Content Thinking
Invite Content leadership into your next AI strategy meeting.
Wasn't it so exciting when Design Thinking broke through the techcorp mindset? I was particularly pleased to see semantic iconography proliferate and connect innovation directly to the heart of the user. But then a strange thing happened. The three pillars of the product team were isolated to Design, Product, and Engineering. Content was relegated to sales storytelling, marketing, and customer support.
Iconography only goes so far when meaning is desaturated. Designs flatten and become innocuous. Mediocracy waters down unique value propositions. Pitch decks become the low-information calling cards of familiarity. Innovation is replaced by the low-risk coagulation of reifying networks. Inspiration is subjugated to conglomeration.
We are arriving quickly at a crossroad with generative AI agency. When using GenAI without a meaningful context, the model strays, collapses, information degrades, and critical discernment is lost. But this was always what happened when organizations produced without meaning. How can we infuse meaning into the manifest pipeline?
It's time to start thinking again. What is your worldview? What semantic infrastructure is required to ensure that vision is infused throughout the pipeline? How can you ensure all agents execute on your organization's behalf?
Just when our subconscious Comfort Drive is lulling us into relinquishing more of our self-control to yet another new technology, it's actually time to wake up. Human consciousness can provide a tangible experience (even if probabilistic), within a defined domain (even if a bit fuzzy), in which to ground meaning.
It's time to be conscious again. Thinking is one proxy of consciousness. Meaning is evidence of thinking. And Content is the conduit of meaning.
Consciousness < Thinking < Meaning < Content
It's time to bring Content into discussions of how to maintain the vision while relinquishing agentic operations. Invite your Content leadership into your next AI strategy meeting.
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