Work with me
I help businesses get real value from AI, with the security questions answered from the start. I've spent 30 years connecting technology, security, and education, and I build and run AI systems every day — so the advice comes from things I've actually shipped.
Most of my work sits where two problems meet. A business wants AI doing useful work — drafting, research, automation, the ordinary middle of the week. The same business needs to know its data isn't leaking, its tools are governed, and its people actually trust the thing. I've done both halves for years, and doing them together is the whole point.
Who this is for
Small and mid-sized businesses, and the people who run them — businesses that want AI working without building an AI team to run it. You need someone who has set this up before, who can tell you plainly what's worth doing, what isn't, and what has to be locked down first. If you're a larger organisation looking for the same thing at department level, that works too.
How we can work together
- One focused call Expert hours
One focused call on a specific question — a tool decision, a stuck rollout, a security worry, a "is this even a good idea?" We work through it live and you leave with a straight answer and next steps.
- Fixed scope, a few weeks An AI readiness diagnostic
A fixed-scope look at your business over a few weeks: where AI can genuinely help, what your data and tools situation allows, and what needs securing before anything else. You get a written plan you can act on — with me, or without me.
- Standing advisor, monthly A fractional advisory retainer
A set amount of my time each month for businesses that want a standing advisor: roadmap, vendor questions, security review, and help when something breaks or something new appears. This is the deepest way to work together.
I don't publish a price list — scope varies too much for that to be honest. Tell me what you're dealing with and I'll quote the engagement, not the hour.
Why me
I ran security for a multinational energy company's business unit — cloud, third-party risk, compliance, and the daily work of keeping people from clicking the wrong thing. Before that I spent a decade leading school IT and teaching kids to think computationally, and I wrote two books about it: How to Think Like a Coder (shortlisted for the ALCS Educational Writers' Award 2018, Book Aid International's Book of the Month in September 2019) and How to Code in Minecraft.
The building continues in public. I maintain open-source packages on npm that connect AI assistants to real systems — media servers, DNS, threat intelligence, Spanish government data. You can see them on my projects page. In 2026 I built and shipped a full editorial automation platform for a consulting client in under a month — 172 tests, 14 live workflows — then handed it over to their own infrastructure with an operations manual. I hold a retained security and IT role for a small business, and I teach working professionals through a US digital-education company's AI accelerator. In 2025 my team took second place at Hack the Future in Tallinn, a 48-hour climate-resilience hackathon run by Garage48, Latitude59, and the Estonian Ministry of Climate.
The frameworks I advise with are public too: csAIi, my approach to working with AI as a co-operating system, and the open-source PAST and SHAPE methods at frameworkprompting.com. You can check my working before you ever email me.
How it starts
Send me a short note about what you're trying to do — the contact form or email both reach me. I'll reply with one of three things: a straight answer, a pointer to something free I've already written, or a suggestion for which engagement fits. The first conversation costs nothing and carries no obligation.
—Jim