When I was a teenager, I’d lie on the bed in my room, listening to a record by New Order or Depeche Mode (proud synth geek), trying to figure out, “How did they do that part?"
I had a kitschy Casio keyboard with built-in speakers and cheap sounds. I’d play the record and try to duplicate the part, playing it again and again, trying to figure out the chords or the melody line. At some point, I got a cassette recorder, and I’d record myself playing one part, then play it back over while recording the layered performance on a dictaphone. These were my first attempts at composition.
Oh man, was it bad! Thankfully, the tapes are long gone. I’m sure they’re beyond embarrassing. But it was a start. I was a tinkerer and a builder. A creator.
Fast forward to a few months ago. I’ve spent 25-plus years in consulting. A good part of my work is interpersonal and relational, helping groups understand one another, listen, find common ground, and develop shared strategies. I do a lot of interviews, workshops, and presentations.
But there’s a pretty deep analytical side, too, sifting through data, financials, strategies, and trends to uncover insights. My wingman in that work for the last 20 years has been Tableau, a data visualization platform. When Salesforce acquired Tableau a few years back, service went down, prices went up, and updates became less interesting.
I kept telling myself, “I wish I could find a better replacement.” Once in a while, I’d muse, “Or maybe I could build one myself."
Three months ago, I set up an account at Lovable, one of the new agentic coding platforms. In a single evening at the Delta Sky Club during a delayed flight, I built a replacement for one of my client’s customer portals.
I felt something. It felt like high school. “Wow."
After that early victory, I decided I didn’t want to use someone else’s project management system — I wanted my own. In about a week, I built one, and now all of More For Many’s tasks and projects run through it. It’s not built around how another company thinks I might want to work, or should work. It’s built around how I actually work.
Then I set my sights on Tableau. We’re now live with More For Many Knowledge Explorer, a custom-built analytics and information platform. It does everything we need in Tableau, but unlike Tableau, Knowledge Explorer also includes Monte Carlo analysis, mapping, and a simulation engine. And it also has a growing, searchable library of our past client deliverables. Amazing. That’s after about 20 hours of work that didn’t feel like work, and roughly $70 in tokens versus $1,000 a year for Tableau.
The financial ROI is astounding, but the creativity ROI — that feeling of experiencing “Holy smokes, anything is possible,” every day — has been priceless for my engagement and motivation.
It’s just. So. Fun.
If you’ve gotten this far, you’ll notice I’ve written this entire email without using the words “Artificial Intelligence.” But here we are.
I know there are real and potentially negative repercussions to this transformation. It truly would have been disorienting to be a farrier in 1910.
But it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t also see how profound the positives could be. Part of it is lived experience. Meaning, I’ve lived through so many examples of how new technologies can be enablers for good. (One example: I’m old enough that when I was a teenager, there was one computer lab at our high school, and we had to pair up with another student to use a terminal. Now, 90% of middle and high school students are issued a laptop. And don’t get me started on the card catalog!)
What if there’s a lot of good that’s going to come from this latest revolution, too? Only that doesn’t get people to click on news stories, so we hear about it a lot less?
I think of all the young entrepreneurs, founders, builders, kids with a dream, people who see the potential for something better in their communities, and I wonder: What will they make?
I think we’ll find that human creativity and judgment become more valuable, not less, as these tools mature.
The path for you to write your song, make your painting, research your topic, edit your novel, build your app, or start your company has never been shorter.
What’s your idea?
We are truly at a time where we’re only limited by our own creativity. If you’re on the fence, sign up for Lovable or Replit or Google AI Studio or something similar and just ask, “What should I build today?"
If you’re a creator, it’s never been easier to bring your ideas to life. And if you’re not a creator, it’s never been easier to become one.
Hope you’re well.
Keep creating.
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