Fabric Accelerates ML in Manufacturing

    Immersed in the Wild: A New Perspective on Technology This past weekend, my son and I slipped into the woods for the youth turkey weekend here in Wisconsin. In the pre-dawn light, we settled inside the blind, scarcely daring to breathe. We had learned that to call in a wild turkey, you don’t just use… Continue reading

  • Scouting Frozen Terrain: How Microsoft Fabric Accelerates ML in Manufacturing

    Imagine a seasoned hunter scouting for bears during the winter offseason. The landscape, covered in snow and ice, offers clear visibility of tracks and terrain that would be hidden by thick foliage in the spring. By traversing frozen ground, the hunter gains easy access to areas that are hard to reach in warmer months. This… Continue reading

  • Create value for your customers with your data and the rest will fall behind it

    We are in the third age of data. The first was full of preparing data with legacy data warehouses that struggled to provide value beyond surfacing reports about the past. The second was preoccupied with loading data into data lakes. The third needs to be built on outcomes that we are trying to achieve. Not… Continue reading

  • Seeking a Deeper Understanding of the Hype

    Imagine you’re planning a fishing trip to an untouched stream. You’ve heard tales of massive trout lurking in the waters, feeding on plentiful insects. The promise of a great catch lures you in. But when you arrive, reality sets in. The fish are there, but catching them isn’t as easy as the hype made it… Continue reading

  • What did Satya Nadella mean by “SaaS is Dead”?

    A few weeks ago Satya Nadella was on the BG2 podcast and discussed a wide variety of topics, from leadership, to becoming the CEO at Microsoft, to AI, to Growth Mindset. I recommend listening to the podcast in its entirety as it really is worth the investment. With all that said, the headline from the… Continue reading

  • Five AI Habits to Build in Your Company

    As we start the new year many of us have taken to adopting new habits with the intent of being better versions of ourselves. These might be working out more, reading more books, focusing on family time, or spiritual growth. As we look the AI revolution in the eye, the most distinctive quality we’re seeing… Continue reading

  • Lightning Garbage and the Journey to Build Agentic Search in Production

    Enterprise search is broken. Search engines are great at giving you what you ask for, but terrible at giving you what you want. One of my favorite customers runs a content management platform called Engineering Unleashed that helps engineering professors create and find education content for their students. Part content discovery, part social network, part… Continue reading

  • Five Things for 2025 and People to Follow

    This is my last newsletter of the year and with it I’m going to hit you with five themes that every tech leader is needing to consider in 2025. This past year has been a bit of a whirlwind to say the least, but many companies struggling but others doing really well. The momentum from… Continue reading

  • When being Steve Kornacki isn’t enough

    [This may be obvious… but this isn’t about any particular candidate’s win, loss, success, or failure… this is about the (necessary) role of data in defining company direction] I was watching the election coverage last night and like many was drawn in by Steve Kornacki’s handle on the specifics of every county and city necessary… Continue reading

  • What is the “end in mind” with AI?

    It’s been two years since the advent of AI and I’ve had over 70 opportunities to see executive teams engage in the story of making the technology real in their business. I’ve seen some companies drive tremendous outcomes and others that have not. I often say, “start with the end in mind” and there are… Continue reading