Category: Uncategorized

• Total freedom or total lockdown for AI tools? Wrong question.

  I was at a event last nite, surrounded by serious technology leaders. Someone mentioned a peer company that turned on Copilot but “didn’t even configure it” – said with the kind of horror usually reserved for production outages.

  It sparked a heated debate. I found myself firmly on the side of leaving things largely unlocked, because almost every control we add has unintended consequences that cripple our field workers from doing their jobs better.

  But reflecting on that conversation, I realized we don’t talk about this enough: How much should you actually configure your tech?

  Everyone’s picking sides on the wrong battle – total freedom versus total control. Both extremes will kill your project.

  Zero configuration sounds great. Let the frontline innovate, let AI do its thing, no guardrails. But you’ll spend a decade cleaning up the mess, chasing standards, trying to scale what can’t be scaled. It will take you a decade to get to where you want to go.

  100% lockdown is worse. You think you know how workers will use the tool. You’re wrong. I’ve watched companies spend millions on systems so locked down, so “configured for safety,” that nobody uses them. The tech just sits there, another expensive ghost in the plant.

  The answer isn’t picking a side. It’s finding the balance and never stopping there.

  The best deployment I ever ran had some guardrails, some general configuration but was otherwise wide open for field workers to innovate. The result? They didn’t just use the tool. They made it the most important thing in their kit. Then they turned around and taught my team uses we never imagined. Huge innovation. Adoption rates we’d never seen before. Everyone won.

  That only happened because we configured enough to keep pointed in the right direction, but left enough freedom for people to make the tool theirs. Then we iterated constantly. This applies to AI engines, hardware, applications -everything.

  But here’s the part that matters most: spend time with your people. Watch how they actually work. Listen to what they actually need. The right balance isn’t in a manual or a best practice guide. It’s in the field, with the workers using your tools every day.

  December 16, 2025

  artificial intelligence, leadership

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• If You’re Not Upsetting People, You’re Not Making Change

  I talk to peers across industries and hear the same story: IT blocking progress, a boss protecting legacy systems they built their career on, resistance at every turn.

  Most people in industrial change roles burn out fast. The highs are really high when leadership finally sees what you’ve done for the business. But the lows cut deep – when people fight to protect the status quo, when you’re made to feel like the problem.

  If you feel bullied or alone right now, you’re not alone. That feeling means you’re moving in the right direction.

  Keep one thing true: design your programs and tools with the frontline workforce, not around them.

  Don’t let the CIO or the legacy defenders wear you down. Stay positive. Stay focused on why you started this – to help the workers who keep everything running. That’s the goal. That’s what matters. The resistance is just noise.

  December 3, 2025

  Change, leadership, revolution

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• Why Your Digital Transformation Looks Like a Junk Drawer

  I find senior leaders have no idea where to start with digital transformation. So what happens?

  Someone in safety says incident reporting is a nightmare. Someone in operations wants digital checklists. Maintenance has been asking for a mobile work order system for three years. Quality needs better traceability.

  All reasonable problems. All worth solving.

  So you solve them. One at a time. Different teams, different vendors, different timelines. Two years later, you’ve got four systems that don’t talk to each other and nobody connecting the dots.

  The Kingdom Problem

  This is how most operations approach digitalization. Not as a strategy, but as a collection of pain points that get funded when the pain gets loud enough. Or by a leader that has the wrong motivations and wants to build their own kingdom and grab headlines.

  Your safety VP gets budget for an incident reporting app. Great. Your operations Director gets digital checklists. Also great. Your maintenance supervisor finally gets that mobile CMMS module. Fantastic.

  Except now front line workers are using three different tools during their shift. And none of the data between the tools connect – so those promises made to improve the front-line experience, and deliver on efficiencies, never come to fruition.

  The Real Cost Isn’t the Software

  The promise of digitalization is that it collapses admin work. You report something once, it flows through. You complete a checklist, the data automatically populates your compliance reports. An operator flags an issue, it creates a work order, links to the equipment history, and notifies the right people.

  But that only works if someone is thinking about the whole picture.

  Instead, we’re asking people to be the integration layer. Your supervisor is manually pulling data from four systems to create one report. Your operators are entering the same information multiple times. Your maintenance planners are copying and pasting between systems.

  We’ve digitized the work without reducing the work. Sometimes we’ve made it worse.

  What’s Missing

  Someone needs to own the connected worker strategy. Not just the technology strategy – the actual experience of how your workforce interacts with all these systems.

  When you’re evaluating that next digital initiative, someone should be asking: How does this fit with what we already have? Where’s the overlap? Are we asking people to enter the same data twice? What process is this tool supporting? What’s the motivation behind this initiative? Because if it’s kingdom building… then that ain’t it.

  This isn’t about buying one vendor’s ecosystem for everything. It’s about having an actual strategy for how these pieces connect. What’s the common data model? How do systems talk to each other?

  Start with the Workflow, Not the Tools

  This is the only effective way that’s worked in my experience: Map out an actual workflow your people do today. Pick something that crosses departments—say, responding to an equipment issue.

  Watch how it actually happens. Who enters what, where? How many times does the same information get recorded? Where do handoffs break down? What gets lost in translation?

  Then ask: If we were designing this workflow from scratch with digital tools, what would it look like? Not “what tools do we buy,” but “what does the person doing the work need at each step?”

  Spending time doing up-front strategy by mapping process saves a ton of time and money in the long run. And instead of a bunch of projects done in silos, you have a strategy that’s organized and prioritized.

  Stop Adding to the Junk Drawer and Own the Strategy (For The Right Reasons)

  Digital transformation without strategy is just expensive chaos. You end up with a drawer full of tools that don’t fit together, and a workforce that’s more frustrated than before.

  Before you fund the next digital initiative, ask yourself: Who’s making sure this connects to everything else? Who’s thinking about the operator logging into their fourth system of the day? Who’s responsible for the actual experience of being a connected worker at your site?

  If the answer is nobody, you’re just building another pet project. And your junk drawer is getting full.

  November 5, 2025

  leadership, lean-six-sigma, lean-six-sigma, strategy, technology

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• Dave and his pipefitters

  I think about Dave and his crew more than I probably should.

  We were doing a tie-in to connect seventy-year-old piping to brand new systems. Below grade work. Trench work. The kind where you can’t see what’s happening unless you’re standing right there, looking down into the hole. Dave’s pipefitters were good at their job, but they didn’t know the hazards of what they were daylighting.

  My operators didn’t care much about this kind of work because it wasn’t technically their area – “it’s project work,” so it wasn’t their problem. That attitude – the lack of ownership, was one of those things I kept trying to fix but never quite could. So I became the project babysitter on behalf of operations. I’d be there, watching, making sure the work was getting done safely, making sure everyone knew what was happening in that trench.

  Then I took a day off.

  That morning, the gas detection went off while Dave’s guys were in the confined space. H2S & LEL. An explosive environment, and they were working with open flame. Everyone got out. We were lucky. Nobody got hurt.

  Relying on luck is a loser strategy.

  If there had been more visibility to the work – if the operators had real-time permits that everyone could see instead of a piece of paper in some trainee’s hand and another in the maintenance foreman’s pocket – I can’t help but think this could have been avoided. A digital permit. Something that puts the information where everyone needs it, when they need it.

  This is why I care so much about enabling our field with technology. It’s not about making things flashy or modern for fun. It’s about making life easier and better on the front line. It’s about making sure everyone goes home to their families.

  I still think about Dave and his pipefitters. I’m grateful I get to think about them, and not remember them.

  October 26, 2025

  connected-worker, digital, industrial, leadership, safety

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• You Forgot What It’s Like to Actually Do the Work (If You Ever Even Did It)

  I’ve watched more “digital transformation initiatives” crash and burn than I care to count. You know what the common thread is? Empathy. Nobody building these systems has changed a bearing at 2 AM in six months. Nobody’s climbed a scaffold with a tablet. Nobody’s tried to log into three different systems while wearing gloves in February.

  We’ve turned digitalization into a compliance exercise. Check the box, get the budget approved, roll it out, call it a win. Then we act surprised when adoption is 12% and the front line is still using paper.

  The Empathy Gap

  Here’s what I mean by empathy – and I’m not talking about cotton candy culture crap. I’m talking about tactical, practical empathy. The kind that actually helps you build something people will use.

  Try this: Go do home renovations without your phone for a day.

  You’ll immediately notice what’s missing. You can’t quickly measure that weird corner to see if you need to make another trip to the hardware store. You can’t pull up that YouTube video showing you the specific way to cut crown molding for an inside corner. You can’t text your partner to say you’ll be late because the drywall delivery got delayed.

  That feeling? That’s your operators. Every single day.

  We’re Asking People to Work with One Hand Tied Behind Their Back

  The irony kills me. We go home and we’ve got smart thermostats, we’re ordering groceries from our couch, we’re watching YouTube tutorials to fix our dishwashers. Then we come to work and ask people to navigate systems that would’ve felt dated in 2010.

  Your maintenance tech can probably rebuild an engine in their sleep, but you’re asking them to log in through three different portals just to report that a pump is making a weird noise. Your operators are running complex processes worth millions of dollars, but they’re writing notes on paper because the digital work order system takes seventeen clicks to do what should take two.

  What Real Empathy Looks Like

  Real empathy isn’t a focus group where you ask people what they want and then ignore it because it doesn’t fit your roadmap. It’s simpler than that:

  Spend a shift doing the actual work with the tools you’re building. Not watching. Doing.

  Try to complete a work order on that new mobile app while you’re wearing the same PPE your team wears. See how many taps it takes. See if you can read that screen in direct sunlight. Notice whether you can actually do it with gloves on, or if you have to take them off every single time.

  Walk the route your operators walk. Are you asking them to go back to the control room to log something that happened in the field? Why? You wouldn’t accept that in your own life.

  Try to find a procedure in your document management system. Time yourself. Ask yourself if you’d bother, or if you’d just ask the guy who’s been here for 20 years instead.

  Think about the last time you forgot your phone at home. Remember that moment of panic? That reach for your pocket and the sinking feeling when it wasn’t there? That’s the gap between what your workers need and what you’re giving them.

  Building Empathy Takes Practice

  This isn’t a one-time thing. You can’t shadow someone for an afternoon and check the empathy box.

  The next time you’re at home and you pull out your phone to look something up, pause. Think about what you just avoided – a trip to the library? Calling someone? Guessing? Now think about your operators not having that option.

  When you’re measuring something and you use your phone’s measuring app, think about your millwright who has to walk back to get a tape measure.

  When you quickly text someone an update, think about your operator filling out a paper log that someone will manually enter later.

  These moments build real empathy. The kind that makes you ask different questions and push back when someone suggests a solution that looks good on paper but will be terrible in practice.

  The Bottom Line

  Your program isn’t failing because people are resistant to change. It’s failing because it was designed for steering committee meetings, not for troubleshooting a compressor trip at 11 PM.

  Make it a habit to notice the gaps between what you expect in your own life and what you’re asking of your workforce. Go spend time on the floor with your own tools. Pay attention to the friction. Notice when you reach for your phone and what that solves. Then ask if your workers have that same capability.

  If you’re not willing to do that, don’t be surprised when everyone keeps using the old ways. At least those let them get work done.

  October 10, 2025

  design, empathy, leadership, relationships, ux

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• Your Field Software is Failing Your People (And It’s Time to Admit It)

  I’m literally writing this while sitting at an operating site, watching good people try to make sense of a digital tool that was clearly designed by someone who’s never actually done the job. The usual suspects – clunky interfaces, wrong workflows, and that special kind of frustration that comes from knowing your users will forget everything you just taught them the second you leave.

  And you know what? I’m over it. Done. I am fed up with software that doesn’t just work for my field workers, and with wasting time trying to make it work with them. I’m tired of dealing with arrogant vendors that take six months for a minor product change.

  The Beautiful Simplicity of Things That Just Work

  The thing about great design – you don’t notice it. It just makes sense. Like the first time you used an iPhone – nobody handed you a manual. You just picked it up and started using it because it worked the way your brain expected it to work.

  That’s what industrial software should be like. When someone’s managing critical infrastructure, operating heavy equipment, or dealing with emergency situations, the last thing on their mind is figuring out how to use the digital tool. As a result of the nature of the industrial end user – they’re too busy making real decisions to screw around with a user interface that’s not intuitive. If paper is easier, they will use paper.

  The Real Cost of Garbage UX

  When we accept crappy user experiences as “just how it is” in industrial settings, it has real consequences. And we’ve been doing this for years because we’ve been handcuffed to a few flagship products in the industrial market.

  First, your people spend half their day wrestling with technology instead of doing actual work. That’s time stolen from productive work.

  Then there’s the training nightmare. You roll out a new digital tool, spend weeks training everyone, feel good about adoption, then come back six months later to find people have invented different workarounds to avoid using the tool. Why? Because the tool sucks.

  But here’s what really gets me fired up – the safety implications. When people are frustrated with their tools, when they develop sketchy workarounds to avoid using proper systems, that’s when accidents happen. Poor UX isn’t just annoying; it’s dangerous.

  Why It Hurts My Soul

  I’m currently sitting here watching these guys – good, seasoned operators – struggle with software that should be making work easier. And I can see it in their faces. They’re being polite, they’re trying to learn, but I know I’ve failed them. Because the software fights them every step of the way, and frankly, paper does a better job than what I’m giving them. I’m enabling bad design and trying so hard to make it work, but this crap has to stop. The timing is ripe for better products with the new technology that’s coming out.

  What Good Looks Like (When We Bother to Do It Right)

  Good field software understands context. It knows you only need three big buttons to do three tasks on the app in the field. It knows you might be wearing gloves, so buttons are big enough to hit. It knows connectivity might be spotty, so it fails gracefully and syncs when it can. It follows patterns people already understand.

  It assumes intelligence, not ignorance. Field workers are experts at their jobs. The digital tool should leverage that expertise. It is imperative that digital tools are developed with the end user.

  Most importantly, it gets out of the way. The best field tools are invisible – they help people do their jobs better without making them think about the software itself.

  Time to Advocate for the Field Worker

  My radical proposal – let’s stop accepting garbage. When vendors pitch you their “revolutionary” solution, ask them one question: “How did you build this product?” If their answer doesn’t include front-line workers, walk away. If they start talking about web-based training – run.

  When you’re evaluating tech, don’t look at feature lists. Put it in front of actual users without any training or direction. If people struggle – that’s your answer right there.

  Involve actual field workers in the design process. Not at the end as beta testers, but from the beginning as partners. They know things about their work that no amount of requirements gathering will capture.

  What’s Next

  Field workers deserve digital tools that respect their intelligence, understand their environment, and help them do their jobs better. They don’t deserve to be guinea pigs for half-baked interfaces designed by people who’ve never set foot on a job site.

  Good UX isn’t about making things pretty (though that doesn’t hurt). It’s about making things work. It’s about respecting people’s time, expertise, and safety.

  And until we demand better – until we stop accepting “that’s just how field software is” – we’re going to keep having the same conversations, the same training sessions, and the same frustrations.

  Time to raise the bar. Our field workers deserve it, our operations need it, and honestly, those of us supporting these systems are tired of apologizing for other people’s design failures.

  Let’s build software that doesn’t suck. It’s not that hard – we just have to have the humility to realize we don’t know everything on our own.

  September 18, 2025

  ai, design, ux

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• Don’t Feel Bad. Everyone Is Lying About Digital Transformation

  It used to make me insecure. Everyone’s crushing it with AI while I’m fighting to keep our network alive – felt like I was so far behind.

  I went to one of those connected worker conferences and had the privilege of speaking with a keynote speaker. Their presentation was impressive and I wanted to do the same things they did for my workforce. I started asking questions about how they overcame such-and-such problem, how they navigated such-and-such issue.

  But the more questions I asked, the more I realized they didn’t have answers. And it became clear they didn’t actually enable their whole workforce with tech – they just ended up doing a small pilot with 20 workers that got shut down after a year anyway.

  That’s when I started listening more closely to my peers. Here’s what I learned:

  • Everyone’s doing “pilots” that die when their champion leaves
  • Everyone sucks at basics – talking AI while their workers don’t even have connectivity
  • Everyone is lying – success stories leave out failures and how they’re still running on paper

  I wasn’t behind – I was actually ahead. And that “digital leader” is still running on Excel and hope.

  The effort needed to be ahead of peers is smaller than you think. Focus on what your people actually need. Reliable tools beat flashy tech every time.

  Have the courage to make real, meaningful decisions to enable your workforce to work differently. We need more honest conversations about what’s really working.

  September 3, 2025

  ai, connected-worker, digital, industrial, technology

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• Ryan and Woody

  Five years ago, I nearly died in a massive fire with two of my operators.

  Leadership counted what they could see: production lost, injuries recorded, days offline. But they never counted the real cost—the workers who quit because they were scared. The PTSD therapy bills. The spouses who needed their own counseling. The nightmares that still wake my coworkers.

  The managers who made the decisions that day? They’ve all moved on to other sites, other roles. But my operators are still here. Still carrying the weight of that fire in our bodies, our families, our community.

  To every frontline worker comparing scars, bearing the hidden costs of our hazardous work—I see what you pay. You are not alone.

  August 22, 2025

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• Why I Started This: The Connected Worker Conversation Nobody’s Having

  Three things pushed me to start writing this blog, and one big opportunity I see.

  First, I’m tired of watching my peers do nothing meaningful at scale to help their workforce. We talk about “people first” and “valuing our teams,” but when it comes to actually investing in tools that make workers’ lives better, most leaders punt. Meanwhile, there are some absolute fearless disruptors out there quietly doing incredible work—and nobody’s talking about them.

  Second, industrial workers are always last to get meaningful support, especially in heavy, dangerous industries. We operate some of the world’s most expensive and critical equipment, yet most of us still work with paper forms and outdated systems. But I’ve seen what’s possible when someone actually gives a damn and builds the right solutions.

  What finally pushed me over the edge was searching “Connected Worker” and finding nothing but vendor marketing and consultants who’ve never been on a shop floor. Where are the voices from people actually doing this work?

  They’re out there. I know because I work with some of them.

  That’s what this is about—finding those voices, elevating the people who are actually solving problems, and building a community of practitioners who can learn from each other.

  Time to have a real conversation about connecting workers, digitalizing our industry, and doing what’s right for our workers.

  August 14, 2025

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