Steve Gradman

I want a time machine that only lets you go back to provide all the witty comebacks you think of way after the fact

@suzy_redd hard to believe

You guys want to hear a miracle? Flight from DFW to CLT was delayed 2-1/2 hours. When we finally landed, the flight attendant asked everyone to remain seated so the people with tight connections could get off the plane first. Not even a dozen people came up the aisle while the rest of us remained seated and quiet. When those people got off the plane we deplaned quietly and orderly. Hand to God.

The only emails I should be getting from the #Bears this week should be about beating the Packers

@gothburz This may be the best tweet of all time

Last quarter I rolled out Microsoft Copilot to 4,000 employees. $30 per seat per month. $1.4 million annually. I called it "digital transformation." The board loved that phrase. They approved it in eleven minutes. No one asked what it would actually do. Including me. I told everyone it would "10x productivity." That's not a real number. But it sounds like one. HR asked how we'd measure the 10x. I said we'd "leverage analytics dashboards." They stopped asking. Three months later I checked the usage reports. 47 people had opened it. 12 had used it more than once. One of them was me. I used it to summarize an email I could have read in 30 seconds. It took 45 seconds. Plus the time it took to fix the hallucinations. But I called it a "pilot success." Success means the pilot didn't visibly fail. The CFO asked about ROI. I showed him a graph. The graph went up and to the right. It measured "AI enablement." I made that metric up. He nodded approvingly. We're "AI-enabled" now. I don't know what that means. But it's in our investor deck. A senior developer asked why we didn't use Claude or ChatGPT. I said we needed "enterprise-grade security." He asked what that meant. I said "compliance." He asked which compliance. I said "all of them." He looked skeptical. I scheduled him for a "career development conversation." He stopped asking questions. Microsoft sent a case study team. They wanted to feature us as a success story. I told them we "saved 40,000 hours." I calculated that number by multiplying employees by a number I made up. They didn't verify it. They never do. Now we're on Microsoft's website. "Global enterprise achieves 40,000 hours of productivity gains with Copilot." The CEO shared it on LinkedIn. He got 3,000 likes. He's never used Copilot. None of the executives have. We have an exemption. "Strategic focus requires minimal digital distraction." I wrote that policy. The licenses renew next month. I'm requesting an expansion. 5,000 more seats. We haven't used the first 4,000. But this time we'll "drive adoption." Adoption means mandatory training. Training means a 45-minute webinar no one watches. But completion will be tracked. Completion is a metric. Metrics go in dashboards. Dashboards go in board presentations. Board presentations get me promoted. I'll be SVP by Q3. I still don't know what Copilot does. But I know what it's for. It's for showing we're "investing in AI." Investment means spending. Spending means commitment. Commitment means we're serious about the future. The future is whatever I say it is. As long as the graph goes up and to the right.

I’m actually in a band, yes, it’s real, and yes, we’re good (kinda). MEN ON THE MOON — R.E.M. tribute 📅 11/26 • 8 PM 📍 Wilmette Theater 💸 No cover Come scream “Losing My Religion” like your Thanksgiving depends on it. #REMTribute #REM #LiveMusicChicago

@jon_greenberg @danwiederer He was playing single deck at O’sheas

He definitely had a different blackjack dealer than me and @danwiederer had. (I'm also assuming he wasn't playing $25 hands at Paris.)

Someone on Reddit just dropped the perfect ChatGPT prompt for clear, accurate and straight answers:

This is the best restaurant chain in the world and it’s not close

I-L-L!

@kenzianidiot Following for benefits advice

my dad goes to a bar with his friends every friday and he makes a list of discussion topics pt 109

Is there a sadder place than the O’Hare terminal 2 baggage claim

@natiakourdadze Good stuff here

If you are a startup founder and hate marketing, this is how you can get users organically:

My @united pilot just walked into the cabin and asked this little kid if he knows how to get to our destination. Bro pulled out google maps and now they are going through it, turn by turn.

Cracker Barrel’s logo used to feel like home. Now it looks like it belongs on an enterprise SaaS invoice. Congrats on modernizing the soul right out of it.

@BradBiggs Finally

#Bears wrapped up a 2 hour, 2-minute practice that was the most physical in terms of live hitting that I've seen since early in the Lovie Smith era. They got after it today.

this toaster slaps and is 1/2 off: amzn.to/3U2Aiw9

@LasVegasLocally This post has 6.M views - this is why you have to empower your employees to make sounds decisions

A blackjack player betting $25,000 per hand at Resorts World was refused a comped strawberry banana smoothie because he didn't have a hotel room there. Bean counters, goofy algorithms, and incompetent casino executives are destroying Las Vegas.

@jackmac Show - Absinthe … eat: table in the bar at Pieros.

Going to Vegas today. Give me one thing I absolutely have to do, one place I absolutely have to eat at, and the one person I have to check in with.

This is too good

@headai_io @headai_io Can I get an invite? Would love to give it at shot at my professional services firm