Search across everything I write and publish.
This page pulls together doctrine, guides, blog posts, field notes, and other artifacts into one place. Use the search bar to look up a phrase or idea, and the content-type filter to toggle between deep-dive doctrine, shorter reflections, and more informal notes. If you’re trying to connect dots across topics – portfolio, architecture, family, training, systems – this is the fastest way to see how it all fits together.
Visual language
Pages use a small colored bar under the header as a quick orientation cue.
- Gold is for doctrine – the core principles and patterns.
- Green is for Field Notes – stories, experiments, and examples from the field.
- Blue is for services – capability statements and ways we can work together.
- Red is for Routes – guided paths when you are under pressure and need traction
The goal is to make it easy to see whether you are reading philosophy, practice, or an offer.
Field Note: When Everyone Uses the Same Words But Means Different Things: Why Integration Fails When Vocabulary Collapses
The previous Field Note (Integration Confusion) diagnosed the pattern: why we keep building technical connectors but getting operational chaos. This note provides the vocabulary to understand the root cause. It connects the abstract concepts from Annex…
Field Note: The Integration Confusion Stumbling Block
We have never been more ‘integrated’ …we have APIs, connectors, and automated flows, yet we still rely on a recurring 50-person meeting to find out what is actually happening. Why? Editor’s Note: This Field Note…
Field Note: The Benchtop Fallacy: Why Inventory Is Not Capability
Scene: The Shelf That Keeps Getting Deeper There is a moment every builder hits where the shelf stops being a shelf. It turns into an archive. Then it turns into a museum. Then it turns…
Regime Recognition and the Cost of Asymmetric Errors: When Post-Hoc Learning Beats Theory-First
Scene: Dreaming in German I’m describing a pattern: capability-first builds operational tools, and post-hoc theory provides handles that make those tools transferable. I started dreaming in German. Not just thinking in German during conversations or…
Reclaiming the Right to Orchestrate: Decision Altitudes and Why Your Chisel Doesn’t Give You the Right to Judge My Output
The Opening Salvo: A Standard of Mutual Sovereignty Let me be clear: this is not a field note about the inferiority of manual craft. I have a bone-deep respect for the “Chisel Purist.” My lineage…
Field Note: Handbook vs Terrain – When Constraint Forecasting Failed and Indications Won
Why this note exists While this archive is not a platform for news or the churn of current events, it is a space for mapping the mechanics that drive them. This note emerged from a…
Field Note: The Human Cost of Interoperability (and the Legal Cost of Speed)
Scene It’s 11:30 AM. The brief is tomorrow morning. The overlap window is midday, because that’s when everyone can attend. The cost is not overtime. The cost is prime mission hours. They are sitting in…
Field Note: The Gift of Weaponized Compliance
Scene: Willamette Valley, Oregon (2010) I had been a supervisor for maybe a week when I met him. He was retiring in about 30 days after a 40-year Forest Service career. He was the union…
Doctrine 24: Stewardship Places the Burden on the Steward, Not the Parties
Stewardship vs. Optimization: Preserving What Cannot Be Allowed to Fail Why mission-critical systems require stewards, not just managers Organizations optimize for efficiency. Leaders optimize for performance. Stewards optimize for preservation of mission-critical capability. The distinction…
Field Note: Compass-X Recognition Patterns and Strategic Framing
Scene I have sat in too many conference rooms where a GS-15 or Senior Executive asks their team: “Why can’t the dashboard just show us this?” and someone mumbles “We’re working on it” and everyone…
Field Note: Sorting the 20-Year Backpack
Or: When your tools only work if you’re the one carrying them and using them Scene It’s December 2025. I’m looking at five CSV exports of my own site (representing five individual, but interlinked tables)…
Doctrine 09 Companion: Artifacts Over Adjectives
Doctrine Companion to Decision Altitude There is a quiet lie that shows up in a lot of org charts and LinkedIn profiles. We act like skills live in adjectives. These words float near job titles…
The Loudest Listener: When Interviews Become Something Else
A field note on mission preservation and the ethical obligation of the operator. When you ask questions that reveal painful truths, you have an obligation to leave people with their dignity. Schemas make that possible….
Field Note: Guided Sensemaking Interview
Why external elicitation reveals what self-review cannot Trying something new (let me know if it works for you). Moving forward, field notes on this site follow a three-part structure: Scene (the experience), Break (the friction…
Model vs. Terrain: Bridging the Interface Void on the Merritt Parkway
Ground Truthing Wireless Coverage Through CW Drive Testing The Contact Event: Reality vs. The Propagation Model Between late 2005 and early 2007, I was pulled into a problem that felt immediately familiar (wireless coverage modeling…
FAQ
FAQ: How to Read and Use This Site How this site works, and why it’s built this way. This FAQ explains the philosophy behind this site. It exists to clarify why things are structured the…
Seeing the Dragon: The Magic Eye of Modern Governance
Governance, hype cycles, and the vocabulary that quietly runs the world The short version We usually experience technology waves from the surface. But as practitioners, we have to see the layer underneath: the rules and…
Doctrine 03 Companion: The RS-CAT Framework: Converting Raw Recall into Teachable Principle
Doctrine Claim: Knowledge transfer in mission-critical environments is a process of signal extraction, not information dumping. The RS-CAT Framework is the specific methodology used to bypass the “Expert Blind Spot,” the psychological reality where a…
Doctrine 03 Companion: The Interface Void
Doctrine Claim: High-resolution mental models are a dangerous luxury when they have never been tested against a low-resolution reality. The Interface Void is the technical debt of unearned knowledge: it is the gap between a…
Doctrine 03 Companion: Constraints: bidirectional translation: Compression vs Construction
This Doctrine Companion guide presents different ways of thinking and different structures to fit those needs. Constraint 1: Construction Before Compression Some thinkers require time to construct the model before they can accurately compress it…
Field Note: “I already know that” and “I disagree” are learning kill switches
Scene I am watching capable adults in a room full of useful information. These are not beginners. They are smart, experienced people who can execute under pressure. And yet, the learning stops cold on two…
Field Note: The Lab and the Line
From Spectral Signatures to Ground Truth (The 2002 Revelation) My formal training was designed for the Strategic Peak of research. As a GIS and remote sensing scientist, I was taught to observe the world from…
Why This Site Has Four Navigation Systems
In parochial school, we were supposed to carry a notepad and record our assignments. If you were inspected without it, you received a demerit. I never kept the notepad. I forgot one assignment in seven…
Doctrine 11 Companion: Agency vs. Outcome
Companion to Numbered Doctrine 11: Preventive and Contingent Action In a Contact Environment, the system always has a vote. Whether you are managing a fire line, a medical crisis, or a crashing server, reality possesses…
Field Note: Defining “Operator”
The term “Operator” has been co-opted by tactical aesthetics. But its true value isn’t found in gear or martial skill. It’s found in the relationship to Contact with Reality – the interface between intent and…
Contact
I’m available for consulting, speaking, and specific project engagements related to: What I’m Not Available For To save us both time: If you’re not sure whether your inquiry fits, err on the side of reaching…
Pattern-Matching as Operational Knowledge: Why Expertise Requires Documentation
Or: What Rock Climbing Taught Me About How All My Work Actually Functions The Realization I was writing about bouldering recently. How practicing hard moves close to the ground lets you build muscle memory and…
Figure Library
Search captions and filter by type to find the chart you remember.
Field Note: Integration Debt vs Temporal Arbitrage
Pattern: Organizations apply integration thinking (centralize, standardize, control inputs) to problems requiring federation thinking (distribute, verify outcomes, govern at service layer). This creates governance theater while actual capability and control evaporate through shadow systems. Context:…
ROUTE 02: If decisions stall and meetings go nowhere, start here
What this route does in 10 minutes You’ll understand why decisions drag, identify what decision altitude is appropriate for your situation, and know how to clarify decision ownership and intent so progress can resume. Start…
ROUTE 03: If you have lots of projects but no portfolio clarity, start here
What this route does in 10 minutes You’ll understand why busy teams don’t equal valuable outcomes, identify what actually matters in your portfolio, and know how to create visibility so leadership can make informed resource…
ROUTE 04: If you’re confused about federation vs integration, start here
What this route does in 10 minutes: You’ll understand when to federate and when to integrate, identify which control pattern matches your constraints, and know whether to prioritize flexibility or tight coupling for your specific…