Chris + Kay · AI-assisted
About 8 minutes to read. Explore the illustrated, interactive edition on my website.
I’ve got a lot on the go, and I wanted somewhere to talk about it.
I used to blog almost every day. I miss it. I’ve become increasingly uncomfortable making X the home of my public voice, and LinkedIn has lost much of its value to me beyond the audience it reaches. So I’m starting here, under my own name. Some thoughts, some projects, and a fair bit of learning out loud.
Start at Barney’s Tavern.
If you want to understand the mix, Barney’s Tavern is a decent place to start.
I built a tavern in my house, named for my grandfather, Bjarne ‘Barney’ Tangen, who served with the 8th Canadian Reconnaissance Regiment in the Second World War. It’s where I sit down with interesting Canadians and give a conversation the time it deserves.
I’m a collector. I spend a lot of time thinking about the Second World War, the people who lived through it, and the decisions they faced. One of the pieces I own is a signed copy of Churchill’s ‘The Defence of Freedom and Peace’, also known as ‘The Lights are Going Out’. He delivered it in October 1938. These things matter to me because of the people and choices behind them.
The story of Barney’s Tavern · Read Churchill’s 1938 broadcast
From Barney’s Tavern.
Why I want to write now.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about that history more than usual. Relationships I thought were settled—our allies, our trading partners, our place in the world—feel less certain. I never expected to be asking some of these questions about Canada’s future. Here we are.
I want to write about what makes this country more capable: the businesses we build, the skills people can carry across it, the institutions we rely on, and the choices we make with public money. That includes Edmonton. I think our city is in a tough spot, and I care enough to ask difficult questions.
You’ll hear about the economic system and Bitcoin, too. These are subjects I want to explore and debate, alongside the practical work I’m doing. I’m interested in a good conversation, including with people who see things differently.
Still learning. Still building.
AI is changing everything about how I work. At 55, I’m learning to build things I’ve been thinking about for years. GitHub, Jira, teams of agents working overnight. There’s a whole new vocabulary, and I’m having a ridiculous amount of fun figuring it out.
We Know Training: Making our company AI-native: roughly 200 training storefronts, seven publishers, and our people learning to build better ways of working across the business.
Oliu® + CCTA: Oliu® and the Canadian Credential Trust Alliance: working toward a Canadian network for verifiable, portable credentials.
Copernicusâ„¢ + ReadyEngineâ„¢: Helping learners discover what they know, find the gaps and prepare with greater confidence. Our current focus is the skilled trades.
Montreal · D-Day 2027: Helping the Juno Beach Centre team build the next gala in Montreal. Remembrance is a living part of my work.
Then there’s Kay.
Kay takes her name from Kay Summersby, Eisenhower’s wartime aide and driver. The inspiration is the person beside you who understands the context and helps things happen.
I’m basically treating my life like a product. KayOS™ is the operating system I’m building around it. Kay is my virtual chief of staff. The Second Brain is the knowledge she should be able to work from.
Kay Summersby · Eisenhower Presidential Library
A personal Wikipedia.
Think of it as a personal Wikipedia: a growing, connected library of the people, projects, decisions, documents and stories that make up my life.
A note becomes part of a project’s history. A decision keeps its date and the reasons behind it. A family story connects to the people and photographs that give it meaning. The original sources stay available, and I can correct what the library gets wrong.
As that context improves, the agents should become more useful: better informed about what I mean, what I’ve already tried and what matters to me. More context doesn’t automatically make an answer true. I want to see where an answer came from, what is uncertain and what needs my judgment.
How the Second Brain grows.
I don’t want this to depend on me remembering to file everything. With access I explicitly permit, I want Kay to draw context from personal email and calendars, productivity tools, corporate Microsoft 365, Granola meeting notes, proposals and documents. Public reading and social listening would add another layer. The aim is to bring the useful record of my day into one connected library.
Collecting is only the beginning. Kay should help decide what is relevant, what deserves attention and how it connects to what is already there. Entries should keep their source and date, distinguish a decision from a suggestion, and flag conflicting or uncertain information. Work and personal material need their own permissions. Recording a meeting or using company information also needs the appropriate permission.
That’s the Wikipedia idea: context that keeps growing, organized so it can be found, connected and used—almost like a personal data warehouse. My bet is that giving agents useful context earlier will help us perform better. But volume alone isn’t the advantage. The advantage is context we can trust, correct and put to work.
This is the ingestion model I’m building toward. These connections are not all live, and this public page cannot access my email, meetings or private library.
A team of agents. Clear boundaries.
The relationship is simple: I direct Kay from my phone. The Second Brain supplies permitted context. Kay coordinates specialists with defined tasks and tools.
Belle is Lisa’s separate agent, directed by Lisa. The planned connection between Belle and Kay shares only context we both permit. Private spaces remain separate, and sharing can be revoked.
The ambition is a high degree of autonomy within clear boundaries. Kay coordinates specialist agents: research, administration, writing, bookkeeping and the practical work of following through. Each gets the context and tools its job requires.
From my phone, I want to ask a question, capture a thought, inspect the source, correct a memory or review a proposed action. I want the system to keep moving useful work forward without making me supervise every small step.
That makes the design of permissions essential. Private spaces stay separate. Sharing is deliberate and revocable. Encryption, dependable backups, an activity record and human review for consequential actions are requirements I’m building toward. My private vault is not a public website feature.
Concept, not a live feature map. Connections roll out in stages. This page does not connect to the private vault or run agents.
A project for my whole life.
The point is to be a better father, grandfather, husband, community member and business owner. There’s a Mac Studio in Barney’s Tavern that I’d like to make part of this. I enjoy the idea that a room full of history could also help me build a useful record of the life still ahead.
Eventually, my grandchildren might explore my stories through a clearly identified ‘Virtual Grandpa’. Someone I work with might ask a carefully limited public Kay about an idea I’ve chosen to share. Those are ambitions, with permissions to work out—not things this page can do today.
Let’s compare notes.
I’ll share the tools, experiments and code when I can. I also want to compare notes with people learning to do this themselves. We’ve got to keep learning until we’re in a box.
Some posts will be mine alone. Others, like this expanded introduction, will be developed with AI assistance. Anything under my name is reviewed, approved and owned by me. Automated Kay posts will be labelled.
First up is a substantial piece on Edmonton’s waste management history. Recent news brought me back to a 30-year story I think deserves a fuller telling. Take the five-minute visual read, explore the full account in about 45–50 minutes, or download the two-page executive brief. Allow extra time to follow the sources.
Subscribe if you’re curious. Let’s see where this goes.
Edmonton’s Waste System: What Did We Get for Our Money?
Explore the interactive Kay map and connected-library examples · Read the Edmonton waste analysis