Renia (pronounced R-EE-n-a) Carsillo hates business silos and marketing hacks. So, she spends her days working with mid-size and small companies to integrate their business strategy with their impact strategy, design sustainable marketing frameworks, and find a growth cadence that works for their team and their lives. Renia believes founders are uniquely positioned to create a kinder, more equitable world. She is passionate about bringing C-level strategic support to the small and mid-size companies shaping their communities every day. Renia says, "Sustainable marketing is built on a solid business strategy. A solid business strategy is built on values-driven habits. Values-driven habits are built on healed/healing leaders. We can’t do these things separately. They’re all interconnected. ”
Skills You Can’t Afford to Outsource: Places AI Can't Help Your Business, Part 3 [Two on Tuesdays]
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Happy Tuesday, Reader! We've been exploring where AI shortcuts can actually hurt your business. This week we’re focusing on the hidden cost of making your work too easy. Deep learning and maintaining creative skills require cognitive strain. If we’re not careful, what helps us in the short run (freeing up cognitive load with AI tools) can hurt us in the long run. It's crucial to make thoughtful choices about where the trade-off of short-term ease for long-term skill development is worth it, and where it's best avoided entirely. Realign with the Human Skill of Strengths BuildingCal Newport puts it perfectly: "In a learning environment, the feeling of strain is often a by-product of getting smarter. To minimize this strain is like using an electric scooter to make the marches easier in military boot camp; it will accomplish this goal in the short term, but it defeats the long-term conditioning purposes of the marches." The newer you are in your career or the less you know about something, the more hazardous it becomes to rely on AI for support. This is especially true in areas where you need or want expertise. Before integrating an AI tool, ask yourself: How much does your work rely on that particular skill?For example, strategic thinking and storytelling are my most important skills when it comes to making the impact I want to make and earning a decent living. Therefore, it would be extremely hazardous to let those skills atrophy by relying too heavily on AI. On the flip side, I'm finally getting serious about developing my almost nonexistent graphic design skills. I'm using AI tools to help design a learning journey, but I'm doing the early heavy lifting of composition myself. Even though AI can do it faster and better, I can't reach a higher level of understanding without putting in the reps. Natural Ability + Practice = StrengthWhen I am weighing the pros and cons of using AI for a task, I think of it like training in the gym: We only get the gains we work for, and we only keep the gains we practice with. Don Clifton, the founder of Clifton Strengths, offers this formula: Talent + Investment = Strength. Without practice (i.e., deep learning, putting in the reps, etc.), we lose what we've built.The key to deciding whether or not to use AI is being intentional about where you choose struggle over shortcuts. Where are the skills that define your unique value? Where do you need to maintain your competitive edge through human capability rather than artificial assistance? I'm very much in the process of figuring this out myself. We're working on a tool for choosing the best places to use AI versus where to avoid it in your work, and I'd love to know how you're navigating this balance today. Is your organization thinking about this strategic trade-off? Share your experience.When was the last time you developed a brand new skill? Reply to this email and tell me about how it started for you. Until next time,
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Renia Carsillo
Renia (pronounced R-EE-n-a) Carsillo hates business silos and marketing hacks. So, she spends her days working with mid-size and small companies to integrate their business strategy with their impact strategy, design sustainable marketing frameworks, and find a growth cadence that works for their team and their lives. Renia believes founders are uniquely positioned to create a kinder, more equitable world. She is passionate about bringing C-level strategic support to the small and mid-size companies shaping their communities every day. Renia says, "Sustainable marketing is built on a solid business strategy. A solid business strategy is built on values-driven habits. Values-driven habits are built on healed/healing leaders. We can’t do these things separately. They’re all interconnected. ”
Happy Tuesday, Reader! The bro marketers of Big Tech have spent the last decade selling us on the dream of frictionless everything. Fewer clicks, fewer steps, fewer moments of discomfort standing between you and whatever you want. And most of us, if we're being honest, have figured out by now that a life with the friction dialed all the way down is a lot less interesting and joyful than advertised. (Get your mind out of the gutter, we’re not going there today!) For our final week of living at...
Happy Tuesday, Reader! We've spent the last few weeks holding some hard "ands" together: resist and reconnect, Placebinding™ and globalization, scale and sustainability. This week's “and” might be the most defining one of our professional lives right now. Let’s talk, again, about AI and humanity. AI isn’t a technology we get to uninvent. We must learn to live with it. One of my favorite, not-to-be-named app developers and podcasters has been making a lot of noise lately about running an...
Happy Tuesday, Reader! If you've been around here for any length of time, you know how much we talk about sustainability, particularly when it comes to business strategy and the marketing pillar of the Do Better Business™ framework. We believe it's the foundational place every strong, values-centered organization has to build from. Sustainability is at the core of what we do. But I want to clear something up, because I think it's an assumption that follows us around: Sustainability does not...