Blog
Somewhat-weekly thoughts on automation.
No AI is harmed in the creation of our content.
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Fix the source data
Automation is a lot like an employee on their first day (in a good way). They know nothing, do exactly what you say, and work hard to earn your trust. Needless to say, those similarities drift apart over…
Automate to eliminate errors
When humans are doing computer work, errors are always going to happen. You could have on your team the best order keyer in the world (they won the Order Keying Championship the last five years in a…
Just start
If you’ve been busy creating meaningful AI and software automations in your company, this post isn’t for…
Automate stuff that you check
What’s something you check every day? Sales figures? KPIs? Production quantities? Ticket…
AI won’t take your job
With how fast AI is developing, it’s impossible to predict how capable it’ll be in two years, let alone ten. However, there’s one thing it’ll never replace: selling in Australasia. Kiwi and…
Don’t use AI for meaningful communication
I get heaps of AI fatigue. I think it’s a byproduct of working in software. You’re constantly exposed to endless AI-generated content: email and text communications, images, blog articles. It’s…
Get your automation ideas unstuck
Around half of the people I talk to about automation these days have already begun experimenting with their own builds. They’re deeply lost in the Claude or Lovable sauce, performing a sort of…
Automate to enable, not to replace
When most people think about automation, they think about what it’ll do TO their…
Stop typing stuff
Think about what you type in a day. It’s probably mainly communicative stuff like messages and emails. You can automate messages and emails, but AI emails suck so you probably shouldn’t. Unless they…
Time and headspace
There’s a common theme when I talk to people about software automation. They’d love to do it but they don’t have the time or headspace to think about it (there’s heaps of other stuff happening in…
Where’s time being spent?
Pick a team, a role or even a person in your business. Where is the bulk of their time being spent? If it’s not something physical like order picking or governance-based like QC, it probably can be…
Stop keying sales orders
What happens when a sales order hits your email inbox? If they are jumping automatically into your ERP via a b2b portal, EDI or other automation, great. Click off this blog post and go back to…
One way to be better than your competitors
Nearly everyone in business has competition. Unless you sell stuff that no one wants. Stuff like lemonade sandwiches or tickets to a Chiefs game. Consequently, you’re probably always trying to think…
Native integrations are cool but underused
When I’m talking to a new lead, one of the first conversation topics is their existing software stack. Once we know what software someone’s using, we’ll know how easy it’ll be to integrate and…
“We’re too busy for automation right now”
“This is awesome but we’re much too busy for it, try us in six…
Violently chundering a few thoughts about AI
AI fatigue is real. Everyone and their dog and their dog’s dog seems to be spewing about it everywhere these days. Not only that - every second piece of content online is AI-generated, rendering your…
Be lazier
Do less hack work. It means you can do more work that contributes directly to growing your business. Or you can be lazy and go play golf more. You might be unable to break 100 through 18 holes, but…
Stop hating your software
Picture your ERP in your head. If it makes you happy (giggle and kick your feet), this post isn’t for you and you can go back to doomscrolling or doing your cave drawings or whatever. If you…
Just because AI can, doesn’t mean it should
I met an operations manager from a construction company this week. Let’s call him Darren (because that’s his name). Darren had been a prospect for a few weeks and we’d sussed a time to meet at his…
If you don’t enjoy work, automate it
Do you enjoy every online task you do at work? Great, you can close this tab and go back to watching wahs highlights. If you don’t, you should get it…
Use basic software and build it out
80% of business owners and decision makers I talk to about automation hate at least one piece of software in their business. However, they never change or improve it because it’s doing the bare…
Size doesn’t matter
The word ‘automation’ is often perceived as a revolutionary project that will turn a business on its head for a month, like putting in a new ERP or doing a cloud migration. Conversely, I encourage…
You should have done automation yesterday
“But that’s what an automation firm would say.” Correct. It’s going to help our business. However, it’s also going to help…
How to add value in a world of AI
I’ve been talking to a client recently who keeps identifying more and more opportunities for automation in his business. After all, automation is a drug. He’s also super hooked on Anthropic’s Claude,…
Automation is a drug
The first thing I ever automated was SMS follow-up messages to contacts in a lead bank. Instead of the admin team going through their call list and sending a text whenever a lead didn’t answer their…
I tried OpenClaw
I hated it heaps. I think it’s because I like being in control of everything happening on my laptop and at my company. If you don’t like doing work on a computer, and don’t get rage baited by prose…
Corporate buzzwords
We’ve reached a point in society where saying the right combination of words and letters can earn you more respect than fixing actual problems. By no means does this apply to everyone - I’m primarily talking big corporate companies…
AI shouldn’t replace your staff
It should enable them. It should 2x, 5x or 50x their productivity. Staff, and especially good staff, are the most valuable resource in your business, and likely always will be. Stop thinking of AI as a staff member; think of…
Over-automation
How much automation is too much? You’d expect us to say that there’s no limit - it’ll help us get more sales, right? However, I believe that it’s possible to over-automate a business to the point that it’s hog-tied by software…
How we automate stuff
Good automation feels like magic. It’s identifying a thing that you’re doing manually, and designing a workflow to make it happen in the background so you never have to think about it again. There are heaps of different ways to do…
Automation isn’t nuclear
It can be. It can be tiny. Automation is whatever size you want it to be. It’s like the Lego cars we built years ago; some were tiny and included only the bare essentials to operate as a car, while some were gigantic and used every…
‘we need to get AI in our business’
AI is everywhere today. Every piece of software you use has jumped aboard the AI train and now offers an AI service, whether that’s a chatbot assistant (most common), AI-powered navigation, writing suggestions, meeting recordings and more…