#60: Don't read this, checking my AI skepticism, patriotic grammar, and special guest Devin Bramhall!
This week I found out that the ineffable Jon Burkhart, a loyal, and decidedly eccentric subscriber does not read this newsletter.
Instead, he pastes the text into Motoread and has them dictated to him, audibly, in a disturbingly fast robot voice while he zooms around London on an adult scooter. Jon, if you're listening, please watch for traffic.
He played it back on a call this week and it sounded like Alexa meets Siri meets that friend after a night out who's done too many lines of stardust and has a lot of ideas.
Or maybe that's just my "authentic brand voice," I dunno.
Either way, oh man do I have a TREAT for you this week! Friend, Wonder-Woman, writer, marketer, and newly-minted New Yorkan Devin Bramhall is a special guest link contributor this week!
That and much more in edition #60 of the World's Best Newsletter, including:
1. The future of leadership with AI
2. The 7 Deadly Sins of AI Predictions
3. Why Romantic Comedies Work
--- SPECIAL GUEST CORRESPONDANT SECTION ---
4. PASSAGES
5. Book of Isaiah II
6. Marketing Manager role for fun tech company!
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7. Quote of the week - Scold on, pedants.
1. The future of leadership with AI
So I am, by nature, a skeptic. And I can't help but be skeptical of AI.
It's everywhere, which makes me (like a good skeptic) assume it's all hype.
I am fighting my hardest not to immediately cast AI off into the category of "things we are now hearing a lot about because it's shiny, new, exciting, and we feel we must move on as a marketing industry to talk about something shiny, new, and exciting even though marketers are decidedly fighting battles about more important things than what's shiny, new and exciting."
The name of that category needs work.
Regardless of my skepticism, I am truly making attempts to read and learn about AI with an open mind. I have two articles to share today in that thread.
The first is from HBR, and its message is relevant for both humans and brands, "As AI Makes More Decisions, the Nature of Leadership Will Change"
"It is tempting to regard artificial intelligence as a threat to human leadership... #AI will lead to a greater emphasis on the 'soft' elements of leadership — the personality traits, attitudes, and behaviors that allow individuals to help others achieve a common goal or shared purpose.
I believe that's the way forward for both companies who hope to lead buyers through chaos and confusion, as well as individuals who operate in leadership roles.
2. The 7 Deadly Sins of AI Predictions
Rodney Brooks, robotics entrepreneur calls out, rather eloquently, the common mistakes that distract us from thinking more proactively about the future. He calls them the 7 deadly sins particularly for AI, but I think they could really be applied to any industry in which misinformation, fear, and hyperbole abound.
Some gems:
"If something is magic, it is hard to know its limitations... Nothing in the universe is without limit."
"Today’s robots and AI systems are incredibly narrow in what they can do. Human-style generalizations do not apply."
"Suitcase words" -- Brooks shares the idea of "suitcase words," which are those that carry a variety of meanings. They're a major culprit in this current world of AI misinformation.
"Suitcase words mislead people about how well machines are doing at tasks that people can do. That is partly because AI researchers—and, worse, their institutional press offices—are eager to claim progress in an instance of a suitcase concept. The important phrase here is “an instance.” That detail soon gets lost. Headlines trumpet the suitcase word, and warp the general understanding of where AI is and how close it is to accomplishing more..."
3. Why Romantic Comedies Work
Jon, this one is for you. The A.V. Club's Caroline Siede started a new column deconstructing romantic comedies and figuring out why the best ones work. Up first, Bridget Jones's Diary.
"Pick a random action film, political drama, or biopic and it’s a crapshoot as to whether it will feature even one well-developed female character. Pick a random rom-com, however, and you’ll almost certainly get a female protagonist, or at least one woman in a major role. True, the genre has a spotty track record when it comes to actually writing those female characters well. But the best rom-coms—like Bridget Jones—care about the everyday lives of women in a way so few other mainstream genres do consistently..."
Found courtesy of Nina Zipkin (Entrepreneur journalist) and her fabulous newsletter, Noted.
--- SPECIAL GUEST CORRESPONDANT SECTION ---
One time, I made Devin Bramhall be in a ridiculous (but fun) fake product launch video I did for April Fools at my former startup.... snapshot below:
Devin is also a friend, a talented marketer, an event producer, a messaging and speaker strategist, a killer writer, and the owner of the giant shoes I now fill as co-Exec Director of Boston Content. She is currently seeking her next adventure - so ping her on LinkedIn or Twitter before she gets scooped up.
Devin's recommended posts this week:
Working in content, it’s hard to find something truly different and inspiring anymore, and I’ve found branching out to increasingly UNrelated industries
4. PASSAGES
This 4-minute video is like the Calm app for creatives. Not much happens, but the rich colors and ambient sounds of the boat, the water and - occasionally - the narrator's voice begs me to pause and enjoy the moment. Like the shower or a run outside, I find my best ideas come from the most monotonous tasks, and this video embodies just that. Take a minute and get bored - you never know what might come out of it. (Found via The Gentlewoman.)
5. Book of Isaiah II
I don’t give a sh*t about sports, which is why I was so impressed by this series about former Celtics player Isaiah Thomas and his tumultuous year of death and trading. This made me care about a topic and human that I otherwise pay zero attention to, and is a reflection of the site itself. Created by Derek Jeter, PT features content by players themselves, creating an experience we’re not used to surrounding celebrities: real storytelling. No salivating gossip, no hero worshipping. Just humans telling their stories. It’s great.
6. Marketing Manager role for fun tech company!
This is an oldie that still applies (SAD), perhaps even more so now as the number of marketers I know who have opted to freelance rather than join another product-led startup almost outnumbers those who still believe in “the dream”. The bloom is so far gone that even marketers can’t manufacture it anymore. SAD
---- Thanks Devin!
7. Quote of the week - "Scold on, pedants."
This article about the FBI's indictments against Russian nationals and comopanies had me laughing:
"A fastidious English major could have seen the Russians’ inexplicable capitalizations, stiff sentences, and missing articles. One political ad placed online by the Russians apparently read,
“Hillary is a Satan, and her crimes and lies had proved just how evil she is.”
Just a Satan, not the? Is there a class of Satans of which Hillary was just one example? If so, why capitalize the S? If this sounds like a tedious debate to you, then you would likely not be the grammarian this country needs."
"It may be that sophists point out errant apostrophes while philosophers argue on the merits, but the not-so-good English that may have swayed an election should vindicate the grammar scolds among us. So scold on, pedants: It’s not just good again to pay attention to sentence fragments and dangling participles—it’s patriotic."
Carry on, comrades.
Best,
Katie Martell
Website | LinkedIn | Twitter
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