Content + AI

Bill Rogers

Bill Rogers is an experienced AI entrepreneur whose latest venture, ai12z, gives web content platform owners tools to build digital assistants and chatbots and to run gen-AI-powered searches.

We talked about:

his work at his latest startup, ai12z, which builds copilots designed to power content experiences

his use of the term "copilot" as a generic AI capability, to distinguish it from branded uses of the word

the two main capabilities of their copilot: question answering and ReAct (reasoning and action)

his take on RAG architectures and how ReAct fits into them

how integrating copilots into content and commerce architectures can guide users through complex interaction flows that are connected to third-party services

how to ensure that users have confidence in AI systems and that the systems are technically secure

the technical architecture that underlies their copilot platform

how copilots help write queries to search utilities and other information and knowledge sources to help with tasks like complex product comparisons

the variety of UIs their platform provides: search boxes, knowledge panels, etc.

how interactions with copilots can inform an organization's content planning

the importance of including image AI in this kind of platform, to both better understand the content and create more robust ALT text

Bill's bio

Bill Rogers is a visionary entrepreneur with a deep technologist background in AI and digital technologies. Recognized for significantly influencing the evolution of online experiences, Bill founded Ektron and served as its CEO. Under his leadership, Ektron emerged as a pioneering SaaS web content management platform, serving thousands of organizations globally. After Bill sold Ektron to Accel KKR, it merged with Episerver and became part of Optimizely. Bill then co-founded and led Orbita as its CEO, driving innovation in advanced conversational AI. Beyond these startups, Bill co-founded several other ventures and has had an expansive career in digital signal processing and robotics engineering. Bill holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Boston University.

Connect with Bill online

ai12z

bill at ai12z dot com

Video

Here’s the video version of our conversation:

https://youtu.be/hJPnAvWXBlA

Podcast intro transcript

This is the Content and AI podcast, episode number 38. You wouldn't try to operate an airliner without a copilot, and you shouldn't operate a modern web architecture one function at a time either. That's the case that Bill Rogers makes for his latest AI startup, ai12z. His company builds AI copilots - in the generic, non-branded sense of that term - that enable robust search and discovery, streamline complex tasks like mulitfaceted product comparisons, improve accessibility, and even help with content planning.

Interview transcript

Larry:

Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 38 of the Content and AI podcast. I am really delighted today to welcome to the show Bill Rogers. Bill is a longtime veteran in the content management and technology world. He founded a company called Ektron years ago, which was acquired by Episerver, which is now known as Optimizely. He ran a conversational AI platform long before ChatGPT came out called Orbita, and he's currently the CEO and founder at ai12z. So, welcome, Bill. Tell the folks a little bit more about what you're up to these days.

Bill:

Thank you, Larry. Yes. So, at ai12z, what we're doing is we're focused on building essentially a copilot, enabling websites and mobile applications, the ability to take advantage of AI to help drive experiences.

Larry:

Nice. And that's a nice, succinct description of what you do, but a lot of websites have chatbots or things like that. How does a copilot... Well actually, first let me back up because copilot is an interesting term. I first became aware of it when GitHub did their coding assistant thing,

Jeff Coyle

Generative AI tools and LLMs bring the need for a new kind of content awareness in organizations of all sizes.

While some have focused on content creation, Jeff Coyle has grown and accelerated his content-marketing capabilities by leveraging the content discovery and operations improvements that AI can deliver.

We talked about:

his decade-long history in working with NLP, AI, and content

his overview of the rapid progression of AI technology over the past two years

the importance to businesses and enterprises of doing a data inventory to understand their unique strengths

the exponential increases in both the capabilities of the AI services he uses and their affordability

the importance of creating high-quality content in this new AI landscape

how to capture your org's knowledge and use it to fuel your content plans

how journalists are crucial for capturing that knowledge

his take on the current state of content-industry employment

the importance of aligning content and its performance to organizational KPIs

the crucial differences between how you wish people would consume your content versus how they are consuming it and how they might be

the ongoing difficulties of marketing attribution and how new predictive models that AI affords can help address them

how a "process inventory" is even more important than a conventional content inventory

Jeff's bio

Jeff Coyle is the Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer for MarketMuse. Jeff is a data-driven search engine marketing executive with 20+ years of experience in the search industry. He is focused on helping content marketers, search engine marketers, agencies, and e-commerce managers build topical authority, improve content quality and turn semantic research into actionable insights. His company is the recipient of multiple Red Herring North America awards, multiple US Search Awards Finalist, Global Search Awards Finalist, Interactive Marketing Awards shortlist, and several user-driven awards on G2, including High Performer, Momentum Leader and Best Meets Requirements.

Prior to starting MarketMuse in 2015, Jeff was a marketing consultant in Atlanta and led the Traffic, Search and Engagement team for seven years at TechTarget, a leader in B2B technology publishing and lead generation. He earned a Bachelors in Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology. Jeff frequently speaks at content marketing conferences including: ContentTECH, Marketing AI Conference, Content Marketing World, LavaCon, Content Marketing Conference and more. He has been featured on Search Engine Journal, Marketing AI Institute, State of Digital Publishing, SimilarWeb, Chartbeat, Content Science, Forbes and more.

Connect with Jeff online

LinkedIn

MarketMuse

Twitter

jeff at marketmuse dot com

Video

Here’s the video version of our conversation:

https://youtu.be/Ij18O07YnYc

Podcast intro transcript

This is the Content and AI podcast, episode number 37. The label "generative AI" has led many to focus on using this new tech for content creation, while the real benefits may lie in different capabilities that LLMs and other AI tools afford. In his work, Jeff Coyle has enthusiastically adopted AI, using it to identify new content repurposing opportunities, to capture and leverage unique organizational knowledge, and to dramatically reduce the costs of content operations, discovering along the way new opportunities for content professionals.

Interview transcript

Larry:

Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 37 of the Content and AI podcast. I'm really delighted today to welcome to the show Jeff Coyle. Jeff is the co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at MarketMuse. We talked on my other podcast, Content Strategy Insights, a couple of years ago, and I'm really excited to have him back because one or two things have changed since then. Welcome, Jeff. Tell the folks a little bit more about what you're up to these days...

Cennydd Bowles

Like most designers who work in technology, Cennydd Bowles has reflected at times on the impact of his work and its ethical implications.

After a couple of decades of information architecture and interaction design practice, Cennydd stepped back from his design work to explore philosophy and ethics in depth.

His explorations have led him to extensive academic study as well as speaking gigs and writing on the subject, including a book, Future Ethics.

We talked about:

his transition from interaction design to tech ethics

his origins in the information architecture world and his career, including a stint at Twitter

how we as designers have missed predictable mistakes and patterns that ethicists have long known about

how he got hooked on philosophy and ethics

his 2018 book on the connections between the worlds of philosophy and design, Future Ethics

the ethical issues that can arise in even a seemingly harmless practice like A/B testing

his prediction that AI will in the not-too-distant future permit almost fully automated product development and the risks that that brings

how the difficulties of measuring trust might exacerbate the trust issues that arise with AI

the "magical" nature of AI his observation that "the problem with magic is it's intentionally deceptive"

a new orchestrator role that he sees coming with AI

his pessimism about the prospects for humans over the long term in the AI economy

how Cory Doctorow's notion of "enshittification" manifests in the design and AI world

what he sees coming: "rapidly iterating mediocrity rather than considered excellence"

the power, albeit diminished recently, of employees to influence ethical decision-making within organizations

three books he recommends (links below)

his advice to designers to listen to and connect with philosophers and learn from their prior work on ethics

Cennydd's bio

Cennydd Bowles is a technology ethicist and interaction designer, author of Future Ethics, and a recent Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Elon University. Cennydd’s views on the ethics of emerging technology and design have been quoted by Forbes, WIRED, and The Wall Street Journal, and he has spoken on responsible innovation at Facebook, Stanford University, and Google.

Connect with Cennydd online

LinkedIn

Cennydd.com

Tech ethics books

Future Ethics, Cennydd Bowles

Design for Real Life, Eric Meyer and Sara Wachter-Boettcher

Ethical Product Development, Pavani Reddy

Ethics for People who Work in Tech, Marc Steen

Video

Here’s the video version of our conversation:

https://youtu.be/MbfK7AnPa-0

Podcast intro transcript

This is the Content and AI podcast, episode number 36. In the flurry of activity launched by AI-technology investment, ethical considerations have been left largely unexplored. Cennydd Bowles is an accomplished interaction designer who has spent the last several years studying and writing and speaking about tech ethics and responsible innovation. What he sees unfolding now concerns him, leading him to predict that the near-term future is more likely to bring "rapidly iterating mediocrity rather than considered excellence."

Interview transcript

Larry:

Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 36 of the Content and AI Podcast. I am really delighted today to welcome to the show, Cennydd Bowles. Cennydd is a technology ethicist and interaction designer based in the UK. Welcome, Cennydd. Tell the folks a little bit more about what you're up to these days.

Cennydd:

Hey, Larry. Well, so let's see. I've just got back from America, so for the last six months, I've been in Elon University, North Carolina as a Fulbright visiting scholar. This is really a large part of my transition, essentially, from the days of UX and product design within industry, and transitioning from that into academia, and particularly philosophy, philosophy of technology, and ethics of technology.

Sharon Ni

One of the most engaging aspects of generative AI products is their conversational interfaces. This has led many content designers working on AI products to develop skills in conversation design.

Sharon Ni works on both conversational AI products and script-driven chatbots in her content design role at Cisco. She has developed her conversational design and technical AI skills by attending conferences, hackathons, and other events, by networking extensively, and by experimenting constantly with AI and conversation tech.

We talked about:

her work on chatbots and AI tools at Cisco

an overview of the content design guidance chatbot she built

her addition of "conversation designer" to her resume

the evolution of the people ecosystem she works in, which now includes more engineers and data practitioners

the professional development that she's done to prepare her for working with AI and collaborating with her more technical collaborators

how participating in hackathons and other events has helped her advance her AI skills

some of the tools she uses in her work, including spreadsheets, Miro, and Voiceflow

her personal interest in building chatbots and how it's helped her in professional work

the content design repository where she stores the conversational content she works with

how she helps her colleagues understand how to best use AI

her new responsibilities around assessing the technical feasibility of

her advice to "just do it," to start building your own AI projects and connecting with others who share your interest

Sharon's bio

I love writing products. I hate writing about myself. So here’s five quick things about me and my work in AI:

I’m a content designer at Cisco. Currently working on the Cisco AI assistant and Cisco.com chatbot.

I like trying and building different chatbots myself - I recently built a content style guide chatbot that can help people review their copy and find guidelines.

I’m a fierce advocate for content research and like to use data to inform my content design decisions.

I have a background in Psycholinguistics and received a master’s degree from Middlebury College in 2023.

Huge fan of this podcast.

Connect with Sharon online

LinkedIn

Video

Here’s the video version of our conversation:

https://youtu.be/4HgM2hp5hpM

Podcast intro transcript

This is the Content and AI podcast, episode number 35. One of the main attractions of generative AI products is their conversational interfaces. This basic characteristic has drawn many content designers into the adjacent field of conversation design. In her work on chatbots and conversational AI products at Cisco, Sharon Ni has applied conversation design techniques and also learned a lot about the engineering side of AI, sometimes even advising her colleagues on the technical feasibility of their product ideas.

Interview transcript

Larry:

Hi everyone. Welcome to episode number 35 of the Content + AI podcast. I am really delighted today to welcome to the show, Sharon Ni. Sharon is a content designer at Cisco, is doing really interesting stuff with AI and other technologies there. Welcome, Sharon. Tell the folks a little bit more about what you're up to these days.

Sharon:

Yeah, hi Larry. Very nice to meet you and excited to be here. And as you mentioned, I'm currently working on Cisco AI system for security, which is part of the Cisco AI ecosystem. And I'm also working on a chatbot that's on the cisco.com website right now.

Sharon:

And other than that, I am also working with the Voiceflow team to build an AI powered content design, style guide chatbot that can help our design partners to find the right guidelines and also review copy based on the guidelines, basically. It's not going to write the copy for them, but it will provide recommendations based on the good examples and bad examples that I fed into the chatbot and also the templates. So yeah,

Andrew Stein

Like many content designers in the fall of 2022, Andrew Stein was concerned about the possible negative impact of generative AI on content and design practice. And his concern was heightened by the large number of content designers on his team.

Since then, Andrew has discovered many ways to apply AI in his content design work, both in conventional digital-product design and in content work on AI products.

He has also discovered a happy additional benefit of taking the lead on AI. His expertise has led to exciting new collaborations and leadership opportunities.

We talked about:

his work as a content design and AI leader

his take on the best ways to use AI in content-design practice

how to maintain focus on the fundamentals of content as you work with AI to create new content or manage and validate existing content, and a tool he is developing to automate this

new content-employment opportunities that he sees emerging

the clean slate on which content people can create their new AI roles and responsibilities

some of his techniques for demonstrating how your content skills can help your AI collaborators:

find opportunities to serve

adopt a learner's mindset

"just do" - experiment with tools on your own

some of the people he follows and resources he has consulted as he has developed his AI expertise:

Noz Urbina

Leah Krauss

the conversation design community, in particular Maaike Groenewege

his encouragement for all content designers to find a balanced approach to incorporating AI into their career

Andrew's bio

Andrew is a Director and Principal Content Designer at a financial services company. He’s led content in smart home, social media, AI robotics, and FinTech. Andrew’s experience includes both consulting, and companies like Lowe’s, Wells Fargo, Truist Bank, and Meta. Andrew is currently focused on the way AI tools serve the content design process, and bringing a content-first approach to the development of new AI products and services.

Connect with Andrew online

LinkedIn

ADPList

Video

Here’s the video version of our conversation:

https://youtu.be/hxoMSzyDCFk

Podcast intro transcript

This is the Content and AI podcast, episode number 34. When generative AI burst onto the scene there were plenty of reasons for content designers to be anxious. Andrew Stein channeled his concern into a deep exploration of AI tech and how it might be applied in content work. As a design leader, he has discovered a number of ways that content designers can use AI tools, and build AI products. As an advocate for content practice, he has found that his AI expertise opens many new doors for influencing his business collaborators.

Interview transcript

Larry:

Hi everyone, welcome to episode number 34 of the Content and AI Podcast. I am really happy today to welcome to the show, Andrew Stein. Andrew is an independent content design leader. He works currently for a big financial services firm. He also has his own consultancy on the side, does various content things including AI stuff for folks. So welcome, Andrew. Tell the folks a little bit more about what you're up to these days.

Andrew:

Yeah, very cool. Well Larry, super-happy to be here and as I mentioned earlier, I've seen all the episodes and get so much out of them every time, so really happy to be here. Yeah, right now, like you mentioned, I'm doing quite a bit of work both for the company I work for and on the side, working in both AI projects and traditional content design projects and really where those two merge together, both helping to build teams and build structure around how we approach AI from a content perspective, which I think is really key with all of this. And also how to bring AI into the work that we do as well as content designers working on traditional products and services as well.

Larry:

Yeah, I think that latter is probably the more familiar scenario for most...

Anna Potapova

Generative AI creates new opportunities to create and manage content at scale. And scale is definitely required when crafting content experiences for one of the world's largest ecommerce companies.

Anna Potapova is incorporating gen-AI across the span of her work at AliExpress: content creation and management, localization, personalization, and other areas where her strategic-content mind guides her.

We talked about:

her recent promotion to a new leadership role at AliExpress

which types of content are most amenable to being generated by AI

the standards they use to guide the creation and ensure the quality of AI content

the crucial role of content designers and localization experts in the ongoing iterative improvement of AI content at a large scale

how AI enables the democratization of content creation

the large percentage of user-generated content on the AliExpress platform

how AI helps her team with personalization

how gen-AI content helps them scale their marketing personalization efforts

the importance of inviting yourself to machine learning and data science meetings to show the value you bring

the value of case studies when communicating with internal stakeholders to show the value you can bring

the importance of staying grounded in business objectives when developing relationships with your collaborators

how a strategic approach to your work can help your org use AI most productively

how the shift from hand-crafted content to AI content at scale manifests in content operations

her plans to explore how AI can help evaluate content quality and conduct content audits

the concept of hyper-localization, which addresses very specific regional and cultural differences

the importance of proactively engaging with product and tech colleagues to ensure that standards-backed content powers AI products going forward

Anna's bio

Anna Potapova is Staff Content Strategist at AliExpress (part of Alibaba Global Digital Commerce group). She changed team positioning from pure localization to Content Design, built a style guide and a system to maintain it, established standards for AI generated content in multiple languages and improved business metrics while reducing production costs. Anna has been featured on several podcasts (Content Strategy Insights, Writers of Silicon Valley, Localization Leaders), joined UX Evenings @ Google and helped to build a content community in China.

Connect with Anna online

LinkedIn

Video

Here’s the video version of our conversation:

lkjsdf

Podcast intro transcript

This is the Content and AI podcast, episode number 33. When you create, manage, personalize, and localize content at scale for a global ecommerce giant like Alibaba, you need all of the automation help that you can get. In her role as a content strategy and design leader at AliExpress, Anna Potapova is harnessing the power of generative AI tools and techniques to address customers' individual preferences, to help third-party vendors create better content, and to streamline their internal content design operation.

Interview transcript

Larry:

Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 33 of the Content and AI podcast. I'm really delighted today to welcome to the show, Anna Potapova. Anna is a staff content strategist at Alibaba, the big e-commerce merchant in China. She works specifically for AliExpress. Welcome to the show, Anna. Tell the folks a little bit more about what you're doing these days.

Anna:

Thanks, Larry. Happy to be here again. Should I mention that since the last appearance on your podcast, I was on Content Strategy Insights with Arnaud. Since my last appearance I was promoted, I attributed exclusively to your podcast. Thank you so much for having me again.

Larry:

That's too awesome. Thank you.

Anna:

Recently, I've been talking a lot about AI and my team has been doing a lot of work in this area.

Duane Forrester

SEO has always been difficult, but generative AI takes things to an entirely new level.

Duane Forrester has been immersed in the search world for more than 20 years, including stints as the Product Manager for the Bing Webmaster Program and Vice President of Industry Insights at Yext, where he developed company AI strategy. He also helped launch the schema.org structured-data standard.

Duane offers plenty of AI-specific advice about how to navigate the new search landscape. But he also says that the foundations of good SEO are still grounded in timeless digital best practices: understanding your customers' needs and intentions and consistently giving them good content and helpful user experiences.

We talked about:

his long history as a search-industry expert and leader

his high-level take on the current state of AI

the true benefits of AI for content and how they relate to SEO

the title of his content-and-genAI cookbook: "Common Sense"

the importance of understanding the kinds of content that are resonating with your customers

an interesting AI-driven SEO-localization case study that was presented at PubCon last year that demonstrates the power of understanding user intent

an overview of the knowledge graph tech that underpins the search infrastructure at tech companies and big enterprises

his predication that the future of search will be knowledge graph to knowledge graph conversations between companies and search engines

the rapidly evolving new world of SEO and the imperative for businesses to leverage AI to keep up with the increasing need to scale SEO operations

the enduring importance of providing a good user experience at the end of a search flow

the importance of delivering content in video format into a search landscape increasingly driven by social media

new search behaviors created by Google's Circle Search and AR tech like Meta's Ray-Ban glasses

his observation that search is infinitely more complex than most SEOs can imagine

the secret to search success: attracting attention from consumers, by deeply understanding their behaviors and intentions

his prediction that Apple will launch an AI-powered Siri in September that will thrust ChatGPT into the mainstream

Duane's bio

Duane Forrester is a distinguished figure in the search industry, with a career that spans digital marketing, authorship, and leadership roles at prominent companies such as Microsoft Bing, Bruce Clay Inc. and Yext. His expertise in digital marketing is complemented by a strong understanding of AI/ML, consumer behavior and customer experience, making him a well-rounded and sought-after professional in the field.

During his tenure at Microsoft, Duane was instrumental in the development and launch of Bing Webmaster Tools and Schema.org, focusing on the needs of webmasters and digital marketers. His deep knowledge of search engines and user behavior contributed to Bing's growth and success.

Beyond his work at Microsoft and Bing, Duane has showcased his knowledge as a prolific author in the digital marketing sphere. He has written for most industry publications and his two books, "How to Make Money with Your Blog" and "Turn Clicks into Customers," have provided invaluable insights and guidance to numerous businesses navigating the competitive online landscape.

Today, he, continues to share his extensive knowledge of digital marketing, AI, and customer experience, shaping the future of the search industry and empowering businesses to thrive in the digital era.

Connect with Duane online

LinkedIn

Facebook

Threads

Twitter

Duane's books

How to Make Money with Your Blog: The Ultimate Reference Guide for Building, Optimizing, and Monetizing Your Blog

Turn Clicks into Customers - How to deliver conversions across all online marketing activities

Video

Here’s the video version of our conversation:

https://youtu.be/OjCH0b3isrs

Leah Krauss

New AI products like Microsoft's Copilot can be powerful productivity enhancers, but if designers aren't careful they can inadvertently introduce into the product the bias and other hazards that can come with large language models.

As a content designer working on Microsoft's Copilot for Sales product, Leah Krauss helps her colleagues understand and follow the responsible-AI principles that the company has developed.

Leah's advocacy helps her design and product teams create a product that balances the need for transparency about the use of AI with the prerogative to keep customers in flow as they use the product.

We talked about:

her work as a content designer on Copilot for Sales at Microsoft and her advocacy there for responsible AI

how she collaborates with her data science team, which had established a relationship with the content team even before Copilot on other products

the evolution of their AI product-development process

how their design system supports the implementation of responsible AI

the six principles that guide responsible AI at Microsoft:

fairness

reliability and safety

privacy and security

inclusiveness

transparency

accountability

how she advocates for responsible AI on the Copilot for Sales product team

the balance between keeping customers in their flow and being transparent about AI features

the concept of the "human in the loop" and how they apply it in the Copilot for Sales product

the importance in AI product design of always being aware of edge cases and possible misuses of the product

her encouragement to anyone working on AI products to stay curious, ask a lot of questions, and to bear in mind the importance and relevance of our language expertise

Leah's bio

Leah Krauss is a senior UX content designer at Microsoft. She works on Copilot for Sales, Microsoft's AI software for salespeople, where she also collaborates closely with the data science team. She champions responsible AI to anyone and everyone who'll listen, including inside Microsoft and at various UX conferences. Outside of work, you can usually find her reading, or spending time outside with her family - hiking, exploring cities, and hanging out on the beach.

Connect with Leah online

LinkedIn

Video

Here’s the video version of our conversation:

https://youtu.be/VItdSUgzkZE

Podcast intro transcript

This is the Content and AI podcast, episode number 31. The introduction of AI tools like Microsoft's Copilot creates new opportunities for content designers. But as with any innovation, the new technology can be a two-edged sword. For every customer workflow that is streamlined there may also be an opportunity for bias or hazard to get into the product. As a content designer and champion for responsible AI, Leah Krauss helps her colleagues at Microsoft understand and apply responsible AI principles in their product design work.

Interview transcript

Larry:

Hi everyone. Welcome to episode number 31 of the Content and AI podcast. I'm really delighted today to welcome to the show Leah Krauss. Leah is a senior UX content designer at Microsoft where she works on Copilot, which many of you may have heard of. So welcome Leah. Tell the folks a little bit more about what you're up to these days.

Leah:

Hi Larry. It's so nice to be here. So yeah, as you mentioned, I'm working on Copilot for Sales, which is a flavor of Microsoft Copilot, and that's been really exciting to be in on kind of the ground floor of AI at Microsoft. And responsible AI, which is what we're going to talk about today, is one of my most favorite topics to talk about. I've done some conference talks about it and my coworkers are really tired of hearing me go on about it. I actually serve, no, that's not true. It's only half true. I serve as actually a responsible AI champion, one of the responsible AI champions on my team. So it's sort of my thing and I think it's so exciting t...

Jack Molisani

As the founder of the long-standing LavaCon conference and the principal at a technical content staffing agency, Jack Molisani gets a deeply informed view of the world of technical communication.

While he sees the opportunities that generative AI presents, he raises several concerns for technical content strategy practitioners, among them the inaccuracy of generative AI content and the inability of AI tools to comprehend subtle human communication clues.

We talked about:

his work as the Executive Director of the LavaCon Content Strategy Conference and at ProSpring Staffing, a technical communication job agency

how a change in the LinkedIn messaging interface inspired him to spend more time at in-person events

his observation that many product features that are promoted as "AI" are actually capabilities that have been around for years

his concerns about the ability to identify and vet the sources that AI tools cite

his assessment of the job prospects for technical communicators in 2024

his exasperation with the decline in quality of applicant tracking systems (ATS)

some of the tasks in technical communication that AI can help with

the inability of AI tools to account for subtle human communication dynamics like facial expressions

how using AI writing tools can misrepresent your own writing ability

how a speed networking event that troubled introverts at a prior LavaCon led to the introduction of calming therapy animals at the event, including a therapy llama

Jack's bio

Jack Molisani is the President of ProSpring Staffing, an employment agency specializing in content professionals (both contract and perm).

He's the author of Be The Captain of Your Career: A New Approach to Career Planning and Advancement, which hit #5 on Amazon's Career and Resume Best Seller list. The first printing is sold out. Watch for a soon-to-be-released second edition.

Jack also produces The LavaCon Conference on Content Strategy, which contains an AI track. The 2024 conference is 27–30 October in Portland, Oregon. Register using referral code LSPODCAST for $200 off in-person tuition.

Connect with Jack online

LinkedIn

LavaCon content strategy conference

Prospring Staffing

Video

Here’s the video version of our conversation:

https://youtu.be/RsgY89El1Aw

Podcast intro transcript

This is the Content and AI podcast, episode number 30. The rise of generative AI affects every type of content practice, including the venerable institution of technical communication. Jack Molisani runs both a tech comms staffing agency and the annual LavaCon content strategy conference, which he's organized for more than 20 years. Jack brings a deeply informed perspective to the conversation around the introduction of AI into content practice, especially its impact on employment prospects for technical communicators.

Interview transcript

Larry:

Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 30 of the Content and AI Podcast. I'm really excited today to welcome to the show Jack Molisani. Jack is a legend in the textbook, communication, and technical content strategy world. He's the executive director of the LavaCon Content Strategy Conference. He also runs a staffing agency called ProSpring Staffing. Welcome, Jack. Tell the folks a little bit more about what you're up to these days.

Jack:

Wow, okay. As you said, I'm running around two spheres. One is producing the LavaCon Conference in content strategy. The other one is running a staffing agency for technical writers and other content professionals. Although we also have a division that does engineers, and there's some crossover there.

What's interesting, and it's almost a side note but since you asked what I've been up to, is I've discovered that it's almost impossible for me to land new staffing clients over the internet anymore.

Larry:

Interesting. What's going on there?

Jack:

It used to be that someone would post a job on LinkedIn,

Lisa Welchman

Over the past 25 years, Lisa Welchman has established and codified the field of digital governance.

With an enterprise consulting career that spans the emergence of the web, the arrival of social media, and the rise of mobile computing, she is uniquely positioned to help digital practitioners, managers, and executives understand and manage the governance issues that arise with the arrival of generative AI.

Lisa is the author of the leading book in her field, Managing Chaos: Digital Governance by Design.

We talked about:

her career in enterprise digital governance

her concern about the lack of transparency in the existing governance practices at AI companies

an analogy she sees between WYSIWYG and AI tools

the contrast between more mature governance models like the UX field has developed and newer digital practices like the adoption of GPTs

governance lessons that new tech implementers can always learn from prior tech eras

her call to action for technical experts to alert executives of possible harms in the adoption of new technology

the elements of her digital governance framework:

understanding team composition and the organizational landscape in which digital practitioners operate

having a strategic intent

articulating governance policies

establishing practice standards

the range of digital makers she gets to interact with in her work

the importance of accounting for the total business and organizational environment when jockeying for a seat at the table

the responsibility of experienced digital makers and managers to call out potentially troublesome patterns in the adoption of new tech

the importance for digital practitioners of staying aware of how much agency they have right now

Lisa's bio

Lisa Welchman is a digital governance trailblazer with over two decades of experience. She's passionate about helping organizations manage their digital presence effectively and sustainably. Known for her practical approach, Lisa has worked with a variety of clients, from global corporations to non-profits. She’s also a popular speaker and the author of "Managing Chaos: Digital Governance by Design." A mentor and educator at heart, Lisa is dedicated to helping leaders make the digital world a safer and kinder place for everyone.

Connect with Lisa online

LinkedIn

Video

Here’s the video version of our conversation:

https://youtu.be/-UIj0YWxLaI

Podcast intro transcript

This is the Content and AI podcast, episode number 29. Whenever new technology like generative AI emerges, organizations have to deal with both the opportunities and the challenges that arrive with it. It often falls to practitioners like content strategists and designers to alert the C-suite of potential governance concerns that arise with the adoption of new tech. Lisa Welchman sees in this situation an opportunity for digital makers to take the lead on educating their organizations about these important issues.

Interview transcript

Larry:

Hi everyone. Welcome to episode number 29 of the Content + AI Podcast. I am really happy today to welcome to the show Lisa Welchman. Lisa is a true legend in the field of digital governance. She pretty much established the discipline, I think it's safe to say, over the past 25 years. She wrote what I would argue is the leading book on it, Managing Chaos: Digital Governance by Design. But welcome Lisa, and the reason I wanted to talk to you this week is we're right in the middle of Rosenfeld Media is doing a conference on design and AI, and it seems like AI is an area that's really ripe for a conversation about governance. Does that make sense?

Lisa:

Yeah, it does. I will contextualize myself a little bit in saying that digital governance is a really broad term, and my focus is really around enterprise digital governance, how digital governance manifests inside of an organization that's making and putting things online.