Writer, software engineer, author of Human Software. Thinking about the humans behind the systems.
The Human Software 274 - Meet the Team
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Just like "Parts Unlimited" in "The Phoenix Project" - a good tech story needs an interesting company to base its story upon. So over the last week I put together a little corporate website for Gerbach Inc. On it you can meet some of the leadership team and find out a little more about what Gerbach does and where it does business. Gerbach's head office is based in Sandport in the UK. Sandport is a fictional town based on Sandwich in Kent - my hometown. Since the 1950s there was a large firm based in Sandwich - Pfizer. Pfizer supports and supported the town in many ways economically until it gradually started to scale back operations. Over decades it's been both an economic lifeline and an economic worry for local residents. In places like Sandwich, businesses rely upon the money that particulalry international firms bring to the area - richer people from foreign places spend money in small towns. I've based some of the events in Human Software on what happens to those who rely on this money when it's suddenly threatened. Another thing happened this week, I received the edits back from my editor! I need to go through those over the next month, complete proofreading and then upload it to leanpub. We're almost there folks! As always, have a great Sunday and if I don't speak to you again before the end of August, have a great vacation period. You can browse the Gerbach website here. Cheers No one Knows How These Systems Are Supposed to WorkPublished on July 24, 2025 I’m on a call where it’s obvious that no one knows how to fix this system, because no one is confident in their understanding of it. How many times have you been on that call? When everyone is standing back, allowing someone to come forward naturally. So rather than someone steps forward, everyone else (audibly)… Read More »No one Knows How These Systems Are Supposed to Work
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The Human Engineer
Writer, software engineer, author of Human Software. Thinking about the humans behind the systems.
The After (at the back) I finally headed back to work this week. Over the last few months, I've often felt like I was going around in the circles and that, in fact, was quite close to the truth. I first posted on LinkedIn that I was "Open to Work" at the start of November it's taken about six months to land a new gig. Why so long? A few things. I'm older, there's AI, and it is a tough market but at the beginning I certainly had plenty of interest both from the network and from recruiters....
It's amazing how dependent we are on paperwork even in 2026. I spent a few hours this week printing forms, signing them, scanning them, uploading them. Automation has brought us so far ... and yet. I tried to use Claude to help me design some shelves above the washing machine and honestly it was easier just to use my own head. AI is sometimes an exhausting tool to use. One of those forms was for a new job — starting in a couple of weeks. More on that soon. The bigger news: Human Software has...
Conference season hit Amsterdam last month with the global juggernaut that is Kubecon but I eschewed the noise of that particular enormous techie event and went instead to the writer-friendly event "Stories Unfold" at Amsterdam's OBA theatre. This was a very pleasant evening giving a selection of self-published and traditionally published authors a stage to share the stories behind their books and also highlighted a new compilation of short stories. The audience was very much made up of...