Ocean sailing
Read the whole system.
Weather, crew, boat and destination never behave as separate problems. The same is true inside an organisation.
About Roger Lawrence
A career with no obvious straight line.
Enterprise technology, startups, teaching, sailing, making and paramedicine have put Roger in very different rooms. That's useful when your problem refuses to stay in one.
Where the kitbag came from
The thread through it
I've spent decades at the point where technology meets people who have a job to do. Enterprise architecture and executive technology roles taught me to see systems and trade-offs. Startups taught me that the world isn't obliged to behave like your slide deck.
Teaching people to scuba dive taught me that explaining something isn't the same as being understood. Sailing taught me to read the whole situation, act with what you've got and keep paying attention. Paramedicine added a different kind of consequence when the system doesn't work.
At Microsoft I led developer and platform evangelism across Australia and New Zealand, and led global judging for Imagine Cup in 2009. At HPE I worked as a CTO across architecture, cloud, emerging technology and innovation. I later co-founded ACHIEVR, applying AR and VR to enterprise training. More recently, I built and led a technology enablement and acceleration team at APA.
Those are different jobs. The common thread is turning difficult questions into something people can understand, test and use.
Now No Kill Switch puts that experience to work through independent advisory, architecture, facilitation, product work and practical experiments. I don't resell anybody's platform. If the right answer is not to build something, that's still a useful answer.
Evidence, not a career timeline
Different environments. The same habits.
Each one changed how I approach a difficult problem.
Motorcycling
Plan well. Leave room for the road.
Preparation matters. So does noticing when the world has other ideas.
Scuba and teaching
Explaining isn't the same as being understood.
In the water, the test isn't whether the instructor said it clearly. It's whether another person can act when it matters.
Paramedicine
The system is always human.
A process, a device or a handover only works if it helps the people carrying the consequence.
ACHIEVR · AR/VR
Train for the real work, before the real stakes.
Co-founding ACHIEVR put augmented reality and virtual reality to work in enterprise training, where the value is in what people can do afterwards.
Imagine Cup · Cairo 2009
Back people who ask better questions.
Leading global judging at the 2009 Imagine Cup meant hearing teams turn big ideas into things the world could examine and challenge.
Enterprise architecture · Advisory
The blazer is the corporate bit.
Strategy, architecture and facilitation still come down to the same thing: helping people see the trade-offs and choose what happens next.
What comes with the work
No platform to resell. No theatre.
No Kill Switch doesn't begin with a product catalogue or a proprietary method. The tool has to earn its place. The trade-offs stay visible. The people who live with the result get a voice.
Roger on LinkedInYour turn
What are you trying to work out?
If it's difficult, cross-disciplinary or still half-formed, that's fine. Bring the question before you've polished it into a brief.