Transmissions
Field notes on operations, automation and the systems that make service businesses move.
Case study: every check was green and nothing was sending
Applied AI. . 4 min read
One operator, two businesses and an agent that reported on itself. How health was redefined as the output, and what that recovered.
Case study: building our own commercial system the way we build for clients
Applied AI. . 3 min read
The client was us. Positioning, offer, website, outbound and pipeline built to one thesis, and the first figures treated as calibration.
Build token-optimised agent harness automations
Systems. . 12 min read
Schedule the check, not the LLM. Cron jobs, deterministic processes, and initiative loops that spend tokens only when reasoning creates value.
Giving an agent real power without giving it a loaded gun
Applied AI. . 11 min read
How to give autonomous agents real operational power without turning capability into unbounded risk.
Field notes: chasing carrier rates with an agent
Field Notes. . 1 min read
Six carriers, one deadline, zero phone calls. A log of what the agent did.
Designing for the busiest week of the year
Systems. . 1 min read
Systems are judged under load. Design for the peak, not the average.
The owner-as-router problem
Operations. . 1 min read
When every decision routes through one person, that person is the ceiling.
Automation is not the same as a system
Applied AI. . 1 min read
Zaps automate tasks. Systems own outcomes. The difference compounds.
Field notes: a forwarder's first week
Field Notes. . 1 min read
What changed when rate requests stopped sleeping in an inbox overnight.
Visibility beats status meetings
Systems. . 1 min read
If you need a meeting to know what's stuck, the system is the bottleneck.
Handoffs are where margin goes to die
Operations. . 1 min read
Work doesn't get dropped inside roles. It gets dropped between them.
What an AI quote desk actually does
Applied AI. . 1 min read
Triage, draft, chase, log. The unglamorous loop that wins loads.
Inboxes are not a workflow
Systems. . 1 min read
Shared inboxes feel like a system. They are a queue with no owner.
The follow-up that never happens
Operations. . 1 min read
Every lost deal has the same autopsy: someone meant to follow up, and didn't.
Why work gets stuck between people
Operations. . 1 min read
Most service businesses lose time in the spaces between people: the handoffs, the chasing, the follow-up that depends on memory.