Navigating a world of Accelerating Technology

Resources for a Café Conversation – for more ideas watch videos and for regular updates, subscribe to my newsletter.

1) What's your Tech/Touch Ratio?

As technology advances, the need for human connection doesn’t disappear. Actually, that connection becomes more valuable. John Naisbitt wrote a remarkably far-sighted book about this years ago called High Tech, High Touch. The tech has changed dramatically since his day, but the core idea is more relevant than ever. Here's how it applies today:

For many (though not all) the opportunity is the top-right quadrant: high tech and high touch - where technology amplifies the human experience rather than replacing it. It's a lens that applies both externally and internally, to both customer experience and employee experience – decide where your company is, and where it should be.

If you’re looking for value from AI, automation, or “digital transformation", as you introduce more Tech, ask yourself:

"Are we doing enough to raise Touch at the same time?"

2) Move technology thinking upstream: don't try and produce a rocket-powered horse and cart

The first lesson in systems analysis was always: don't automate the existing system. You can see why not when you compare a lot of clunky banking systems to, for example, the excellent new Companies House director registration process. Read more...

3) The lifelong learning curve just got steeper - AI prompting ideas to help

A) Turbocharge your prompting

  1. Provide context. Tell your AI of choice, "I am going to upload context documents, I'm going to provide you with links, and I would also like you to then search the web for high quality trusted sources for more information.
  2. Give it a role and an objective: Say something like, "You are a world-class marketing strategy expert. Help me design a 90 day marketing plan for my organization."
  3. Have it interview you to refine the brief. This helps you to do the deep thinking and improve the AI's understanding of the task. You might say, "To enable you to do a first-rate job, ask me up to ten (or twenty, or five) questions, one at a time, to clarify what I want and the resources, constraints and other important factors to take into consideration."
  4. Re-confirm shared understanding. At any point, it can help to ask the AI to tell you its current understanding of the brief, to make sure it's on the same page as you. 
  5. Be prepared to iterate. Once you're happy, only then tell it to go ahead and do the job. Remember you don't have to accept the first result.
  6. Verify the results. Be sceptical. Ask it for sources, cross-check using other AIs and search engines.

Not surprisingly, this is a lot like my REWARDS format for effective delegation. REWARDS is based on the military idea of Mission Command – so it's a well-proven methodology for conveying your intentions and getting them carried out. You can read about it in my book, Committed Action: The three-step method to inspire your people to take ownership and get results. Read a chapter for free.

B). Go 'meta'. Ask AI to help you figure out a learning plan and to teach you (remember to verify 'facts')

You can use the same prompting ideas to get AI to help you figure out your approach to learning AI and technology in general. Use it to help you be deliberate about what you want to understand, what you want to ignore for now, and how deep you actually need to go. And you can then get it to teach you (remember to verify “facts”), rather than passively consuming whatever happens to be fashionable.

Find this useful? 

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