Happy mid-April! It’s been a while since my last newsletter, so this is a little re-introduction and a look back at what I’ve been up to since last fall.

I’ve been living in Mexico for the last five months or so, and it’s been a welcome change of pace, in a lot of ways. As I write in the book Digital Accessibility Ethics (available May 6th wherever accessibility ethics books are sold), stress and burnout from working in tech had pushed me in to Stage 2 hypertension. My greatest victory from wintering in Mexico is that my blood pressure’s down about 30 points. I’ve been eating well, socializing lots, walking everywhere.

During that time, I learned something fascinating about doing solo coaching work. As long as I’m making content and posting regularly, I have a steady stream of people interested in what I have to offer. But as soon as I stop doing that, the new client requests just quietly glide to a halt. I could still work with existing clients until they were ready to move forward with their lives, but what I got in their place was something I also appreciated: quiet. As the appointments started to wind down, I got to coast for a while, and explore a new place more deeply. I can now make kickass salsa and okay tortillas. I even got a tan—a real rarity for a redhead like me.

I’ve just returned to the US for the sunny part of the year, and I’m getting back to writing and talking with people. The most important news is that office hours are returning on Thursday. I’m also working on launching my website, whose address is presently printed in thousands of books ready to go out in a few weeks. (Ah, the ticking clock: an ADHDer’s time to shine!) My main obstacle is that I have decided not to use AI in any form to create it, and I’ve never been fond of templates, which means I’ve been digging in to the latest and greatest in static site generation tools.

(For the record: I’ve only used generative AI once in this newsletter, as a jab at Jakob Nielsen. I’ll be writing up my ethical stance about my usage of it in content with my name on it, largely because I think it’s important for people who work with me to know how I treat our conversations and data. But for now, it’s safe to say that I will default to avoiding it to the greatest extent possible. All emdashes are my own work and I wear that with pride.)

As for what to expect going forward: I will be reopening my paid coaching sessions in the next few weeks. I have a few articles about workplace ethics and burnout near-ready, that I’ll be spacing out over the next month or so. I’m also working with a startup and a nonprofit in the disability space, and it’s likely that I’ll be adding more of those to the mix.

One new piece of the puzzle has to do with the adoption of generative AI and the concept of cognitive surrender—that is, the phenomenon of delegating higher-order thinking to AI models, and the mental atrophy and credulity that results. I’m not an “AIs will make nanobots that will liquefy our guts” doomer type, but the thought of large portions of every generation not being able to solve a brain teaser or determine truth from fabrication using their own brain cells does genuinely scare the hell out of me, and I believe that’s a crisis that requires more research. I think that what we accept, practice, and most importantly teach about AI has to have a grounding in enhancing, rather than sidelining, higher-order cognitive function, and I think there’s plenty of unexplored space here that needs covering. You can expect more of that here, and wherever else I can get published.

That’s all for now. This newsletter will return to essay format shortly. Thanks for hanging in there.

Office hours

…are available now! Grab ‘em while they’re hot. Thursday is the day of the week where I offer free 30-minute sessions to talk about your concerns with your work life. No strings attached. (Okay, one: I don’t pitch you on my services, and you don’t pitch me on your… anything.)

If none are available, fear not: new slots open up every weekend for the following Thursday.

Have a great week.