AI (PROBABLY) ISN’T COMING FOR YOUR JOB

One of the first things that we typically do when we start working with a new client is interview everyone involved to get to know what they do, how they work, and any roadblocks that are in their way. In the hundreds of interviews I’ve hosted, not once have I run into someone who reported that they have too much time and not enough stuff to fill their calendar.

Despite years of technology adoption (or maybe because of it) our days are filled with apps, spreadsheets, forms, folders, and Zoom calls. Now here comes AI.

The insecurities and challenges facing our world – the climate crisis, shocking levels of inequality, the war in Ukraine, a looming recession, to name only a few – are causing people to rethink their values, lives and place in the world. 

KEEP THAT DIGITAL-FIRST ENERGY

Just a year ago we said we’d never go back. Not that we’d all never work in a common office again, but that we had seen all of the ridiculous inefficiencies that came with blindly trudging into a centralized location 5 days a week.

Remember that before COVID, even simple things that we now count as table stakes, like video meetings, were not common. I recall anticipating some executive education and a bit of last-minute tech support crisis with nearly every video conference that we scheduled in 2019.

WHY DO WE CARE ABOUT FIRST-PARTY ADS?

2019 was a magical time for digital marketers — ads were cheap, targeting was amazing, and the platforms were able to track your every move across the internet. Turns out, that wasn’t so great for our privacy. Bad actors abused the system, and data breaches were a regular occurrence, which led most major governments to introduce data-protection regulations. But it wasn’t governments that caused the biggest shift online, it was another tech company.

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM THE BIG SOCIAL EARNINGS

Last week all of the biggest platforms reported their earnings, which always cuts through the spin to reveal what’s actually going on under the hood. This time they all told roughly the same story: Growth is good, and so are earnings.

In Meta’s case, the big headline was that they have crossed 3 Billion users – just another sign of their dominance as the world’s largest social network, by a lot.

THE DIGITAL ADOPTION OPPORTUNITY GAP IS BIGGER THAN EVER

“We’re a mess - our competitors’ digital strategies are so well put together, why can’t we be more like them?”

Sound familiar? It’s a near-direct quote that I’ve heard hundreds of times.