BilboConsult

Writing

Blog

Writing is how the thinking gets done; publishing is the by-product. Three tracks: leadership and transformation from the difficult room, intentional living, and architecture notes from building a personal AI operating system. Each track is a timeline — oldest on the left, newest on the right.

Track

Leadership

Transformation, crisis and governance — frameworks, pattern languages and the Hobbit series, from the difficult room.

Open the series

  1. Finding Your First Client — An Academic Paper Born from a Real Consulting Launch

    I have never been a very academic person. I haven’t studied at university, and I haven’t published an academic paper before.

    Read 4 min

  2. From Reflection to Jerisjärvi — Presenting at VikingPLoP 2026

    Six months ago, I had never written an academic paper. I had never presented at a conference. And I had never started a company.

    Read 2 min

  3. April, May, and a lot of forward motion

    April and May are turning out to be months I’ll remember for a long time. A lot has happened, more is coming, and I’ve been bad at writing about any of it.

    Read 2 min

  4. The Intentional Living Engine — Why Your Life Needs an Operating Model

    I’ve spent 40 years helping organisations design operating models — the systems, processes, and governance that make things actually work.

    Read 6 min

  5. An Unexpected Journey: People Development at the Foot of the Himalayas

    It is a curious thing about adventures: they do not arrive as adventures.

    Read 5 min

  6. The Unexpected Journey — Why Good Companies Resist the Change They Need

    Last December I posted an advent calendar on LinkedIn: twenty-four short reflections, each pairing a leadership principle with a moment from The Hobbit.

    Read 3 min

  7. The Tookish Side — The Unlikely Heroes Already on Your Payroll

    Tolkien gives Bilbo two inheritances. From his father’s side, the Baggins: respectable, predictable, suspicious of anything that might make you late for dinner.

    Read 3 min

  8. Riddles in the Dark — Walking Into the Meeting Everyone Said to Avoid

    The most famous chapter in The Hobbit has no battle in it. Bilbo is lost in the dark, deep under a mountain, facing a creature that means to eat him.

    Read 3 min

  9. Navigating Mirkwood — The Middle of Every Transformation Is a Dark Forest

    Before the company enters Mirkwood, Gandalf gives one instruction and then — infuriatingly — leaves: “Don’t leave the path.” Inside the forest there is no light and no sense of progress, and the path seems pointless.

    Read 4 min

  10. Barrel Riding — When the Rough Plan Is the Only One That Fits

    Bilbo’s escape from the Elvenking’s halls is not elegant.

    Read 3 min

  11. Sting Glows Blue — The Early Warnings Your Dashboards Don’t Show

    Bilbo’s sword Sting has one magical property: it glows blue when orcs are near. Not when they attack — when they approach.

    Read 3 min

  12. The Burglar’s Role — Why Thorin Didn’t Hire a Fourteenth Dwarf

    There is a detail in The Hobbit that is easy to read past. Thorin’s company doesn’t recruit Bilbo despite him not being a dwarf.

    Read 3 min

  13. The Arkenstone — The Treasure You Must Not Trade Away

    Under the Lonely Mountain lies a hoard beyond counting — gold, gems, mithril. And in the middle of it, one stone unlike the rest: the Arkenstone, the Heart of the Mountain.

    Read 3 min

  14. The Lonely Mountain — Go-Live Is Not the End of the Story

    Here is a structural fact about The Hobbit that most readers forget: the company reaches the Lonely Mountain — the destination, the goal of the whole quest — with nearly a third of the book still to go.

    Read 4 min

  15. There and Back Again — Bringing the Journey Home

    Bilbo’s own title for his memoirs was “There and Back Again.” Not “How I Helped Kill a Dragon.” The destination gets second billing; the return gets equal weight with the adventure.

    Read 4 min

Track

Intentional Living

The Faithfulness Coach series — building an operating model for a life lived on purpose.

Open the series

  1. The Intentional Living Engine — Why Your Life Needs an Operating Model

    I’ve spent 40 years helping organisations design operating models — the systems, processes, and governance that make things actually work.

    Read 6 min

  2. What the Pope’s AI Encyclical Says to Anyone Trying to Live Faithfully

    In my first post here, I described what I had been building quietly for several months: a Personal Operating Model — a structured system for living intentionally.

    Read 13 min

  3. Why I Stopped Calling It a Personal Operating Model

    In my last two posts I mentioned, almost in passing, that I had changed the name of the system I’ve been building.

    Read 6 min

  4. A Tool, Never a Master — What John Lennox Adds to the Faithfulness Coach

    In the last post I borrowed a story from John Lennox — the deepfake channel built in his name, the fabricated lectures his own audience believed — to sharpen a question I keep returning to: is your voice still yours?

    Read 6 min

  5. The Four Reviews That Keep a System Honest

    At the end of the naming post I said the review cadence would come next, “because that’s where a good system most often quietly fails.” I want to make good on that, because it’s true, and…

    Read 6 min

Track

Architecture Notes

Architecture decisions from building a personal AI operating system — context, decision, alternatives rejected, consequences.

Open the series

  1. Why I am writing this

    I have spent a long career in IT, designing operating models and running transformations where systems and organisations meet. Since October 2025 I do that independently, with my own small company.

    Read 2 min

  2. Four inboxes, one vault — and an assistant inside it

    In January my day started with a checklist: clear the OneNote inbox, the OneDrive inbox, Google Drive, iCloud. Four places where notes, receipts and half-finished thoughts landed, all to be visited before I could think about anything else.

    Read 5 min

  3. The stocktake — and the AI that interviewed me

    On 21 March, a month after the move to Obsidian, I wrote a status note titled "OM Restart" (OM for operating model, my name for the AI OS back then). It asked one question: what do I actually have?

    Read 5 min

Track

Journey

The BilboConsult consulting journey — honest reflections on building something new.

Open the series

  1. Starting a New Season

    Five months ago I registered BilboConsult as a company. At the time, I thought I was starting a business. I was wrong — or at least, I was thinking too small.

    Read 4 min

  2. Finding Your First Client — An Academic Paper Born from a Real Consulting Launch

    I have never been a very academic person. I haven’t studied at university, and I haven’t published an academic paper before.

    Read 4 min

  3. From Reflection to Jerisjärvi — Presenting at VikingPLoP 2026

    Six months ago, I had never written an academic paper. I had never presented at a conference. And I had never started a company.

    Read 2 min

  4. April, May, and a lot of forward motion

    April and May are turning out to be months I’ll remember for a long time. A lot has happened, more is coming, and I’ve been bad at writing about any of it.

    Read 2 min

  5. The Intentional Living Engine — Why Your Life Needs an Operating Model

    I’ve spent 40 years helping organisations design operating models — the systems, processes, and governance that make things actually work.

    Read 6 min

  6. An Unexpected Journey: People Development at the Foot of the Himalayas

    It is a curious thing about adventures: they do not arrive as adventures.

    Read 5 min

Archive

All posts

2026

Subscribe by RSS