Director’s ChairAI enablement courseDirector’s Chair

From complexity to practical, manageable systems.

Don’t just use AI.
Build the systems that make it useful.

See How I Work (0:54)

Context engineering · AI agents in production · Content operations

I take on complex operational challenges that slow teams down and turn them into practical systems that improve how people work. I design and implement traditional and AI-driven workflows that operate every business day, train the people who use them, and build human oversight into every stage of production. My work brings together AI enablement, systems architecture, media production, and knowledge architecture to connect people, processes, and technology. The objective is simple: build systems that strengthen the capabilities of the entire team.

Track record across the work

30 min
AI systems · in daily useFrom days of setup to a 30-minute first draftI designed and built an AI workspace that turns a new RFP into folders, branded templates and a first draft up to 90% complete. Gaps go straight to the expert who can close them.
93
Knowledge engineeringInterlinked knowledge filesI built the company’s AI knowledge base from information gathered across the company. It is one approved source of facts, voice and limits for every agent and AI project, with defined permissions.
100+
Content and AI enablementOriginal posts a year on an AI content systemEvery post is drafted with AI from the knowledge base, then reviewed and approved before it goes out. Plus video, sales materials and a full brand refresh.
¼ billion+
Creative studioYouTube views, built from scratchAn independent animation studio I run myself: story, characters, animation and edit. It started with hand-drawn frames and now runs on an AI pipeline.
20-Year
Proposal leadershipContract wonAn approximately 300-page response. I managed content and assembly with a 15-person team, from kickoff to submission.
7
Publishing and illustrationIllustrated booksWritten and illustrated from concept to print. One was read at the Embassy of Canada in Tokyo.

The systems work. Here is the proof.

AI-directed video production, from concept to finished film. View the creative portfolio →

Fizzy Pop, AI-directed spec commercial Fizzy Pop ORIVEX, AI-directed product film ORIVEX Fizzy Pop 2026, AI-directed remake Fizzy Pop 2026
Watch the intro

How I work, in under a minute.

A short film I wrote, directed and edited about how I approach complex work: set the vision, direct the AI and approve the final cut.

  • Script and direction: David Martin
  • Animation: Google Flow
  • Music: Suno
  • Voice: Speechify
  • Edit: PowerDirector
0:54
AI-assisted production

ORIVEX ARC-7.

A 45-second AI-directed product film. Every shot, line of narration, graphic and note of music generated or assembled with AI tools under human direction. How it was made →

Selected systems

Systems in daily use.

Each of these began with a real bottleneck that was slowing people down, and a person reviews every output before it is used.

Problems I solve

The AI problems on every leadership agenda.

Most organizations now have AI tools, but far fewer have AI their people actually rely on. These are the problems I hear about most often. I have worked through each of them, and the systems I built in response are still in daily use.

01

“Our AI pilots never make it to production.”

Demos impress, then stall. I start from the real workflow, so the system is part of the job from the first day.

Proof: an RFP workspace, a content approval register and a weekday bid digest, all in daily use.
02

“The AI doesn’t know our business.”

Generic answers and made-up facts come from missing context. I give every agent one approved picture of the company.

Proof: built a knowledge base of 93 interlinked files with query routing.
03

“Our knowledge is buried in drives and old spreadsheets.”

Years of know-how sit in folders nobody can search. I turn scattered files into records that people and AI can question directly.

Proof: consolidated decades of bid history, 1,717 pursuits, into one traceable record.
04

“We bought licences, but people don’t use them.”

Adoption is a skills problem, and skills can be taught. I show people how to direct AI rather than just ask it questions, and I stay with them while they learn.

Proof: live AI training sessions, training videos and The Director’s Chair guide series.
05

“How do we keep AI safe and under control?”

Control works best when it is built into the workflow from the start. Every system I build has permissions, review steps and a named person who signs off.

Proof: per-project read and write permissions, and an approval workflow every post goes through.
06

“AI content sounds generic and off-brand.”

A voice can be written down and held to. I give AI the house style, examples and limits, and people keep the final say.

Proof: wrote the agent identity and tone-of-voice standard behind 100+ original posts a year.
07

“Proposals and RFPs eat weeks of senior time.”

Most of a bid is setup, reuse and assembly. AI can carry that load, so experts spend their time on the parts only they can write.

Proof: a new RFP becomes a structured first draft, up to 90% complete, in 30 minutes.
08

“We need more video and content without a bigger team.”

AI video can meet a professional standard when someone directs it with care, and I produce consistent, on-brand series in-house.

Proof: an AI promotional video series, and a studio channel with over a quarter billion views.
09

“Every team is building its own disconnected AI tools.”

Scattered agents give scattered answers. I connect them to one shared foundation, so each new project makes the others stronger.

Proof: Copilot Studio agents and Claude projects, all drawing on one knowledge base.

See how each one was built: AI systems →

Guides I wrote

The Director's Chair series.

A free course and eight short guides on getting better results from AI at work. Start with the full course, or download the guide that fits the problem in front of you today.

Free course · Self-paced

Take the full course: The Director's Chair

A free, self-paced course built on these eight guides, in order. 8 modules, field exercises, knowledge checks and a certificate of completion. No sign-up.

  • 8 modules
  • 39 lessons
  • 8 field exercises
  • Certificate
Start the course →

How I built this course →

Part I · The method
  1. 01Take the director's chair
  2. 02Think like the director
  3. 03See the whole set
Part II · The field
  1. 04Get the crew working
  2. 05Give the crew the script
  3. 06Keep one voice
  4. 07More bids, same crew
  5. 08Keep the series on model
Final assessment and certificate
Free PDF guides

The eight guides.

Each guide is two pages, free to download and free to share with your team. Guides 1 to 3 teach the method. Guides 4 to 8 each take on a problem teams are facing right now.

Cover of Guide 1, Take the director's chairGuide 1 · The methodTake the director's chairFive habits of a good director, a brief template with a worked example, what to do when AI says "that can't be done" and a checklist before you share anything.Download PDF Cover of Guide 2, Think like the directorGuide 2 · The mindsetThink like the directorWhy people stay in their crew role with AI, six mental blocks such as the ELIZA effect and functional fixedness, and a 12-point checklist to move into the director's chair.Download PDF Cover of Guide 3, See the whole setGuide 3 · The wide viewSee the whole setKnow a little about every department and stay curious: a 15-minute way to learn a new field, five curiosity habits and when to bring in an expert.Download PDF Cover of Guide 4, Get the crew workingGuide 4 · The adoption gapGet the crew workingFor teams with AI licences that few people use: five reasons adoption stalls, a 30-day plan for one team and the habits that keep it going.Download PDF Cover of Guide 5, Give the crew the scriptGuide 5 · The context gapGive the crew the scriptFor agents that give confident wrong answers: the five kinds of company knowledge an agent needs and how to build a knowledge base in two weeks.Download PDF Cover of Guide 6, Keep one voiceGuide 6 · Brand voice at scaleKeep one voiceFor AI content that all sounds the same: a one-page voice file, five checks before anything publishes and an approval path that holds at volume.Download PDF Cover of Guide 7, More bids, same crewGuide 7 · Proposal bandwidthMore bids, same crewFor proposal teams facing more RFPs with the same people: where bid time goes, an AI-ready bid library and where people must stay in charge.Download PDF Cover of Guide 8, Keep the series on modelGuide 8 · Series continuityKeep the series on modelFor AI video that drifts from clip to clip: what to lock before you generate, a scene-by-scene plan and five checks for every clip.Download PDF

If a guide helps you or your team, I would love to hear how it goes.

How I build

Built past the reasons AI projects stall.

Industry research keeps naming the same four reasons AI projects stall. Every system on this site was designed with those reasons in mind.

95%

of organisations report no business return from generative AI. The cause: tools that do not retain context or improve over time.

MIT NANDA, The GenAI Divide, 2025
Context engineering. A shared knowledge base that every agent draws on and every approved update improves.
40%+

of agentic AI projects are predicted to be cancelled by the end of 2027, over costs, unclear value or weak risk controls.

Gartner, June 2025
Value first. Each system starts from a measured bottleneck, such as RFP setup cut to approximately 30 minutes.
1 in 5

companies has a mature governance model for autonomous AI agents.

Deloitte, State of AI in the Enterprise
Human in the loop. AI drafts and people approve, with defined permissions and internal data kept internal.
#1

challenge in integrating AI is the skills gap: people are not yet equipped to use it well.

Deloitte, State of AI in the Enterprise
AI fluency. Training built on the director mindset, so people lead the work instead of only prompting.
The foundation

A shared knowledge base behind every agent.

Most AI work stops at the prompt. The systems on this site draw on something deeper: one structured knowledge base that gives every agent the same accurate picture of the company.

I built the company’s AI knowledge base, drawing on knowledge from people across the business, and wrote its agent identity and tone-of-voice standard. Its 93 interlinked Markdown files are the shared brain behind the company’s AI agents and Claude projects. A routing layer sends each question to the files that hold the answer.

Each project and agent connects with defined permissions. Some can only read; others can write approved updates back. As more departments use it, the knowledge base grows, and every connected system gains from what one team adds.

  • Single source of truth. Approved facts, house voice and limits in plain Markdown that people and AI can both read.
  • Query routing. Questions reach the right files, so answers stay accurate and focused.
  • Permission-based access. Read or write rights are set for each project and agent.
  • Compounding knowledge. Each approved update strengthens every system connected to it.

Why it matters. Anthropic’s engineering team calls this discipline context engineering: deciding what information a model works from, because “context must be treated as a finite resource.” A curated, shared knowledge base is how that discipline scales across a whole company.

86 linked Markdown files Copilot Studio agents Proposal workspace Departments New projects Claude projects Social media system

One knowledge base, many connected systems. Each connection has its own read or write permission, and new projects plug into the same foundation.

My approach

Direct the AI.

Most people use AI to answer questions. I work with it the way a director works with a crew. I set the vision, give clear direction, push back when the first answer falls short and take responsibility for the result. Every system on this site was built that way, and it is a skill any team can learn. I enjoy watching people pick it up.

Set the vision

Decide the result, the audience and the standard before anything is made.

Brief the crew

Give AI the facts, examples and limits you would give a capable new team member.

Push past the first no

When the answer is "that can't be done", ask for another route. There usually is one. When the limit is real, listen.

Approve the final cut

Nothing ships until a person has reviewed it. The director owns the result.

Toolkit

Tools I use.

The tools I reach for most. There are more behind the work; see the About page for a wider list.

Product names and marks belong to their owners and are shown only to list tools I use. No endorsement or partnership is implied.

What I do

Capabilities.

Context engineering and AI agents

I design agents, write their instructions and build the knowledge bases that keep their output accurate and in the company’s voice.

Agentic content operations

Workflows that carry content from draft to approval to publication. AI drafts, and people decide.

Proposal and GTM enablement

RFP responses, sales battlecards and bid intelligence that let a small team compete with larger firms. See the enablement work →

AI fluency and adoption

Hands-on training, field guides and short videos that help teams use AI confidently in their daily work.

Credentials

Background and recognition.

The record behind the work, beyond the day job.

Writing

Recent articles.

Practical articles on applied AI, content operations and video production. All articles

Portfolio

Creative work.

My creative work covers writing, design, illustration and animation. It includes DJC Media, the independent studio I run, whose channel has passed a quarter of a billion views. The studio follows the same directing approach as the systems above.