Blog

A safety blanket that smothers us.

That’s how I think about email and channels like Slack and Teams.

We all complain about the volume of messages and meetings we have to wade through, but honestly, I think they are our safety blanket.

Because input is easier than output.

It’s easier to respond than create something new.

When I get frazzled, bored or overwhelmed, for example, you know what I do? 

I turn to social media. For more input.

Because input is easier than...

Horrified.

That’s how I felt after watching an Apple TV ad spruiking its AI (Apple Intelligence) for emails.

It’s a business lunch with a writer meeting to discuss a pitch she’d emailed actor Bella Ramsey.

Bella, who obviously hasn’t read the email, quickly reaches for her phone and reads the AI generated summary of it, helping her feign knowledge of the project.

She lies, effectively.

The writer gets excited and says “Great, I’ll tell them...

Einstein told us that if you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

I believe that.

Are you seeing the disconnect, though?

It’s not simplicity, or more specifically clarity, that we measure our work against.

No. It’s a volume game, modern business.

Get it out the door and get on with the next assignment.

It takes time to curate, pare back, refine, and s-l-o-w thinking is no match for our itch to scratch off the “to-do” list.

As...

Your job will never be as easy as it is today.

I’m not talking about AI and other technologies.

I’m talking about hindsight.

You’ll look back and think life was easy.

Because things will only get more chaotic, more complex and more compressed.

If that thought exhausts you, there’s no better time than now to learn how humans are wired to make decisions, because that’s something that won’t change.

Here's how.

Painted walls can be cleaned pretty easily. A few squirts of “Spray and Wipe” and unsightly marks can be erased.

Walls with exposed brick are a different matter. Blemishes seep into the brickwork’s pores and crevices, making them impossible to expunge.

When it comes to communications, a painted wall approach is often the default.

Our presentations, websites and emails look uniform. Our writing is professional.

But as safe as this approach feels, it’s also...

When you eat a tomato from the supermarket it is unremarkable.Tasteless. Watery.

When you eat a homegrown tomato, it is vibrant. Sweet. Juicy.

It adds something to your day.

Guess which tomato most AI generated content reminds me of?

It takes more effort to grow your own, but goodness, what a payoff!

The future of work may be AI. Your future worth is not.

If you want to differentiate yourself and create real and sustainable value, you need to grow it yourself.

Famously, the microwave was meant to save us hours of labour. Before that, washing machines.

But guess what? Abhorring a vacuum, our time was filled.

Right now, the technology promising to save us hours is AI.

Lawyers, accountants, marketers, we can outsource our transactional work. And we are.

But what then?

Why will people want to work with you instead of AI?

What makes you different? Valuable?

People skills.

Your ability to engage, persuade, refuse, refute.

Imagine if instead of...

Floorboards and carpet.

Wallpaper and paint.

Carbs and fat.

High waisted and low-rise.

Slow and fast.

Zig and zag.

There’s always a counterpoint.

Consumerism thrives on it. 

Once one end of the pendulum is saturated, it’s natural to swing back the other way.

So with AI flooding us with generic, derivative content,

with the volume of life getting louder,

 what’s your counterpoint?

See: Influencing Action

I was updating my LinkedIn profile and was given the option for AI to rewrite it.

You’ve probably seen these AI integrations across a number of different platforms?

And to my delight, AI did an excellent job.

It covered all bases and flowed really nicely. (You can read for yourself it at the bottom of this post).

So I pressed publish.

But then I started to wonder, what is the point of my profile?

What am I trying to communicate BEYOND the words?

Because there were two problems...