Hi. I’m Paul.
The Middle Mac is my journal. I write about Ai for small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in North Georgia.
Selfishly, I write because it helps me wrestle with new ideas and solidify my own understanding. But I hope what I share here helps you adopt Ai in your personal and work life.
I write for SMBs because I believe there’s a tremendous window of opportunity for local business owners and employees who embrace these technologies.
For large companies, Ai is an efficiency play. Layoffs have happened as they use it to create the same output with fewer people.
But for many SMBs, Ai can be a growth play. These tools can create more output from the same resources — businesses that never had the budget or expertise for content creation, search visibility, lead follow-up, and other growth strategies now have a path.
SMBs that figure this out first have a real window to build an advantage.
That window is open right now. But it won’t stay open forever.
What’s The Middle?
Ai is a tool.
Sure, it’s powerful, but simply having the tool doesn’t give you an advantage. Every business in your niche has access to the same tools.
The advantage comes from having the right people — with the knowledge and skills to get the right results.
Here’s why. Before Ai can do anything useful, a human must give it direction — a concise prompt, the right context, and relevant data, with enough understanding of the goal to make it useful. That’s a skill.
Then, after Ai produces something, a human must show up again — to assess it, push back on it, decide what’s usable, and figure out how to improve the next round.
Ai handles the middle. An AI-proficient human handles everything else.
The Middle is the space between human direction and human judgment where AI does its work. It includes a mix of Models, Agents, and Connections — MAC.
The middle only performs as well as the people on both ends of it.
The right people don’t need to be technical. They should know the business, think critically, and be willing to learn.
These are the people I hope to help.
Why North Georgia?
I write this for any small business owner trying to figure out how Ai can help their business.
But I’ll be honest — I have a particular person in mind. It’s my neighbor Justin, who owns a travel agency in Cumming. My good friend Matt, who owns an exterior lighting business in Alpharetta. And my family’s doctors office in John’s Creek.
North Georgia is home. I love this community. And I hope what I share here helps them — and you — do more and grow more.
Stay in Touch
I’d love to hear from you. If you have a question or just want to say hi, please contact me here.
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