I am designing a hands-on AI workshop for business leaders. Ninety minutes. Most of the audience had never opened an AI tool. The goal: get them from zero to literate in the time it takes to watch a movie. My first instinct was that 33 weeks of documented AI learning gave me more than enough… Continue reading AI for the Over 40 – Week 34: The Four Skills Behind Every AI Conversation
Category: AI & Copilot
AI for the Over 40 – Week 33: Why AI Won’t Replace ERP (And What It Actually Threatens)
One of our salespeople asked me to join an upcoming prospect meeting. The prospect had a question they wanted answered before moving forward with an ERP evaluation: Why should we invest in an ERP system if AI is going to replace it? My first reaction was to laugh. Not at the prospect, at the question. After 32 weeks of working intensively… Continue reading AI for the Over 40 – Week 33: Why AI Won’t Replace ERP (And What It Actually Threatens)
AI for the Over 40 – Week 32: The Below-the-Line Work AI Finally Makes Possible
A few weeks ago, an employee asked me a reasonable question: how could they know how many times they had submitted late time over the past year? We had been publishing weekly late and missing time reports for years. The data existed, dozens of spreadsheets sitting in my inbox as email attachments. I did not… Continue reading AI for the Over 40 – Week 32: The Below-the-Line Work AI Finally Makes Possible
AI for the Over 40 – Week 31: The Paradox of Expertise: What If You’re Hallucinating Too?
For most of my 23-year career as a Microsoft Business Central partner, the right answer really was Microsoft. When a client asked whether to build a custom feature inside Business Central or integrate with an outside platform, the answer was almost always build it in. That was not spin. On-premise integrations were limited, expensive, and… Continue reading AI for the Over 40 – Week 31: The Paradox of Expertise: What If You’re Hallucinating Too?
AI Over 40 Series – Week 30: AI Adoption Barriers: When Information Isn’t Enough
A few months ago, I suggested to my wife that we could use AI to help us communicate better with each other. It got shut down fast and hard. I want you to sit with that for a second. Not because the rejection surprised me. It did not, not really. What stayed with me was… Continue reading AI Over 40 Series – Week 30: AI Adoption Barriers: When Information Isn’t Enough
AI for the Over 40 – Week 29: AI Context Management: What Happens When You Hit the Ceiling
I almost could not write this article. Not because I did not know what to say, but because the tool I was using to write it kept breaking mid-sentence. I was running into max compaction errors, “response could not be fully generated” messages, and conversations that stopped dead with no clear explanation and no obvious… Continue reading AI for the Over 40 – Week 29: AI Context Management: What Happens When You Hit the Ceiling
AI for the Over 40 – Week 28: When “Required” Doesn’t Mean “Unchangeable”
Every organization has them: the activities nobody really believes in, but everyone participates in anyway. Performance reviews. Strategic planning cycles. Compliance training. Budget reconciliation rituals. The annual or recurring processes that consume enormous time and energy while everyone involved quietly acknowledges they are not producing what they are supposed to produce. We complain about them.… Continue reading AI for the Over 40 – Week 28: When “Required” Doesn’t Mean “Unchangeable”
AI for the Over 40 – Week 27: Building Your Own AI Career Development Partner
What if performance management evidence was collected by you throughout the year instead of about you during annual review season? Last month, I sat down to complete my self-evaluation. I’ve been through some version of this exercise for more than two decades across multiple companies. As I stared at the screen, I realized something uncomfortable:… Continue reading AI for the Over 40 – Week 27: Building Your Own AI Career Development Partner
AI for the Over 40 – Week 26: AI Research Strategy Starts Before You Research
I’ve been trying to decide when to use Microsoft 365 Copilot versus Power Automate versus Zapier. Not a simple feature comparison. I wanted a decision framework that could help me determine which tool fit which scenario — and when a hybrid approach made the most sense. A few years ago, that kind of research project… Continue reading AI for the Over 40 – Week 26: AI Research Strategy Starts Before You Research
AI for the Over 40 – Week 25: 3 Shifts for AI Leadership Transformation
My daughter convinced me to try a Zumba class to start the new year. I was mildly nervous about being the only man in the room, but I figured I could survive the embarrassment to prove to my daughter I was willing to try something new. As it turns out, being the only man in… Continue reading AI for the Over 40 – Week 25: 3 Shifts for AI Leadership Transformation