Why CTO Field Notes?
Observations from boardrooms, project rooms, and church halls.
I am a CTO. I spend my days working with CEOs, business unit heads, directors, and technology teams.
Outside of work, I serve in churches. There, I work with pastors, ministry leaders, volunteers, and members.
Over the years, I began to notice a pattern that appeared in both worlds.
The incentives are different.
The environments are different.
The language is different.
Yet the problems people grapple with are often the same.
People wrestle with purpose, influence, trust, ambition, identity, growth, failure, leadership, and change. Whether the setting is a boardroom, a project meeting, or a church gathering, the patterns often rhyme.
As I encountered these patterns, I started keeping notes.
Each observation became a field note.
Over time, some observations revealed recurring patterns.
Some patterns became hypotheses.
Some hypotheses were reinforced by experience, tested through conversations, or sharpened by ideas I encountered in books and other people’s stories.
Many remain unfinished questions.
These observations come from the different arenas I inhabit—technology, leadership, career growth, faith, family, and lifelong learning. Together, they form the field notes collected here.
They are not lessons.
They are not declarations of truth.
They are observations from the field.
Most of the time, I am not writing because I have reached a conclusion. I am writing because I have noticed something and I am trying to understand it. I am thinking out loud and inviting others into the conversation.
Perhaps the observation is right.
Perhaps it is incomplete.
Perhaps it is entirely wrong.
The only way to know is to examine it together.
If these notes help even one person think more clearly, lead more wisely, navigate a career more intentionally, or make sense of their own experiences, then they will have served their purpose.
Subscribe. Read. Question.
Most importantly, make your own field notes as you build your career and your life.