Head in the Clouds Is Not an Insult
A personal Systems Lens essay on disruption, comfort, AI adaptation, and the discipline of bringing vision back to the ground.
THE READING ROOM
7 essaysFind your next question.
Nature Already Has the Math
Utilities do not manage isolated assets. They manage relationships inside the water cycle.
Follow the connection
Follow the systems argument into operating feedback and the question of what changed.
Your Capital Plan Needs a Glucose MonitorTake this with you
Ask the Feynman question: if this explanation is true, what else should also be true?
Read the essayAdapt, Don't Pivot
Our experience comes with us. Continuous learning helps us put it to work in new ways.
Follow the connection
Learning new tools works better when it builds on the knowledge people already carry.
Fifty Steps Back, Five Hundred Steps ForwardIf You're In Your Head, You're Dead
A personal reflection on moving from a circling thought to a next step we can take—or ask for help with.
Follow the connection
Continuous learning becomes practical through a manageable next action.
Adapt, Don't PivotTake this with you
Name the thought, choose a manageable action, and define what done means.
Read the essayFifty Steps Back, Five Hundred Steps Forward
A practical case for understanding the foundations before accelerating—and making every step forward count.
Follow the connection
Shared meaning and verified asset identities give an AI pilot a foundation to test.
Your Utility Has Been Doing Data Governance WrongYour Utility Has Been Doing Data Governance Wrong
From knowledge held by a few people to evidence the whole utility can find, understand, and use.
Follow the connection
An operating curve is only useful when we can trace the records behind it.
Your Capital Plan Needs a Glucose MonitorTake this with you
Give each critical record an identity, an owner, and a traceable history.
Read the essayYour Capital Plan Needs a Glucose Monitor
A capital plan tells us what we spent. The operating curve helps us ask what changed for the system.
Follow the connection
An operating curve is only useful when we can trace the records behind it.
Your Utility Has Been Doing Data Governance WrongA question is a good place to begin.
How do we know an investment actually helped?
Your Capital Plan Needs a Glucose Monitor
Connect capital decisions to the operating curve and the evidence behind it.
Follow the operating curve before and after the investment.
Can our team trace the data behind a decision?
Your Utility Has Been Doing Data Governance Wrong
Follow the route from a shared record to its meaning, owner, and history.
Give each critical record an identity, an owner, and a traceable history.
Where should we begin with AI?
Fifty Steps Back, Five Hundred Steps Forward
Start with the identities and operating knowledge a useful pilot needs.
Choose one decision. Understand its data before introducing AI.
What can water teach us about connected systems?
Nature Already Has the Math
Follow connections across water, living systems, and the questions we bring to AI.
Ask the Feynman question: if this explanation is true, what else should also be true?
How can we grow without discarding our experience?
Adapt, Don't Pivot
Bring lived experience and new tools into the same working practice.
Weave your experience and new tools into one useful workflow.
How do we turn a circling thought into action?
If You're In Your Head, You're Dead
Find a manageable next step and a clear sense of done.
Name the thought, choose a manageable action, and define what done means.
See the relationship.
From snapshot to operating curve
Conceptual comparison: a snapshot shows a moment; a curve shows how conditions change.
Your Capital Plan Needs a Glucose Monitor
Close the operating feedback loop
Conceptual feedback loop linking observation, decisions, action, and learning.
Your Capital Plan Needs a Glucose Monitor
Test what changed after the investment
Illustrative curves, not measured outcomes. A change after an intervention does not establish its cause.
Your Capital Plan Needs a Glucose Monitor
Make knowledge discoverable
A conceptual route from a question to a shared catalog and an accountable owner.
Your Utility Has Been Doing Data Governance Wrong
The water cycle is already a connected system
A simplified cycle, not a complete flow model; actual sources and return pathways vary.
Nature Already Has the Math
One storm becomes many utility consequences
Conceptual pathways. Runoff can enter combined sewers or sanitary sewers through inflow defects; separate storm drains do not normally flow to the wastewater plant.
Nature Already Has the Math
A fish kill can be the visible end of a longer chain
Possible pathways, not a diagnosis of a particular bloom or fish kill.
Nature Already Has the Math
The answer is not trusted until the relationships survive
An evaluation framework, not a measured comparison of AI products. Sources need validation, and people retain the decision.
Nature Already Has the Math
The Systems Lens for utility AI
A conceptual loop of responsibilities and feedback, not automatic causation or guaranteed trust.
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