This is for people who are fed up with their technology. At some point the tools you rely on start working against you. They may be the wrong tools, good tools used badly, or tools that stopped fitting as you grew.
When tools turn on you
Every tool reaches a point where it starts to help. Many reach a second point where more of it makes things worse. The writer Ivan Illich called this counterproductivity: a tool that defeats its own purpose. In a small organisation it looks like this:
- Five apps holding five versions of the same customer list.
- A project board nobody trusts, so the real plan lives in email.
- Automation that saves a minute a day and costs an afternoon when it breaks.
- AI output going out the door with nobody checking it.
- A subscription you cannot leave, because your data is inside it.
It is rarely a technology problem
Technology projects fail when people treat them as technical problems. Most of the trouble starts earlier. Nobody is clearly in charge. Nobody wrote the process down. The work outgrew the way it is organised. Buying another tool adds to the pile. The last one was going to fix everything too.
Small and mid-sized organisations often need organising and project management skills more than they need software. I can provide those skills, help your people build them, or help you hire for them.
How I work
- Start with the work. Who does what, where it waits, and where it gets done twice.
- Judge each tool by what it does. What it promises does not count.
- Remove before adding. The quickest gain is usually one tool fewer.
- Automate the predictable. If the answer is always the same, a simple script beats an AI.
- Keep a person in charge. AI suggests, a person decides, and checks confirm.
- Ask how easily you could stop. A tool you cannot leave is a risk.
- Change one thing at a time. Measure it and repeat. Big launches fail quietly.
Where AI earns its place
AI helps. It does not decide. It is good at covering ground, offering options, finding faults and writing first drafts. It is poor at being right when nobody checks. Used well, it speeds up work that a person still owns. Used badly, it produces confident mistakes in bulk.
I keep a record of what AI tools get wrong and turn each mistake into a check. I hold my own development work to the same rule.
What you end up with
- A map of your tools and what each one costs you in money and attention.
- A shorter list of tools.
- Written processes, each with a named owner.
- Automation that someone on your team understands and can switch off.
- People who can run their own projects.
Further reading
- When your tools start working against you
- Most technology problems are organisational problems
- AI is a contributor, not the authority
- Counterfoil, my research project on tools that keep people in charge and tools that turn against them.
Common questions
Do I need AI at all?
Sometimes not. If a written process and one fewer tool solve the problem, that is what I will recommend.
Is this only for WordPress sites?
No. This is about how you and your organisation use your tools, whatever they are.
What size of organisation is this for?
Small and mid-sized businesses and non-profits, and individuals whose tools have outgrown them.
Get clarity.
More on how I work
- Managed WordPress hosting: What managed should mean, and where to host.
- Canadian WordPress hosting: Data residency, sovereignty and what they are worth.
- WordPress security: What actually gets sites compromised, and what stops it.
- WordPress performance: Fast by construction, measured on real visits.
- WordPress maintenance and support: Updates, upgrades and someone who knows your site.
- Custom WordPress development: Native block themes and plugins, built to be changed.
- Static, headless and non-WordPress: When WordPress is the wrong tool, or only half of it.
- AI, automation and process consulting: For people fed up with their technology.