In a world of glut, craft is king
For a long time, quality was the floor. Now it is becoming the ceiling.
mikaelOS
field notes / project lab
Writing
Essays, technical notes, lab journals and working papers from the MikaelOS project.
Small scale gardening and the art of local technology
In a world obsessed with global logistics and frictionless convenience, we have collectively misplaced our sense of agency.
Marketing: A Love-Hate Affair
There is a particular kind of exhaustion that only comes from loving something that keeps disappointing you. Marketing, for me, has been that thing.
The mind of a beginner is great
Because only afterwards do you know what it actually takes.
Why the world needs another language app
Most apps help people study language. Few help people enjoy books, podcasts, audiobooks and games in it as quickly as possible.
Elements of an awesome personal brand website
Most personal brand websites are glorified business cards. They contain a portrait, a short biography, a résumé and perhaps a few selected projects. They look polished, but they rarely leave …
My next application: Building the language learning tool I actually want to use
For years I have studied languages in a way that will be familiar to many serious learners: textbooks, notebooks, grammar tables, flashcards, audio courses and countless partially completed apps. Some …
What I believe in
I believe that the most meaningful work happens at the intersection of vision, craftsmanship and execution.
Thought leadership is (mostly) bullshit
Thought leadership is a relatively new corporate buzzword for an idea as old as commerce itself.
The tension of a creative playing software engineer
Or perhaps the software engineer was there all along
Open systems, European infrastructure and the quiet pleasure of building on your own terms
One of the more curious developments in modern software is that many organizations now build critical systems on foundations they do not fully understand, cannot meaningfully inspect and, in some …
Part 5 — The brand going forward
The most useful realization is that my professional identity does not need to be reduced to a conventional category.
Part 4 — Building the machine that explains the builder
The project began as a relatively conventional portfolio rebuild.
Part 3 — Personal branding as systems design
For years, personal branding felt vaguely artificial.
Part 2 — The polyglot, the generalist and the mad scientist
There is a particular expression people sometimes notice when discussing a sufficiently interesting problem. The eyes sharpen. Speech accelerates. Whiteboards begin to fill with improbable connections between organizational design, user …
Part 1 — The problem with being difficult to categorize
For most of my career, the central professional problem has not been a lack of capability. It has been a surplus of capabilities that do not fit neatly into a …