I was born and raised in “The Valley” in Los Angeles, which means I naturally speak with a vocal fry and usually insist on driving everywhere.
Except I moved to New York in 2018 and somewhere since then picked up a subtle transatlantic accent where I pronounce it “yes-tah-day” and prefer to walk even if it’s 2 miles away.
My career started in property management here in LA, but I realized the world was much bigger than the 5.84 square miles of Downtown even with the high-rises that were being built less than 10 years ago.
SO much to say about what has happened since I left, but let’s just keep it cool for sake of business. I love LA, it’s a major business hub for entertainment, real estate, construction, and more. It’s where I learned to be polite and use my customer service side to persuade and close deals.
Californians are nice- not kind, and New Yorkers are kind, not nice. Or something like that…
I went to my favorite lunch spot that’s been around for 15 years in the Burbank Airport area- Tonir Cafe. And as I was leaving, I saw Jay Leno driving around in his 1930 Duesenberg LeBaron Barrelside. Seriously! I used to work in a warehouse right next to his garage in Burbank so this is a regular occurrence, not just a celebrity sighting.
And I also worked with some interesting B-List celebrities in my days here: Rocco Siffredi, Gary Grice (GZA from WuTang), Miley Cyrus, Keke Palmer before she became famous, among many more…
Now I’m back on old turf slanging copiers and pro-AV solutions. Hopefully these celebs have a need for cloud based phone systems or a 30 page per minute printer…
But between the nostalgia and the spotting, something kept coming up in conversations this week- both here and when I think about what my clients back in New York are dealing with. And it's the same thing on both coasts: everybody's bought the AI pitch. Not everybody's seeing the return.
Let's get into it.
💡 Office Tech Talks
What your IT team is watching
The AI Investment Reality Check Nobody Wants to Have
Here's a number that should slow everyone down: according to Gartner, only 1 in 50 AI investments delivers transformational value- and only 1 in 5 delivers any measurable return on investment.
Read that again.
Yet CEO expectations for AI-driven growth are still sky-high heading into the second half of 2026. That gap between expectation and reality isn't just a finance problem — it's landing squarely on the desks of IT directors and operations leaders who are being asked to justify tools that aren't moving the needle.
So what's actually working?
The pattern is consistent across the companies getting it right: the technology that delivers ROI isn't the flashiest, it's the most connected. AI tools that pull from your actual workplace data (room utilization, booking patterns, communication workflows) surface real insights. AI tools bolted onto a disconnected tech stack just add noise.
A few things worth knowing right now:
40% of enterprise apps will have built-in AI agents by end of 2026, up from less than 5% just two years ago. That means the "do we adopt AI?" question is about to become irrelevant — it'll already be in your tools.
Half of digital workplace leaders will deploy a Digital Employee Experience (DEX) tool by year's end, up from 30% in 2024. Friction is the real productivity killer — bad DEX costs companies up to 470,000 hours per year.
The companies pulling ahead aren't buying more tools. They're consolidating their stack around platforms that actually talk to each other.
The California takeaway? Don't sprint toward shiny. Figure out the real problem first, then find the tool that solves exactly that. Nothing else.
🌿Workplace Wellness
Well-being at work — because the margins matter
The Case for Slowing Down to Speed Up
There's a reason hybrid work hasn't killed productivity- but it has killed the illusion that presence equals performance.
Working from Burbank this week is a good reminder that output doesn't have a zip code. What it does have is conditions. And the best thing an operations leader can do right now is ask: are we designing for those conditions, or just hoping people figure it out?
Mental health at work is no longer a side conversation. The World Health Organization has formally recognized burnout as an occupational phenomenon- and research shows employees in high-friction environments are nearly three times more likely to report poor mental health than those in well-designed ones.
The bicoastal perspective here is simple: New York sharpens your instincts. California reminds you your team is human. Both of those things need to be true at the same time.
One small thing to try this week: before your next all-hands or team check-in, add one question-"What's one thing slowing you down right now?" Not a survey. Just a question. You'll hear things the dashboard won't show you.
📖 LA PALABRA / A PALAVRA
Word of the Week — Spanish · Portuguese · English
El Enfoque / O Foco / Focus
"La herramienta sin enfoque es solo ruido."
"A ferramenta sem foco é apenas ruído."
"A tool without focus is just noise."
Spanish: el enfoque (ehl en-FO-keh)
Portuguese: o foco (oo FO-koo)
English: focus, direction, intentionality
The root: Enfoque comes from the Spanish verb enfocar- literally, to bring into focus, as a camera lens would. Foco in Portuguese shares its Latin root with the English word focus, which originally meant hearth or fireplace- the point around which everything else gathered.
(Yes, Ford named the Focus after the same word. And yes, there is a yellow one parked outside our Burbank office this week. Coincidence? Enfoque says no.)
Why it matters at work right now:
The AI conversation in every office this year is really a focus conversation in disguise. Companies aren't failing at technology, but they are failing at enfoque. Buying tools before defining the problem. Deploying platforms before preparing the people. The leaders cutting through the noise in 2026 are the ones who've gotten ruthlessly clear on the one or two places where technology actually changes the outcome and ignored everything else.
Ear check 🎧 En- in enfoque sounds like "ehn" — not "en" like in English. The que at the end is a hard "k" sound: en-FO-keh. In Portuguese, foco is short and punchy: FO-koo. Both land with weight. That's the point.
🔒 Wrap-Up
I've been back in California for less than a week and I've already spotted Jay Leno in a century-old car, eaten at my favorite lunch spot, and remembered why this city made me who I am in sales.
But I'll tell you what hasn't changed between coasts: the leaders who cut through the noise are the ones who slow down long enough to ask what problem are we actually solving? before they sign anything.
That's true for AI tools. It's true for managed print. It's true for UCaaS, Pro AV, and every other solution I walk into offices to talk about.
Enfoque isn't just a word. It's the difference between a line item and an investment.
See you next week, I’ll be back in New York, where someone will definitely be walking too slow on the sidewalk directly in front of me.
— Jae