The studio

Exhibits

These exhibits are working versions of my ideas. Open one to see how it works and try it for yourself.

Made with AI The ideas here are mine. I used AI to research and visualize them.

Org design · tradecraft Early draft

The Human Technology Tree

Organizations depend on more than software. They also depend on practices such as weekly one-on-one meetings, written updates, and after-action reviews. These practices help people coordinate, make decisions, and learn.
Organizational design · staffing systems Interactive

How the World Staffs Its Diplomats

At State, Foreign Service careers ran on a system most people never saw from the outside: enter at the bottom, get promoted on a clock, or leave. I mapped how thirty-six diplomatic services around the world handle the same three questions — who gets in, who moves up, and who has to go.
Field notes · play Interactive

The Diplomatic Excuse Generator

Every delayed deliverable needs a cover story. In government, the good ones share a structure: a plausible setup, an unverifiable complication, and a consequence nobody can argue with.
Diplomacy × Tradecraft · flagship Early draft

The Open Diplomacy Framework

Influence campaigns often break down because teams do not agree on who matters, cannot tell whether they are making progress, or separate the message from the people who must carry it.
Open Diplomacy · planning tool Interactive

The Campaign Map

The framework explains the parts of a campaign. This map helps you build one. Start by naming the main obstacle, then add the people and groups who shape the decision.
Diplomatic Tradecraft Interactive

The Competency Periodic Table

Public diplomacy is a craft, not a personality trait. It rests on work that can be named, learned, and assessed. This table organizes that work into sixteen competencies, with the plays that put them into practice and the foundations that support them.
Tradecraft · appropriations Interactive

Reading the FY2027 State Department Budget

When I was at State, one of my favorite jobs was translating the budget for colleagues and senior leaders. Given the big changes to the structure of the Department, I wanted to do the same for the FY2027 budget.
Tradecraft · Influence mapping Interactive

The Account Map

Influence runs through people. An org chart shows who reports to whom, but it rarely shows who shapes a decision, who can block it, or who trusts you enough to act on your behalf.
Tradecraft · tools Interactive

The Deck Kit

Most decks start as a blank template and end as a file nobody else can open. The deck kit is one HTML file: it renders Marp markdown or a JSON outline into 16:9 slides, prints a clean PDF from the browser, and exports an editable PowerPoint deck, with no installs, no network, and nothing leaving the tab.
Organizational design · workforce Early draft

The Diplomat's Year

When I ran planning and budgeting for public diplomacy at State, one number followed me around: a fully loaded overseas position costs more than $700,000 a year. The harder question was what those dollars buy. A diplomat's year starts at 2,080 paid hours, and leave, language training, moving, paperwork, and internal meetings all take their share before any diplomacy happens.
Compensation · federal workforce Early draft

The Schedule and the Paycheck

Every argument about federal pay runs into the same problem. There is no single federal pay number, and the two that matter most have moved in opposite directions for thirty years. The statutory schedule that the General Schedule and the Foreign Service share has lost about a sixth of its real value since 1994. What an officer at a fixed grade and step actually draws has gained slightly, because locality pay grew from nothing over the same period. Both statements are true, and which one gets quoted usually depends on what the speaker wants.

The Human Technology Tree

How the World Staffs Its Diplomats

The Diplomatic Excuse Generator

The Open Diplomacy Framework

The Campaign Map

The Competency Periodic Table

Reading the FY2027 State Department Budget

The Account Map

The Deck Kit

The Diplomat's Year

The Schedule and the Paycheck