Notes from inside the industry.
Thoughts on AI in chemical distribution: what's working, what to skip, and how operators are putting it to use.
Latest posts.
- October 8, 2026
Four filters to ask yourself about the next AI project you want to start:
I've developed four filters to evaluate which AI project to start with: it should be small, painful, repeating, and have readily available data. Most projects fail the fourth filter, but when yours passes all four, you've found your starting point.
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October 6, 2026Real Data Solutions delivers again! Another solid result from our AI Sprint program to increase Sales.
Our AI Sprint program achieved another successful result for a client looking to increase sales performance.
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October 5, 2026So excited to be at the ACD 2026 Annual Meeting in Arizona, November 10 to 12, representing Real Data Solutions, now a proud affiliate member of the Alliance for Chemical Distribution (ACD)!
I'm excited to be at the ACD 2026 Annual Meeting in Arizona representing Real Data Solutions, now an affiliate member of the Alliance for Chemical Distribution, and would love to connect about AI solutions for protecting margin and team productivity.
→ - October 1, 2026
Last week, I ran a sample certificate of analysis through an agent at one of my AI workshops.
At a workshop I ran a sample certificate of analysis through an agent. The spec called for greater than 99.8, the assay read 99.4, and the agent rejected the lot. That is the test that matters, and you can build it in Claude.
→ - September 30, 2026
BASF is in early talks to take over Evonik. If you carry either line, start planning.
Evonik reportedly turned down about €10.3 billion as too low, and no formal negotiations have started. A combined company would have about $84 billion in revenue, with one supplier holding two price lists and two sets of allocation rules.
→ - September 29, 2026
Free AI Prompting Tip #14: Handoff and start fresh
Every prompt sends the whole chat history back to the AI, so long chats get expensive. One nightly job in a single window cost me $247.16 over 3 weeks. After 8 to 10 replies, ask for a handoff prompt and continue in a clean chat.
→ - September 29, 2026
The federal ChatGPT deal was $1 per agency for a year.
From October 1, 2026, the federal ChatGPT deal moves from $1 per agency to metered token usage at 50 percent off commercial pricing for 27 months. I call it another poor decision, and a reason I don't expect ChatGPT to last 24 more months.
→ - September 17, 2026
Want better results from Claude? Split your request into 3 prompts instead of one.
Anthropic's 3 message pattern: draft, review against criteria, then refine. The criteria are what people skip. For a proposal I name our payment terms, lead times and what we got wrong last time. Worth it on a quote, overkill on an internal note.
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September 16, 2026ClickUp has become one of my favorite programs to track projects amongst my clients.
I've found ClickUp invaluable for managing client projects and use it daily. I was surprised to discover I rank in the top 10% of users globally.
→ - September 15, 2026
Spinning up an AI agent takes 20 minutes. Getting 12 of them to finish one job autonomously took months.
I run a crew of dozens of Claude agents, and when they called each other directly the work got sloppy. The fix was one router, Charlie, who assigns each job and breaks ties. Creating agents is easy, and coordinating a team toward one goal is the hard part.
→ - September 10, 2026
Microsoft and OpenAI are each other's biggest customer. That can't last.
Microsoft booked $24.1 billion in AI revenue from OpenAI, about 70% of its AI business, and OpenAI commitments make up about 45% of its cloud backlog. That concentration is why Microsoft capped the deal, invested in Anthropic and built Copilot Cowork.
→ - September 8, 2026
Are your AI subscriptions being subsidized? Here's a closer look based on the numbers.
SemiAnalysis found a maxed out $200 Claude Max plan burned about $8,000 of tokens at API prices, and ChatGPT Pro about $14,000. Pricing like that can't last, so it's worth deciding what AI is worth to you each month.
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