Reimagining Friend of a Friend

Years ago, I enjoyed the serendipity of FOAF files. Today, I’m letting my Claude Virtual Assistant FOAF for me.

Putting Guardrails on my Claude

I run dozens of routines with several AI models every day and I want to enforce constraints on them to (1) prevent hallucinations and (2) reduce token usage. One of the tactics I use involves setting guardrails through Maps of Content.

Time-saving widgets and slide deck piping

I validated two important time-saving skills today. The first is I discovered I spend less time doom scrolling when I have a direct link to my Obsidian Daily Note on the Home Screen of my mobile phone.

My dirty notes and my lake of knowledge

I run a set of scheduled tasks with Claude every weekday morning and they generate important Notes to Self worth reviewing.

Getting meaningful live updates from Scheduled Tasks with Claude

I am building an EducatorOS this summer, hoping to run into others doing the same. One of my core processes involves using Claude to update short courses that I run. During the summer of 2026 one of my focal points is “AI for Managers“ because that course’s framework will support EducatorOS.

Getting ahead with smart connections

After 20 years with a public profile on LinkedIn, I believe I have figured out a way to minimise noise here. In my case, it means figuring out how to make meaningful connections

Powering my Personal Context Network

I track daily activities and attempt to spotlight successes with the word #win. One of my biggest weekly wins is discovering some gem I wrote decades ago and having it resurface through Brian Petro’s Smart Connections plugin for Obsidian.

Local first then smart plugins

It’s been two years since I adjusted my laptop’s white space to a look similar to that spawned by IA Writer. More importantly, I’ve kept my focus on writing–both on my keyboard devices and on my phone.

Thinking clearer with visual dashboards

I am trying to visualise my work more precisely by auditing my routines several times a week. The main focal point is a colour-coded productivity doughnut

Otter in my thinking hand

I do a lot of thinking while talking to myself and I think that’s good. Today I have my Otter in my hand. I’ve been trying to tame my Otter. It behaves like a polite observer when it’s in my hand or in my shirt pocket.

Leveraging my digital critic

I use several flavours of AI as my pocket crit. Today, Gemini is helping me synthesize a few important points. I’m microblogging them from my Obsidian vault so it’s easier for colleagues to join the discussion.

Telling stories with colourful dots

I learn from the data visualisations I get from my knowledge graph when it is depicted as colourful nodes.

Enjoying the Smart Connections dance on my phone

As a regular Obsidian user (on my phone, on my iPad Mini, and on my laptop), I enjoy the dancing screens that activate when I open Obsidian on my Samsung handset.

Productivity through my knowledge graph

I teach university researchers how to achieve greater productivity through digitally transformed knowledge management. At the core of this effort sits the notes, lab reports, preliminary research findings, presentations, and peer-reviewed published work. To manage all these high quality nuggets of …

Google Claude Airtable Obsidian

During part of a two hour basic introductory session on Friday 17 April in Dublin, I’m sharing how I use Claude.ai with my Google Workspace, with my Airtables, and with Obsidian. I have dozens of prompts as text and as audio snippets that I use every day when allowing Claude to complete tasks …

Talking to researchers about ethical AI

In early 2026, here are the main topics I would address when teaching researchers to effectively leverage artificial intelligence.

Stratification of intelligence

I read a lot of stuff from A16Z where the analysts have started qualifying what Marc Andreessen flogs as “the stratification of intelligence”

Learning About People and Pages in Books

I can use Ngrams to search the entire Google Books corpus of books captured via Google’s OCR.

Questioning Everything More Than Ever

It is hard to flip through my daily flow without encountering something that feels like a human didn’t produce it. Because I teach people how to ethically use artificial intelligence, I often offer these five precepts to people who want to ensure they’re consuming authentic content. I …

MCP to PKM with LLM

I am looking at how to make an MCP server connect to my personal Wiki and then watch an LLM update that Wiki for me.

Using AI to authenticate self. First Up for RUNEUAI

Bernie explains how the selfie avatar method works. It’s part of the RUNEUAI programme.

Smart Connections Helped Me Write This #RUNEUAI

So grateful for Brian Petro’s Smart Connections Community Plug-in for Obsidian.

Using Summertime to Dive into Smart Connections inside Obsidian

I toggle between Obsidian (using it several times a day) and Notion (publishing content for workshops). I am getting smarter with both. I’ve discovered I actually take better notes than ever because my copy of Obsidian uses Brian Petro’s Smart Connections. That community plug-in …

From Obsidian to Public Working Notes

I have a system that starts at Markdown, moves to public view, and then gets micropublished with [content from Bernie’s topgold blog](Quick Notes after AI Workshop). I’m sharing the process with people learning [TUSdx])tus.ie/courses/c…) and they’re reciprocating with …

Personal Knowledge Management in a Vault

I’m a big fan of personal knowledge management (PKM) and I have a dog-eared copy of Building a Second Brain as proof that I’m deep into the idea. I teach the fundamentals of keeping a vault on a laptop, syncing core materials to a handset, and maintaining a public view of a PKM online. …