The Dam Isn't Meant to Stop the Water
Most companies built a wall around AI, or nothing at all. Both fail the same way.
Practice Makes Permanence
AI strategy for leaders who would rather steer it than stop it.
Free. A short weekly read on practical AI strategy.
Why this exists
A wall, or nothing.
Most companies have built one of two things around AI. A wall, or nothing.
The wall is a memo that bans the tools. People keep using them anyway, on their phones, where nobody can see. Nothing looks like enthusiasm: licenses, pilots, and no one who can say what's running or who approved it.
Neither one works. This newsletter is about what does.
The idea behind it is simple. AI is a business problem, not a technology problem, and the structure to manage it already exists inside your company. Finance has approval chains. HR has reviews. Legal has sign-off. AI belongs behind the same gates.
What you'll get
One idea a week you can take into your next meeting.
- A weekly post. A three to five minute read on practical AI strategy for running a business: where to start, what to build, and what to stop doing.
- An email twice a month. The short version, and one question to bring to your next leadership meeting.
- Who it's for. CEOs, COOs, CFOs, HR and legal leaders, and board members who would rather steer AI than stop it.
Start here
The first three posts
Hire Your AI Like You Hire Your People
Regulators already treat AI like an employee. Your operations should too.
Shadow AI Is a Signal
Your employees are already showing you what works. Most companies punish them for it.
Earlier work
Research, essays and appearances
Before this newsletter, Chris published research reports and news-desk analysis, and talked through the same ideas on podcasts and stages.
AI Is a Business Problem.
AICT Research
We Audited 35 AI Leadership Postings. Here is What We Found.
Christopher Trocola on YouTube
Nobody Is Connecting These Four Dots
AI Pulse Media
Talk with Chris
Working through what to do about AI?
Book a 30-minute call with Chris to talk through where your company stands and what to do first.
Scheduled through Calendly. The call is by video.
Why the name
There is no such thing as perfect.
Not in business, not in leadership, and definitely not in AI. Anyone promising you a perfect AI rollout is selling you something.
But how you practice is how you will perform. You've heard "practice makes perfect." It doesn't. Practice makes permanence. Whatever you rehearse every day, good or bad, is what shows up when it counts.
Companies work the same way. If the daily habit is pasting client data into whatever free tool is open, that's what happens on the day it matters most. If the habit is checking the output, knowing who owns the decision and asking before connecting a new tool, that's what happens instead.
Nobody rises to the occasion. They fall back on what they've practiced.
Practice makes permanence.
Free
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