I've been working in IT for a long time and writing privately for most of them. This site is the part of that work I'm willing to put my name on in public.
The professional bio lives on LinkedIn. The company is at climbitsolutions.com. The travel work is on Our Hidden Compass. This site is where the writing goes — long-form notes on managed-services work, the AI tools I'm building for myself and for clients, and what running technology teams has taught me about which decisions actually matter.
A few things you should know before you read further:
I'm not a thought-leader. I don't have a course to sell you. I'm a working CTO running a small consulting practice — currently from wherever Courtney and I have parked between Florida and the next stop on the road. The writing here is what I'd say to a peer over coffee, not what I'd pitch from a stage.
I'm opinionated about tools. I think most software is bad, most "AI" products are wrappers around a single API call, and most consulting advice doesn't survive contact with a real business. I keep choosing Odoo, AWS Bedrock, and a handful of other things on purpose — I'll explain why in the posts that follow.
I write for two audiences. Some posts are for the technical reader who wants the architecture. Others are for the business owner who wants to know what to ask their IT person. I'll usually flag which one a post is in the first paragraph.
What's coming next. I've got four posts queued: how to run a managed-services practice when your office is on wheels; why I rebuilt my personal AI assistant from scratch on AWS Bedrock; why Odoo Enterprise quietly became the OS for the small businesses I work with; and the CIO playbook I use for a 20-person consultancy where the CIO is also the customer.
If any of that sounds useful, the best way to keep up is RSS or email — both are coming soon. Until then, feel free to reach out directly: [email protected].
Thanks for being here.
— Manuel