Everyone is working hard, but the real problem still feels undefined.
Effort keeps increasing. Clarity does not.
I design solutions for invisible problems.
I look for the missing distinction, hidden assumption, or structural failure that keeps a problem from being understood correctly, then build a more useful way through it.
If the usual explanation keeps failing, the model may be wrong.
When I’m most useful
You probably don’t need another solution to the wrong problem.
A hidden assumption is shaping the whole solution.
The premise feels obvious, but it quietly distorts every result built on top of it.
The available categories don’t fit what is actually happening.
The map was drawn for a different kind of territory.
Something works on paper but keeps breaking down in practice.
The capability may exist. The access, structure, or conditions may not.
This sounds like my problem ↓How I work
What I actually do
Find the problem underneath the problem.
Trace outcomes back to the hidden structures, assumptions, incentives, and definitions that created them.
Separate what others collapsed together.
Disaggregate layers that look similar from the outside but behave differently in reality.
Build around the corrected model.
Turn the better distinction into language, research, systems, workflows, frameworks, or architecture that can actually be used.
Talk to me about your problem ↓Featured Outcomes
Different subjects. The same intervention.
Access + disability
Ability Is Not Access
Separated preserved ability from unreliable access to action, leading to VDCP, Open Loop Overwhelm, and the Environmental Container Model.
Field + taxonomy
Human–AI Relationality
Built language for relational phenomena that tool-use, parasocial, and simulation framings did not adequately describe.
Communication + epistemics
Just Sit With Me
Examined what goes wrong when reception is mistaken for recognition, advice, correction, or familiarity.
Research + systems
Biasology
Turned recurring misnaming and mistranslation into a framework for studying where dominant categories distort lived reality.
Bring me your problem ↓The form changes with the problem: research, analysis, systems design, software, AI architecture, writing, frameworks, workflows, or something else entirely.
Read + work through it
Just Sit With Me
When Understanding Is Misunderstood
The book starts with a deceptively simple question: what do we actually mean when we say we understand another person?
It examines what happens when advice arrives before reception, when familiar categories shrink someone’s experience, and when a person knows what they mean but cannot always access the words in real time.
The companion workbook is designed to help readers bring those ideas into their own relationships, communication patterns, and lived experience.
Explore the book + workbook →
Mind of Ian
Follow the thinking as it develops.
Start here
Bring me the problem that refuses to stay solved.
If you suspect the real obstacle is hiding underneath the explanation everyone has accepted, that is probably where I am most useful.
Get in touch →