03 / BUILDING

Building

Octopolis, my independent studio. Ten years at Signal Theory. And a few side projects I make for fun.

THE STUDIO · THE DAY JOB · THE PLAYGROUND

THE STUDIO

Octopolis

INDEPENDENT STUDIO · EST. 2025 · KANSAS CITY

Octopolis builds autopilots for service work, starting with marketing teams. We find the work that's ready to run itself, build the software that runs it and train your people to fly it. Your people keep the decisions.

Marketing That Runs Itself
FOR MARKETING TEAMS
We sort a team's work into what repeats and what needs judgment, put a price on the hours going to the repeatable part, then build the software and AI workflows that take it over. Websites in days, research in hours, and the decks, resizes and first drafts done overnight.
Agency Busywork
FOR AGENCIES
Agencies hire Octopolis to automate their own busywork before someone else does. Same approach: find it, build it and train the team to run it.

Named for the octopus settlement in Jervis Bay, Australia, first spotted in 2009. Octopuses were supposed to live alone.

VISIT OCTOPOLIS.AI

THE DAY JOB

Signal Theory

INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY DIRECTOR · YEAR 10 · KANSAS CITY + WICHITA

SIGNALTHEORY.COM

A brand agency built on behavioral science. I started there ten years ago as a digital producer, moved up to associate technology director and now lead innovation and technology.

AL
LIVE
AN AI EMPLOYEE, BUILT IN-HOUSE
Named after founder Al Higdon, with his blessing, and seeded with the speech he gave at the agency's fiftieth anniversary. AL runs as a closed system, so client data never touches public models. It wrote more than ten million words in its first hundred days. Nearly eighty percent of the agency uses it, and other agencies now license it.
AL.CHAT (opens in new tab)
Executive Committee
NAMED MARCH 2026
In March 2026 Signal Theory added five leaders to its executive committee, and I was one of them. Technology and AI now have a voice where the agency's biggest decisions get made.
THE ANNOUNCEMENT (opens in new tab)

Same job the whole time: take new technology, point it at a real human problem and ship it.

VISIT SIGNALTHEORY.COM

THE PLAYGROUND

Experiments

SIDE PROJECTS, MADE FOR FUN

OCT 2026No Next StepsWEEKLY CAMPAIGNSA full ad campaign for a different niche brand every week, with the brand picked by public vote. Each one starts with social listening and ends with a big idea, the finished work and a site of its own. Made with AI, in a week, with zero meetings. The first, for the Ricoh GR IV, launched October 6.NONEXTSTEPS.COM (opens in new tab)
DEC 2025AI Meet BrandOPEN STANDARDbrand.json, a robots.txt for brand identity. It's a small file at your domain root that tells AI systems your colors, type, logos and voice, so the tools making your ads can read the guidelines too. There's a spec, a JSON Schema and a generator you can talk to. Free to use.AIMEETBRAND.COM (opens in new tab)
AUG 2025The Wonderer (Gen:48)AI FILMRunway's 48-hour AI filmmaking challenge, Aleph edition. I ran a half marathon that weekend, changed plans at a beer garden and got a text that settled it: “Just use skydive footage. Get wild.” Seventy seconds of my own skydiving footage, transformed.WATCH ON YOUTUBE (opens in new tab)
MAY 2023AI Every Day22-VIDEO SERIESA new AI tool on LinkedIn every business day for a month: ChatGPT plugins, Midjourney, ElevenLabs voice clones, Wonder Studio, Skybox AI and a weather bot for the office chat. The best of them made it into the agency's daily workflow.THE SERIES (opens in new tab)

In the Press

11 STORIES SINCE 2023

Building

Octopolis

Marketing That Runs Itself

Agency Busywork

Signal Theory

AL

Executive Committee

Experiments

In the Press