Last weekend, I completed my fourth half marathon, one year after I ran my first. Like last year, the place of action was The Hague. And Scheveningen. And back to The Hague. This one wasn’t the first. It wasn’t the fastest. It was not the one where I came in best prepared. Instead, it was the one that hurt the most. For several weeks already, I knew I would not be able to finish under...
Read moreIn 2010, standing at a gas station with a tech visionary I deeply respected, he asked me a question that seemed absurd at the time: “What if everything we know about documents is about to become obsolete?” I dismissed it then. Today, I realize he might have predicted one of the biggest shifts in how we work since the invention of the printing press. Given I am now on the labor market for almost 20...
Read moreYou know that moment when you’re trying to explain something complex, and you stumble upon the perfect analogy? That happened to me during a weekend walk when I was pondering the true potential of generative AI. As someone who’s been neck-deep in the AI world since ChatGPT first dropped, I’ve been fascinated by its capabilities, limitations, and most importantly, its future potential. Let me paint you a picture that might resonate. Imagine Thomas Edison showcasing...
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Every question I asked had an answer. I didn’t expect that. I’ve been playing around with building my own iOS and watchOS application recently, a hobby project, nothing more. Evenings, weekends, stolen hours between dinner and bedtime. If it goes nowhere, it was a fun experiment and a really interesting learning experience. But as I worked through it, SwiftUI layouts, watchOS architecture, design patterns I’d never touched before, every single question I threw at generative Read more
I’ve been a Tana Outliner user for a while now, so when the team shipped a completely redesigned product, I had to take it for a serious spin. After two deep sessions, here’s my take: the new Tana is one of the most ambitious productivity tools I’ve seen — and it’s already delivering on several of its promises. A Quieter, Faster Interface The first thing you notice is how much calmer the interface feels. Gone Read more
The Accidental Developer: Why I Built a World Cup App for My Son It started simply enough. My son, who is almost nine, is completely swept up in World Cup excitement, talking constantly about Messi, Mbappe, and Vinicius Junior. I wanted to help him engage with that passion, so I suggested he find one of those poster rosters from a football magazine to fill in the scores and discuss them with his friends. Then I Read more
Well that turned out to be a miserable experience. Not at first though. At first, it felt great. I felt amazed. I was stunned by the power of generative AI. The development power I had access to now. And with the first results in the pocket, I started dreaming about what do do next. What to build next. How I could fit that new technology into my work. Into my private life. And then the Read more
Open your LinkedIn feed. Scroll for ten seconds. Do you feel that? That’s the “Beige Era.” It’s the sound of a billion voices saying exactly what you expected them to say, in exactly the tone you expected them to use. It is polite, it is efficient, and it is utterly, soul-crushingly boring. In November 2022, we thought the machine had finally learned to write. ChatGPT launched, and within weeks, we were all writing our Sinterklaas Read more
The sign on your wall is lying to you. You know the one: “Good, Fast, Cheap. Pick Two.”? For seventy years, this “Iron Triangle” hasn’t just been a project management tool; it’s been the ultimate corporate insurance policy. It was the valid excuse for every missed deadline, every bloated budget, and every mediocre delivery. It was a law of business physics. The comforting certainty that allowed us to shrug our shoulders when things went wrong. Read more
Picture this: You’re a seller. Maybe you’re selling standard products—nothing custom, nothing designed to order—just good old make-to-stock items sitting in your warehouse. Business is good. Orders are flowing. But your inbox? It’s a battlefield. Eighty percent of your emails are inbound sales orders. Same questions. Same requests. Same. Repetitive. Work. Every morning, you face the same choice: Spend three hours manually processing orders, or let customers wait. Your competitors? They’re responding in minutes. You’re Read more
Google’s $250 billion advertising empire is facing an existential threat—and ironically, it’s one they helped create. The search giant that defined how we navigate the internet may be engineering its own downfall through AI. Here’s why this matters to everyone who uses the internet. The Undisputed King of the Internet Let’s start with something we all know: Google is everywhere. It’s so ubiquitous that “to google” has become a verb in our everyday language. For Read more