Horizon Live 2026 Was So Dumb

Last week, a couple hundred current and future customers and 20 members of the XBE team came together in San Francisco for Horizon Live 2026. We talked about the next ten years, shared what’s working, made ambitious plans, and announced 13 product advancements.

Enjoy hundreds of great photos of the event here.

The runaway hit was a session where everyone stood up and told us what was dumb about our software.

I loved it.

The session was called “It’s So Dumb…” We put the XBE and BCMI platforms on trial and invited the community to make its case. Each accusation began with “It’s so dumb that…”

There were three rules:

1. Being negative is positive.
2. The platforms are on trial, not the people.
3. Perform the criticism. Be funny, outrageous, over-the-top.

You came up with dozens of wonderfully specific complaints. Things that take too many clicks. Information that’s right there but can’t be used where you need it. Little dances you’ve learned to do because the software makes you.

There’s something great about watching the people who use a product and the people who build it laugh together about something that should be better. It becomes much easier to say, “Yes! Why does it work that way?”

And then change it.

Within 24 hours, we had already shipped six improvements based on the session. We’ve kept going since. A few of the things you raised that are now addressed:

• Creating a membership and a laborer required two separate steps. You can now select labor classifications while adding the membership and create both together.
• You couldn’t change a plan’s start time from the material supplier views. You can now do it from Supplier Plans and the Material Site Monitor.
• Assigning a foreman didn’t help you bring along the crew. XBE now suggests matching crew templates so you can review and import the labor and equipment you need.
• An error told you something was wrong without taking you to it. Job production plan validation errors can now take you to the relevant section and highlight the field.
• You couldn’t chat with a customer directly from Logistics. Order chat is now available from the Logistics screen’s context menu.

These are the kinds of things that get in your way every day. They’re annoying! Thank you for pointing them out, and thank you to the team for getting after them so quickly.

The ritual comes from an idea in my book, The Dionysus Program. We’ve learned that getting better requires making it easier to question the things we’ve built, including the things we’re proud of. That takes trust and practice. A little ridiculousness helps.

More than a dozen people found me afterward to say they wanted to take the ritual home and use it on their own processes, policies, and systems. So I made itssodumb.com. It has a host’s guide, scripts, prompts, and tools to help you run a session yourself. Pick something familiar that your group can change, invite the people who created it, and give it a try.

We’ll also be starting monthly “It’s So Dumb” rituals for our user groups. Kayla Palmer will be coordinating. And congratulations on the wedding, Kayla! Between Horizon and her wedding, it was quite a week.

There was a lot more to Horizon, too.

One theme kept coming up: our customers run complicated businesses, with materials, plants, trucks, crews, equipment, customer commitments, and money all affecting one another. As change accelerates, connecting those operations becomes more valuable. An integrated platform lets you understand the consequences of a decision and act on them faster.

The “Dispatch Is Dead. Long Live Dispatch.” panel made that tangible. All-22, Agent 22, and raw material replenishment are moving us closer to autonomous dispatch becoming a normal part of the working day. That also creates room to rethink where dispatchers can contribute most.

The Agent XBE stories were another highlight. Most attendees were already using it, and hearing what people were doing with it was amazing. People have their own questions, their own ways of working, and their own ideas about what ought to be possible. It’s exciting to see what happens when they have more power to act on those ideas.

Our 13 product announcements showed how much ground we’re covering. We shared advances in notifications, production planning, translations, All-22 and Agent 22, raw material inventory, equipment management, project financial administration, and estimating. We also previewed what’s coming with Beacon, Agent XBE for Claude and ChatGPT, the ready-mix driving experience, Charge! rating and invoicing, and scale ticketing. Any one of those deserves a conversation of its own.

Every company that attended also left with a documented Game Plan for the ambitious goals it’s pursuing next. The work now is to turn those Trophies into Wins and Action Items, then follow through. We’ve learned that this “cultural technology” is just as important as the System of Action and SuperWorkforce. We need better ways to decide what matters, learn together, and turn what we learn into changed practice.

That’s what I hope carries forward from Horizon.

Thank you to everyone who came, shared a story, asked a hard question, helped another customer, or stood up and told us something was dumb. For those who couldn’t join us, I hope we’ll see you in the monthly sessions.

We have a lot to be proud of, a lot to improve, and a fantastic community to do it with.

Let’s get better forever.

Sean