This Was Made for Me
How a ceramicist-turned-AI consultant rediscovered the power of presence, design, and precision in data work.
Before I ever touched AI or data, before loyalty programs and grocery analytics, I was at the wheel with my hands in clay. Ceramics taught me the quiet discipline of shaping with purpose and staying present with the material in front of me.
My move into tech didn’t begin with code. It began with people. I spent years understanding how customers shop, why they return, and what they expect from the brands they trust. That focus on human behavior led me into insights, then into AI-driven insights, and eventually into full-scale data consulting for retailers.
And through all of it, I never stopped thinking like a ceramicist.
Because in ceramics, form is never enough. What you make needs to feel right. Balanced. Intentional. Understood without explanation by the person who holds it.
Lately I have been asking myself what that kind of craftsmanship looks like in the world of AI.
What “Goodness” Really Means
A senior leader recently asked my team a simple question:
“What other goodness are we bringing?”
On the surface, it was about value-adds. But I heard something deeper. Is this not only functional, but good? Does it feel thoughtful? Human? Is this something a client will remember because it solved a real problem in a way that felt considered?
It reminded me of running my fingers along the curve of a vessel that held both utility and intention. It made me wonder whether, in our rush to deliver fast and scale big, we have forgotten what it means to build something people would not want to work without.
Craftsmanship rarely announces itself. It shows up when a client leans back and says:
“Honestly, this hits the nail on the head.”
“I wish more of our tools felt like this.”
Goodness is not fanfare. Goodness is fit. A solution so aligned to the problem that it feels inevitable.
That is not just added value. That is presence. That is care. That is the difference between “it works” and “this works for us.”
The Quiet Gap Between Function & Feel
In tech, we rely on a vocabulary of productivity.
“The engineering is clean.”
“The architecture scales.”
“The dashboard meets requirements.”
“The model is performant.”
All of that matters, but none of it is the whole story. Especially in retail, where the systems we build ripple into real decisions and real lives. Function is not enough. Our tools have to be intuitive, trustworthy, and aligned with how people actually think and work.
Matthew Crawford writes in Shop Class as Soulcraft:
“The craftsman’s task is not to generate meaning, but to cultivate a sensitivity to the real.”
Craftsmanship is not embellishment. It is attunement. It is caring enough to build something that understands its purpose and its user.
What Craftsmanship in AI Looks Like
So what does that look like in practice?
A personalization model that reflects how customers truly behave, not how the data hopes they behave.
A forecasting tool whose logic planners can follow without translation.
A dashboard that surfaces what matters at the right moment without noise.
A handoff that feels like onboarding, not abandonment, because you designed for longevity from the start.
That is when clients stop saying “Good work” and start saying:
“This is exactly what we needed.”
“You really understood the problem.”
That shift from output to outcome, from use to trust, is the signature of craftsmanship in AI.
So, Where Is the Craftsmanship?
It lives in architecture shaped around the business rather than the backend.
It lives in the SQL someone wrote at night so reporting does not fail at scale.
It lives in the extra half hour someone spends aligning a dashboard to a real-world decision instead of a generic KPI.
Craftsmanship is not slowness. It is presence. It is quality not for its own sake, but because the work will be used by people with real responsibilities and real constraints.
That is the bar.
A Call to Build Differently
If you build AI or data solutions, especially for retailers, this is the moment to pause and ask yourself:
Does this feel right for the people it serves?
Would a client say, “This made my life easier”?
Would I be proud to say, “Yes, I made that, and I made it well”?
In a world crowded with tools, platforms, and automation, the solutions that last are the ones that feel like they were built with someone real in mind.
Like a bowl that rests comfortably in your hands.
Like something shaped with presence and purpose.
Like something you would keep and say:
“This was made for me.”
Works Cited
Crawford, M. B. (2009). Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work. Penguin Press.
