That’s the things you don’t know you don’t know problem.
And those blind spots?
They tend to bite back. Hard.
I’ve been an unemployed GenXer for 36 months, with 30 years across 8 design disciplines and 30 business sectors.
Flying face-first into ageism like it’s a sport.
Just wait until it’s your turn.
I’ll be watching from somewhere, laughing like a GenXer would.
While the C-suite has been clutching their pearls over AI finally showing up, I’ve been on the sidelines, and I’ve been busy.
I’m using AI as a collaborator, not a crutch, to build actual solutions to real workflow problems I’ve had for years.
Problems nobody solved that worked for me. So I solved them myself.
Here’s what I’ve shipped or is in the works:
- Local, private audio-to-text transcription.
Flawless. No cloud. No data leaks. No Cost. - Cloned my own voice privately and locally.
Now automating narration of my blog posts to generate a podcast alongside each one. Zero third-party dependency. No Cost. - A macOS → Notion screen capture bridge.
That cut my workflow from 6 clicks to 3. Multiply that by 50+ times a day. That’s real time back in your pocket. Also, no cost and on GitHub. - A Chrome extension to manage massive YouTube playlists
Prototype in early stages.
We’re talking thousands of videos. Every existing extension is underwhelming. Mine’s nearly ready for the Chrome Store. This also costs no money but my time. - A Gmail Filter Manager Chrome extension.
Prototype in early stages.
Because Gmail’s native filter UX is an embarrassment. This too is no cost. - HIT A BRICK WALL. Hardware, in the end, wouldn’t support it. So no “OpenClaw to be a force multiplier” on my old iMac 2017. 2 weeks. Poof!
- Jumping headfirst into personal agentic AI with all the enthusiasm of Web 1.0 in the 1990s with no YouTube or tutorials showing how it’s done.
- Installed Agent0 on an EC2 instance.
- Built a secure encrypted tunnel no one knows about (until now).
- Keeping all my data on my machine—privacy
- Compute is EC2 with Ollama running open-source models of my choosing
- Agent0 leverages Ollama on the server and we’re in business
None of these solutions existed at all or in a form that worked for me.
I didn’t have the necessary and precise coding chops before now. I do know what I want and how to ask for it.
So, without any data to prove this, just an anecdotal gut feeling, I likely have fewer iterations overall to make any of this happen in short order.
What I do have is three decades of designing software and solving unique challenges from nothing but a problem, a complaint, or a broken process.
Turns out that’s most of the job.
Imma keep building and making things.
Creating an analog product at the moment and hope to have it online soon.
More later.
#GenX #WastedMarketCap #AICollaboration #ProductDesign #OpenToWork