Someone asked me this week about the case for reading fiction (as opposed to science, politics, more weighty genres), and my answer is always the same: stories are how we fuel our ability to make change. And it doesn't really matter if you're reading something that's true in the sense of having happened to real … Continue reading The Value of a Good Story
Tag: audience
Telling the Right Story
Time for another look at the stories we tell, about ourselves and about our business. As one of the resident Story Folk for our local 1MC community, I give this advice on a weekly basis--though usually I don't have this kind of space to develop my thoughts. When thinking about your story, it's important to … Continue reading Telling the Right Story
Storytime
I'm an organizer for my local 1 Million Cups community, and I find myself often repeating the same advice in our weekly meetings: starting with the simple question: what's your story? Several of our organizers are language experts, and we've come to think of ourselves as the Story Folk (I'm trying to make Story Squad … Continue reading Storytime
Finding Your Type
Writing for our businesses can be overwhelming, whether or not we think of ourselves as writers in any other context. Sometimes it's even the last thing I find energy for because I'm more focused on writing for my clients--and I won't find energy for it at all if I don't have a clear motivating goal. … Continue reading Finding Your Type
AI Still Isn’t Your Friend
AI can be a useful timesaver, or lose you readers--make sure that you're keeping the people in your process.
AI Is The Ultimate People Pleaser
As I understand it, AI is trained on a Pavlovian-style feedback: Yes this works (yay!) or no it doesn't, please try again. I know it's more complicated than that, but in a core sense most of the training input seems to come down to yes, I'm happy with this result or no, I'm not, please* … Continue reading AI Is The Ultimate People Pleaser
Please Don’t Ask AI to Write -For- You
I could create a whole gallery of worst-case user failures, including my favorite new one from academia-- But we don't need to review a whole collection to recognize that most of the blatantly obvious, groan-inducing AI failures are really a failure to adequately learn appropriate uses for a new tool set. As always, let me … Continue reading Please Don’t Ask AI to Write -For- You
Let’s Be Less nice in the Workplace
Hang on, hang on. Stick with me. I'm not advocating for rudeness, meanness, or disrespect. But I think the emphasis on nice (over, say, kind or clear) can get in the way of effective communication--and reinforce some pretty awful power systems in the process. For instance, one of my current clients has explicitly asked me … Continue reading Let’s Be Less nice in the Workplace
Bot Bloviation
I have a friend: I may have once called him a robot bootlicker, but here let's call him Bob. It's not uncommon for other friends to mention AI near Bob and I...and then bust out popcorn. I want to tell you a story about Bob's failure to produce an AI story. Bob is a member … Continue reading Bot Bloviation
The forever undead five-paragraph essay
Close your eyes. Picture one of your middle school English teachers handing you a sheet of paper to prepare for an upcoming essay. It has a series of fill-in-the-blank lines that you've seen before, adding up to a series of five short paragraphs. With me? Cool. Now let's crumple that handout, throw it in a … Continue reading The forever undead five-paragraph essay
Something Polished 