If you aren’t willing to look at the world from a different angle, it will change around you before you realize it.
Jordan Peterson argued that the world had moved from a dominance hierarchy – the big and strong win – to a competence hierarchy.
Competence is built over time, so as long as you practice something you will get better as you get older.
But what does practice look like when you don’t need to do parts of the work?
Take music, for example. You could learn to play the guitar, which is hard and tiresome work. You could use a tool like Garage Band, and press buttons to make music. Or you could go all geeky and synthesize it with code generators.
What matters is that you pick a method and use it to create better music.
In a work context, we’ve used flash reports – a one page summary of progress – for 20 years.
I saw a post recently by someone that used Google’s Nano Banana to create a very pretty, beautifully laid out flash report. At first glance, it’s really good.
But is it useful?
The point of a flash report is that it communicates important information quickly and easily.
That artifact in itself is a collection of pixels – the user has to make it useful by embedding it in a repeatable workflow.
The options are to use it as a template for a PowerPoint that is edited manually. It’s a little more of a stretch to create an automated workflow that takes notes information or instructions and creates a finished report. You need skills to do that, and a human in the loop to check the output.
Things get more complex as you try and make something that looks good actually work in practice.
When you’re faced with rising waters, the sensible thing is not to waste time protesting that about the nature and speed and levels and use and abuse of the water.
It’s more useful to build a boat.
What’s your boat for the way in which AI is washing over your industry?
Handcrafted insight 