Someone was always starting their day while someone else was finishing it. Meetings became awkward. Decisions waited overnight. Questions sat unanswered for hours.

The obvious solution was to ask people to work outside their normal hours.

The better solution turned out to be AI.

Over the past few months I’ve been experimenting with using ChatGPT as more than just an assistant for writing or coding. It’s become the coordinator that keeps work moving while people quite rightly aren’t working.

The result hasn’t been people working longer.

It’s been the team working smarter.

Time Zones Aren’t the Problem

Most organisations see geography as the challenge.

I don’t.

The real problem is context.

When someone in the UK hands work to someone in Australia, or vice versa, valuable time is often lost explaining where things are, what has changed, what’s already been tried and what the expected outcome looks like.

By the time everyone has caught up, another half day has disappeared.

AI removes much of that friction.

Instead of writing lengthy handover emails, I can ask ChatGPT to produce concise, structured updates tailored to the recipient.

It captures decisions, identifies blockers, highlights risks and creates clear next actions.

The receiving engineer starts with understanding instead of detective work.

The AI Project Coordinator

One of the biggest mindset shifts I’ve made is treating ChatGPT as another member of the team.

Not because it replaces anyone.

Because it remembers everything better than I do.

Throughout the day I ask it to:

• summarise meetings
• capture decisions
• identify outstanding actions
• produce status updates
• draft communications
• highlight dependencies

By the time another region starts work, I already have a polished handover that would previously have taken twenty minutes to write.

Multiply that across an entire week and the time savings become significant.

Scheduling the Right Work at the Right Time

One feature that has quietly become invaluable is ChatGPT’s scheduling capability.

Rather than trying to remember to prepare updates, review priorities or check progress, I simply schedule those activities.

Every morning I receive a concise briefing.

Before key meetings I receive preparation notes.

At the end of the day I receive prompts to capture outstanding decisions while they’re still fresh.

These aren’t reminders in the traditional sense.

They’re intelligent checkpoints that keep work flowing.

The important distinction is that AI isn’t telling me what to do.

It’s reducing the effort required to stay organised.

Creating a Longer Working Day

The interesting outcome isn’t that anyone works more hours.

They don’t.

Instead, the effective working day becomes much longer.

When my day finishes, someone else’s begins.

Instead of leaving them with incomplete notes, AI helps package everything they need to continue immediately.

While they’re making progress, scheduled summaries and updates keep me informed without interrupting their work.

By the time I log back on the following morning, decisions have been made, issues have moved forward and priorities are already clear.

The clock never stopped.

The people simply maintained healthy working hours.

Less Administration, More Leadership

One unexpected benefit has been the amount of management overhead that’s disappeared.

Instead of spending time preparing updates, consolidating notes and chasing status reports, I spend more time solving problems and supporting the team.

That’s where leaders create value.

AI is quietly taking care of much of the administrative glue that traditionally filled the gaps between conversations.

AI Isn’t Replacing Teamwork

There’s a lot of discussion about AI replacing people.

That’s not what I’m seeing.

What I’m seeing is AI removing the delays that prevent talented people from collaborating effectively.

It doesn’t make better decisions than my engineers.

It simply ensures they have the right information at the right time.

The human expertise is exactly where it has always been.

AI just keeps it moving.

Final Thoughts

The biggest productivity gain I’ve seen from AI hasn’t come from writing faster or creating documents more quickly.

It’s come from improving the flow of work.

When information moves seamlessly between people, across time zones and throughout the working day, the entire team becomes more effective.

Nobody works longer.

Nobody attends more meetings.

Nobody needs another collaboration tool.

Instead, AI quietly fills the gaps between conversations, keeping momentum alive long after the office lights have been switched off.

AI Never Sleeps: Extending the Working Day Without Extending the Hours

In the last week or so the subject of Domain Migration has come up for the millionth time in my career so far (slight exaggeration)

Switching domains is easy, log in on one domain, go to the system settings in Windows and change to the other domain, with a reboot committing the change fully. This is great, but what about the applications?

SQL is possibly the most popular DB platform out there, and up until the last couple of months has been restricted to the MS Windows platform. As a Microsoft product it ties in heavily to the operating system and Active Directory. Typically most DBAs will configure there SQL installation with dual authentication, Windows for binding Windows Accounts and SQL Authentication for local based security. The majority of applications these days will utilise Windows Authentication as this make the management of security policies such as password expiration and removal of users a little simpler, and generally management is from one place, i.e Active Directory. The only issue here is if you’re doing a manual Domain Migration (i.e no ADMT style tools) then as soon as you change the domain the SQL server sits on, the applications will no longer work and the users will not be able to connect. This is where the SA user is god, as it is local to the SQL installation not the domain/Windows element.

My advice for a manual SQL Server domain migration is simple:

1. Ensure you have dual auth enabled
2. Ensure you know your SA password (if not, create a new SA style user and note the password you use)
3. Change SQL to use builtin service accounts (not a domain service account) before the move – can be changed afterwards to domain users under new domain.
4. Change ownership of all DBs to SA
5. Change ownership of all Task Agent jobs to SA

These should be done before switching domain!

For steps 4 and 5 I have the following scripts which I have used a few times now, and they do exactly as described, changing the ownership:

Change DBs ownership to sa:

EXEC sp_MSforeachdb 'EXEC [?]..sp_changedbowner ''sa'''

Change Job ownership to sa:

DECLARE @name_holder VARCHAR(1000)

DECLARE My_Cursor CURSOR

FOR

SELECT [name]  FROM msdb..sysjobs

OPEN My_Cursor

FETCH NEXT FROM My_Cursor INTO @name_holder

WHILE (@@FETCH_STATUS <> -1)

BEGIN

exec msdb..sp_update_job

        @job_name = @name_holder,

        @owner_login_name = 'sa'

FETCH NEXT FROM My_Cursor INTO @name_holder

END

CLOSE My_Cursor

DEALLOCATE My_Cursor

One additional step once the migration is done and the server is back up on the new domain, would be to login as sa, and add in the security groups/users from the new domain that need access to the server. I typically add the Domain Admins as SQL sysadmin users. To achieve this for the current domain you can run:

USE [master]
GO
declare @DomainName nvarchar(32)
set @DomainName = (SELECT DEFAULT_DOMAIN()[DomainName])
declare @DomainAdmin nvarchar(64)
set @DomainAdmin = @DomainName + '\Domain Admins'
print @DomainAdmin
EXEC master..sp_addsrvrolemember @loginame = N'NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM', @rolename = N'sysadmin'
EXEC master..sp_addsrvrolemember @loginame = N'NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE', @rolename = N'sysadmin'
EXEC master..sp_addsrvrolemember @loginame = @DomainAdmin, @rolename = N'sysadmin'
print @DomainAdmin + ' Has been Added as sysadmin'
GO

Incidentally this was one of my early attempts at writing SQL scripts without googling around! – not this also adds SYSTEM and NETWORK SERVICE (local builtin users) as sysadmins.

SQL Server Tip of the Week – Domain Migration

As this is my technology blog I though I’d share a quick update on skills and technologies that have advanced through this year, the most noticeable are:

• SQL Skills – yes I know more than just installing now, I can troubleshoot performance issues and tweak setups to ensure a nice smooth running system.. Maintenance of SQL is also one of my most common tasks across many customers.
• ERP – a broad subject, but I will break down a little. Firstly I am more than capable of a “vanilla” install of Epicor ERP 10/10.1, I’m also capable of updating/upgrading those platforms. On top of that I can also talk tech with IT/ERP managers across all industries to help spec, and install/deploy the Epicor ERP platforms. This also includes a number of additional installs (such as web, Enterprise Search, education tools etc.) and enhancements, such as those for document management and CRM.
• Hyper-V – not something I’d had the opportunity to play with much before, however I am now capable of installation, deployment, management and maintenance of Hyper-V 2012+ platforms, and I have to say, what a great platform it is.
• VMware ESX – my knowledge in VMware has also jumped this year, having had the opportunity to manage 2x ESX 6 environments in recent months and upgrade a couple of 5s to 5.5 I am once again familiar with the VMWare suite and as always find it an exciting challenge.
• Remote Desktop Services – sure we all know a little Terminal Services from back in the day, but having now deployed around 5 of these 2012R2 beauties this year, i am exceptionally impressed. Easy to install and configure, and just as easy to troubleshoot and fix, provided you have the time and mental space in order to do so!

Coming up in 2017…

So it seems there may be a few changes ahead, ones that will potentially make my career, and about time too!

The biggest 2017 challenges seem to be:

• Cloud – funnily enough the UK hasn’t quite taken to it fully yet…
• Solutions – how can a product be further enhanced to meet a customer’s longer term goals…
• Tools – might need a course in C# and a few late nights

Watch this space…

2016 Update

Exchange 2010 SP2