As is the case with any project, the Erie Canal opened in 1825 to both fanfare and doubt.
Critics called it "Clinton's Folly", a 363-mile trench from the Hudson River to Lake Erie that would never pay off.
Now looking back at the history, we can say: it paid off.
Freight costs across New York dropped by roughly 90 percent, and a trip that once took weeks by wagon took days by barge. Faster boats, cheaper shipping.
That's the headline you'd expect. The deeper story was about what ambitious people did with all that time and money.
Buffalo grew from a frontier village of a couple thousand people into one of the busiest ports in the country. Grain poured in, and in 1842 a Buffalo merchant built the world's first steam-powered grain elevator to keep up. Then came the power. In 1896, Niagara Falls power lit up Buffalo on Nikola Tesla's alternating-current system. Soon after, Buffalo engineer Willis Carrier invented modern air conditioning.
Warehouses, factories, neighborhoods. A whole city's worth of new opportunity. A place where hard work was rewarded through growth.
And all it all started with a vision and a structure that enabled the growth to start. Stone locks, like the Flight of Five that lifted boats up the Niagara Escarpment in Lockport. Towpaths worn smooth by mules. Banks that held the water exactly where it needed to be.
Structure underneath. Movement on top. Change all around.
Now fast forward to October 15, 2026.
Across all our work supporting the technology needs of a range of clients, and in conversation with local technology leaders on our podcast, a few interesting points have come up.
The conversation tends to be more about what teams and businesses are enabled to do now, rather than focused on what they don’t have to do anymore.
Technology tools are reinforcing existing structures, and sometimes they create new ones.
Back in 2023, AI felt like the Wild West, and it also felt necessary to throw ourselves into that unknown. That was intimidating for a lot of people. What's changed since then is we’ve all gained the knowledge of how to integrate these new tools into our existing work, our existing structure.
For employees to embrace a faster flow with technology and AI, a faster pace of work, a few things have to happen first:
Make sure all your tools connect to one source of truth. The manufacturing team has their ERP. The recruiting team has their applicant tracking system. The insurance business has their agency management software. If your view of your business is sprawled across four dashboards in three different tools, how can you easily decide what actions need to be taken next? How can your team find their direction and take the next steps they need to?
Ensure everyone knows the rules of the road. Communication and governance are just as important as the rollout itself. With every new piece of technology, there will be early adopters ready to jump in, and late adopters who want to see how others use it first before changing the processes they know like the back of their hand. Guardrails help keep some people from moving too fast, and others from moving too slow.
There's one preferred tool. Choosing an approved AI platform helps even the skeptics lean in. Think of it like a sandbox: a handful of tools in one place, clear boundaries, and open space for imagination inside.
How might you use the end of the year to patch up the structure that enables your work, your teams, your business?
If you know someone who needs help answering that question, it’s a conversation we’re ready to have.
Speaking of creating structure in your business and protecting your systems, we’re getting into cybersecurity on next week’s episode of The Beacon, the podcast!
Patrick Rost of InfoSecurity BluePrint joins the show. If you’re out and about in Buffalo’s tech community, chances are good you’ve been at an event with Pat.
Pat’s take on AI fits right in with everything above. If your processes and data are messy, AI will expose them faster.
Keep an eye on your inbox for the full conversation next week.
Looking for a new role in tech? Our Technology Talent Managers are always tuned in to the market, creating opportunities for technology professionals and innovative businesses to connect!
Here's a few roles we're recruiting for this week, and you can always head to our job board (updated daily) to see the latest listings.
Technical Product Owner, Employee Knowledge Management: Own an employee knowledge management system end to end, from concept all the way through production handoff. You'll build the SharePoint front end, Appian back-end workflows, and AI-powered content tagging with Copilot Studio and Claude, partnering with product leaders across 15+ product lines. 10-12+ month remote contract, $120-125+/hr.
Senior Application Engineer: Help move critical in-house applications from on-prem to Azure, including a lift-and-shift and a full rebuild of legacy ASPX webforms. You'll write C# and .NET using CQRS patterns, provision infrastructure with Terraform, and support apps used by Treasury, Investment Banking, and Compliance teams. Blazor or MudBlazor experience is a big plus. 18+ month remote contract with strong extension potential, $75-80+/hr.
ERP Business & Data Analyst: Turn ERP data into better business decisions by translating requirements into data models, user stories, and development-ready work. You'll join Agile sprints alongside product managers and developers, run data validation and testing, and support ERP configuration changes. Familiarity with Azure DevOps and Miro is a huge plus. 6-month remote contract-to-hire with quarterly travel to Charlotte, NC, $50-55+/hr.