We often talk about adaptability and staying relevant through curious learning.
Here is a recent, real example about using tools at hand to the best of your advantage, in this case AI and ChatGPT functions.
I have been working with a senior executive on some business news framing and positioning for a big announcement. The executive has at her disposal very senior communications executives that their ownership group tasks with a number of initiatives, all of which are “Priority One.” The firm came back with a draft of news that was a bit mis-messaged, probably because it was not the focus or the top news item of the day for them, but it was to this rising executive.
I should add that this person is very practical and a great strategic thinker and doer, who always has the big picture in mind and is greatly aware of all going on in a fast-paced industry. The persons thought, like mine, was “Hey why don’t we throw some thoughts into an AI platform just to see what it returns for a thought starter on messaging. It will find some of the history of the organization and (of this person) and in seconds it may give us a different perspective.”
The agency lead was a bit ruffled by that thought, maybe because they rarely get pushback from people, or maybe because they were not using all the tools in the workbench.
Low and behold, we tried Chat GPT for some thoughts, and it created at least a dozen differently framed one-line messages that had great value. Now some of the facts were off base and some of the messaging was wrong, but there was a different point of view that was put forward…and it all came about because the leader of the organization was more open minded and curious than those down the chain of command.
It goes to show that AI, or any platform, can be used to better craft a message, just like a Thesaurus, or a Calculator, or a printing press or Google or any other tool has been used when they came into play. Maybe an agency sees it as a threat, maybe they are too focused on just doing and not learning, but at the end of the day the use of the tools wasn’t questioning someone’s ability to do a task, it was questioning why wouldn’t you use all at hand.
In reality, the executive told me, it was eye opening to see how a very seasoned group being tasked with leadership in storytelling was not leaning into everything that could be used to make a good announcement great by maybe being a little too closed minded on all we have in front of us.
Great lesson learned. Keep your eyes open and use everything at hand to make the pie bigger. (BTW I ran this post through spelling and grammar check, and yes, I made mistakes! How great is it that they were caught by an automation tool!)
