Posts by Michael Earls
When the World Stops Working
A Microsoft 365 outage and an FAA ground stop in the same week. Both came down to communication breaking down. What we do when the tools go quiet is a leadership question.
Read MoreNoise Gets Expensive: The Digital Compass in Tim Hughes’ Executive Leadership Playbook
Tim Hughes named The Digital Compass to his Executive Leadership Playbook. Why speed without direction becomes expensive noise, and how to fix it.
Read MoreThe Human Firewall Has Office Hours
Your security is only as strong as your most exhausted employee. Why cognitive load, shadow AI, and calendar overload are a leadership problem, not a tech one.
Read MoreWe Defunded the Road, Then Blamed People for the Detour
Shadow AI isn’t a discipline problem. Companies cut IT modernization to fund AI, so the approved path got slower exactly as the workaround got better.
Read MoreThe Three Laws Were Never Written for the Robots
AI agent guardrails aren’t about trusting the model. A BGP outage I caused taught me the real question: what can it reach, and who can drop the traffic?
Read MoreThe Company You Keep: On My First Book Making Tim Hughes’ Executive Bookshelf
When one of the most respected voices in modern leadership names your first book to his Executive Bookshelf alongside Charlene Li and a former Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Joint Chiefs — that is a moment worth stopping for.
Read MoreYou Can’t Expedite a Person
We model power, water and GPUs. The data center workforce shortage is the constraint nobody forecasts — and it has the longest lead time of them all.
Read MoreLook Up: Twenty-Five Years Since the Sky Went Quiet
My daughter was six weeks old on 9/11. Twenty-five years later, my 9/11 memories: the second plane, an empty sky, and why these stories must be told.
Read MoreWhen Losing the Signal Helps You Find What Matters
A first visit to Norris Lake with old friends reminds us to unplug, make time for friendship, and enjoy the moments that matter. Be Human First.
Read MoreFifteen Feet: What a Plane Crash Taught Me About Being Human
Three people survived a plane crash 15 feet from my home. Three years later, it remains a powerful reminder of human judgment, training and instinct in the age of AI.
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