Writing¶

How I want you to write

I'm gonna write something technical.

It's often less about the nitty-gritty details of the tech stuff and more about learning something new or getting a solution handed to me on a silver platter.

Look, when I read, I want something out of it. So when I write, I gotta remember that my readers want something too. This whole piece? It's about cluing in anyone who writes for me, or wants me to write for them, on how I see this whole writing product thing.

I'm gonna lay out a checklist of stuff I'd like to have. It'll make the whole writing gig a bit smoother, you know?

Living My Best Life: A $20 Million Daydream

I\'ve been playing a little thought experiment lately: If I had $20 million in the bank, how would I want to live my life? It\'s not about the money per se, but about imagining a life where financial constraints aren\'t the primary driver of my decisions. Here\'s what I\'ve come up with.

On Getting Recognized: The Unexpected Price of Online Success

I never thought I'd be writing about the challenges of being recognized in public. A year ago, I was just another data scientist trying to build connections and establish myself in the field. Now, I'm grappling with the unintended consequences of my growing online presence. Here's how it all unfolded, and what I've learned about the price of distribution in the digital age.

Art of Looking at RAG Data

In the past year, I've done a lot of consulting on helping companies improve their RAG applications. One of the biggest things I want to call out is the idea of topics and capabilities.

I use this distinction to train teams to identify and look at the data we have to figure out what we need to build next.

My Self-Reflection on Success and Growth

In his essay "What's Going On Here, With This Human?", Graham Duncan discusses the importance of seeing people clearly, both in the context of hiring and in understanding oneself. He suggests asking the question "what's going on here with this person in front of me?" and provides a framework for expanding one's ability to see others more clearly. Inspired by this essay, I asked myself some probing questions to better understand my own strengths, weaknesses, and motivations. Here are my reflections:

Predictions for the Future of RAG

In the next 6 to 8 months, RAG will be used primarily for report generation. We'll see a shift from using RAG agents as question-answering systems to using them more as report-generation systems. This is because the value you can get from a report is much greater than the current RAG systems in use. I'll explain this by discussing what I've learned as a consultant about understanding value and then how I think companies should describe the value they deliver through RAG.

Rag is the feature, not the benefit.

10 Ways to Be Data Illiterate (and How to Avoid Them)

Data literacy is an essential skill in today's data-driven world. As AI engineers, understanding how to properly handle, analyze, and interpret data can make the difference between success and failure in our projects. In this post, we will explore ten common pitfalls that lead to data illiteracy and provide actionable strategies to avoid them. By becoming aware of these mistakes and learning how to address them, you can enhance your data literacy and ensure your work is both accurate and impactful. Let's dive in and discover how to navigate the complexities of data with confidence and competence.

Advice to Young People, The Lies I Tell Myself

I'm really not qualified to give advice.

But enough people DM'd me on Twitter, so here it is. I don't have to answer the same question over and over again. After some more editing, I realized that I am actually writing this for my younger sister Katherine.

Thoughts on Marketing, Positioning, and Scaling my Consulting

I've enjoyed writing about my indie consulting process. Today, I want to share some insights on marketing, positioning, and scaling my consulting business. This post builds on my previous discussions about referrals and the tools I use, focusing on how I've grown my practice through strategic marketing efforts.

As a former MLE, I had always relied on my hands-on coding skills to excel in my career. However, a hand injury forced me to adapt and pivot towards consulting. You can read more about my journey in my personal story and how this injury transformed my perspective. In this essay, I share my journey of becoming a successful AI consultant and the lessons I've learned about marketing, positioning, and scaling my business.

• Transitioning to consulting and building a marketing plan
• Generating leads and creating valuable content
• Closing leads using situational assessments

Losing My Hands Pt. 2: The Two Jasons

This is part of a series about my experience with a repetitive strain injury (RSI) during the COVID-19 pandemic. It talks about how this injury changed my life and what I think about now. If you want to know more about what happened, you can read part one here. I'm not going to give a lot of medical details. Instead, I want to look at how this injury changed what's important to me and how I live my life.

A comment on Twitter made me want to write this part of the series. I'm not trying to tell anyone how to live. I just want to think about the values that shape me and other men like me. This connects to some ideas I wrote about in my article on data literacy, where I talk about how we understand and use information in our lives.