Signal, Not Noise.

Strategy, insights, and real talk from the people doing the work. No fluff — just what we're seeing, learning, and building.

25 Posts

Kelli Upshur Adds Color, With Feeling

From hand-coded GeoCities pages to retail packaging and responsive design systems, Kelli Upshur has built her career by centering the person on the other side of the pixels.

Art Direction
Product Design
UI/UX Design

Up Past Midnight

Three nights of AI doom news, three lab leaders asking for a brake, and a Friday debate with a dozen members who use AI every day. Five things I’m doing to stay sharp -- and keep building -- while the people who build this argue about the brakes.

AI Perspectives
Leadership
Ways of Working

The End of the World Can Wait Until After Dinner

Pat Conreaux grew up in a house where the end of the world was always due before dinner. It never came. His mother’s rule for every panic at the table -- that can wait until after dinner -- turns out to be the sharpest answer he has to AI doom.

AI Perspectives
Change Management
Creative Leadership

MotR Won’t Cheat the Fun Part

Twenty-one years after founding Millions of tiny Robots, Jack Ehrbar and Andrew Weidenhammer still say yes to unfamiliar work — and then deliberate about how to do it.

Game Development
Creative Technology
Interactive Experiences

Claudia Lalau Doesn't Choose Between Craft and AI

An AI director, educator, and Sageworx member with two decades of post-production expertise, Claudia is building commercials, features, and a new kind of classroom around one stubborn conviction: generation is no replacement for direction, and realism is no replacement for emotion.

AI Filmmaking
Creative Direction
Post-Production

Andrew Waters Stays Ahead of the Machine

Andrew Waters texts solutions to coworkers from the middle of a mountain bike trail. Twenty years of identity, UX, and photography for Turner Sports, Warner Media, and Hyatt taught him where the magic lives: in the process, the one thing AI can’t hand you. He has fed his own photographs to the machine and watched it fail. He’s delighted.

Creative Direction
Brand Design
UX Design

Ann Marie Almariei Sees the Future From the Inside

Ann Marie Almariei (pronounced al-mar-YAY) has spent her career pursuing whatever’s next, learning systems from the inside and turning that knowledge into better creative decisions, stronger communities, and a way forward for everyone around her.

Generative AI
Community Strategy
Brand Innovation

The Old Manual Was Right

AI can read your data. It still can't read the room, and that gap is what makes EQ one of the most valuable skills in business right now.

M-Shaped Talent
Emotional Intelligence

Harris Davis Gets to the Idea Beneath the Brief

Harris Davis has spent 30-plus years refining his craft, knowing the ideas that feel most effortless take the most work – and the strongest line often follows the hardest questions. It started with a steakhouse ad.

Copywriter
Creative Director
Generative AI

How Kathryn Jones Is Rewiring the Future of Media

From NYC's first podcasting conferences to AI-native production systems — Kathryn builds the workflows that make high-end creative possible at new price points, without losing the human story at the center.

Media Production
Creative Production
AI Systems

The Aviator, the Poet, and the Singer

What Roland Garros and friends teach us about the networks that live beyond us.

M-shaped
Members
Network Effect

Holding Companies Aren't Being Out-Created. They're Being Out-Structured.

An argument about org design, AI economics, and why purchasing agencies can't close the gap.

Creative Ops
Agency Model
Holding Cos

Virtual Production Isn't Coming to Mid-Market Brands. It's Here.

North America now has 120+ permanent LED volume stages. Four techniques mid-market brands can use right now -- and why pre-production and post-production are becoming the same job.

AI & Innovation
Production
Virtual Production

75% of Marketers Are Using AI. The Winners Will Out-Human the Rest.

The adoption gap isn't the problem. It's the opportunity.

AI Automation
Experiential Marketing

AI Just Created a Role and We Can't Agree What to Call It.

Cannes just rewarded invisible AI craft. The market is rejecting visible AI spectacle. Five major shops are hiring for the same role under five different titles. Why M-shaped talent is the only profile that fits.

AI & Innovation
Talent Strategy
Creative Development

"No AI" Is the New Greenwashing

The "No AI" label is not a proof of quality. It is a proof of anxiety. And we have seen this movie before.

Generative AI
Branding

Teams That Last

Faded jerseys. Lasting bonds. And what the hard seasons actually build in sports and in the workplace.

Org Strategy
Team Building

M-Shaped: Why Three Peaks Beat One

Depth plus breadth used to be the standard when searching for talent. Now it’s the starting point.

Talent Strategy
Team Design
AI & Innovation

How "In Case of Death" Earned a Macworld Story

A smart ring. A face-rip gag. A Macworld feature. None of it happened the way you’d expect.

Creator Strategy
Campaign Design
Earned Media

A Viral Moment Is a Starting Line, Not a Finish Line

Sydney Sweeney auctioned her bathwater and the internet collectively lost its mind.

Creator Marketing
Strategy
Brand Campaigns

What Nobody Sees: Building a Campaign From Nothing

Behind every polished campaign is the part nobody talks about—this is that story.

Production · Independent Makers · Behind the Scenes

What Happens After the Launch Event?

What if the real product isn’t the product—but the community around it?

Community Strategy
Loyalty
Content
Retention

The Marks of the Climb

What the St. Louis Cardinals reset can teach brands about legacy, trust, and reinvention in the age of AI.

Brand Strategy
Modernization

Behind the Brief: Putting the Sageworx Strategic Process To Work

How a strong brief sets the tone and keeps teams focused from start to finish.

Process

Not a Relay. A Mission.

Why great creative work keeps losing its center — and what to do about it.

Creative Development
Organizational Strategy