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Howdy hey ,

I'm off to a wedding (outdoors in mid-July — pray for reasonable temperatures), so I'll be brief.

(Also, I'm speaking at an event next week and may have a discount available to my dear readers 👀. Venture to the email's end for more.)

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After discussing how GenAI should have us rethinking what "high-quality writing" looks like, I want to say more about what actually goes into the process of "writing."

There's a persistent popular perception that most of the effort of writing happens on the page itself. That the production of words themselves is what writers do. (This has contributed to stagnating wages for writing talent, but that's for another day.)

A belief that the output of words defines a writer opens the door for hype and panic about GenAI. It's what lets people declaim that "AI is an amazing writer" while glossing over the other, more important elements of what makes a writer, a writer.

GenAI has industrialized the production of words, that is true. And those words can sound pretty good altogether. But anybody who's written anything of substance knows how much more mental effort you exert in preparing to write something and fixing whatever draft you scraped together. It's the pre- and post-draft work — the cognitive load required to navigate these processes — that makes the difference.

The act of writing is a mode of thought.

When I think about a "high-quality article," it's the ones that show that somebody put real thought behind it. That the writer understood the underlying technology, its position in the industry, how it ties to broader conversations, and why I (the reader) should care.

And it's the ones who polish their words, finding the mot juste to describe the emotional and logical cases they're portraying. Who hear the music great writing conducts and silences the noise so the chorus can sing.

That's the good stuff, folks.

It's why I've shared stuff like Ed Zitron's Substack before. Whether you agree with his stances, he has a stance you can react to. Deep research is evident. You can follow the logical tracks laid out for the train of thought. I wouldn't call the copy lyrical (I don't hear the song often in business-y writing), but it flows well for its medium.

And that's why I read his email every Monday — I'm getting a high-quality educational experience.

Now, not every B2B article requires Shakespearean stakes. I don't need to be on the edge of my seat reading about the newest features of Acme, Inc.'s product suite. But I like the goal that business writers could aspire to something slightly more artistic. That GenAI's industrialization of marketing and sales copy could push us to dream bigger, dive deeper, and be more human — without intentionally leaving in typos as a lame signal of our humanity.

Tuning the symphony behind a damn good piece of writing requires us to give our writers the time, space, and resources to do their jobs well. Easier said than done, as demands on our time and attention skyrocket amid industry-wide discussions of "reassessing value." But, if we're to rise above the sea of average content AI will automate, it's a necessity. Specifically, we must empower writers to create peak work by:

• Giving time and access to subject matter experts for interviews and conversations
• Opening research avenues to let writers develop their working knowledge bases
• Organizing information clearly and deliberately to ensure writers can grasp every aspect of a topic
• Dedicating resources toward human editors to address developmental, mechanical, and stylistic edits equally

Does GenAI have a place in this?

Yes — just not as the writer. The ability to contextualize information makes it a fine supporting character in your creation efforts. I've talked before about Otter.ai and how it helps you iterate through long SME conversations and uncover gold nuggets. I'm still cautious about GenAI-driven article research, but asking ChatGPT or Claude to explain a concept's topmost layers can help you uncover new directions to pursue (e.g. For the love of all that's holy, please explain "full-stack observability in IT operations").

GenAI can even be the world's okayest editor, especially for tactical-level changes. I bet most of you have had Grammarly remove split infinitives or reorder messy sentences. And sometimes, GenAI tools can offer broader, developmental-level suggestions. You won't get nearly the level of quality and thought a good human editor provides, but in a pinch? Yeah, it'll make writing a little better.

I also still think the broader "AI-powered automation" concept hasn't been fully explored. Opportunities exist in the information management and content operations side of the house (i.e. admin work). With AI's help, we can buy back thinking time necessary for great writing.

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All in all, though...the amazing part of writing — the joy I and other get from it — is how much power it gives people to synthesize ideas and reify them for others. Generating words is part of that, yes, but words are the medium that transmits ideas from human to human. The effort (and sometimes, the struggle) of turning those ideas into words is how great thinking moves between thinking beings.

That's not something we should surrender so easily.

Better enabling the passage of high-quality thoughts is the future of written content in the Age of AI. Let's empower writers to realize that future.

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Stellar content about content

We Need to Control AI Agents Now

by Jonathan Zittrain, The Atlantic

I put this in here because I can't shake the thought of an immortal AI agent roaming the internet, unshackled, autonomously completing nebulously phrased tasks like a digital vigilante out to score us better deals from Air Canada. Briefly: Agents are AI given authority to act in place of human operators. It's not a big part of the AI conversation yet, and about all of them aren't too great at actually doing things.

Should they get better, though, they'll be a powerful example of dual-use technology. Automating menial tasks to free people from tedium, or industrializing some Cyberpunk-style shitposting or doxxing — who knows? This article lays out the case for what to do about it now so we're ready for what may come.

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U.S. Awards $504 Million for 'Tech Hubs' in Overlooked Regions

by Madeleine Ngo & Ana Swanson, New York Times

Ignore the scare quotes around "tech hubs" and "good-paying jobs." This funding allocation is a big win, especially for Indiana, where Heartland BioWorks locked down $51MM to put toward biotech and biomanufacturing.

As a long-time supporter of Indiana's tech ecosystem, I cringe at calling us "flyover country" — it feels belittling, demeaning, and betrays the incredible talent and opportunities we foster here. Would even more dollars be better? Sure. But we're putting real money into technology in Indiana; I think it's high time we get recognized for it.

Kudos to the Applied Research Institute spearheading this effort.

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Content from my pocket of the galaxy

🗒️ Generative AI Forces a Writing Quality Reckoning

Generative AI has awoken companies to how a basic level of writing quality looks. But professional writers know quality isn't skin-deep.

Click here to read more

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🎥 What Does "High-Quality Writing" Mean?

"You need to write better." Great, what does that even mean?

Agencies and their writers must deliver written work that meets or exceeds their clients' quality expectations.

But you must understand what fuels a qualitative perception and the right levers to pull to adjust and improve.

Click here to watch the video.

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I'm Speaking at the Columbia Club Next Week

We're covering everybody's favorite topic. Specifically, what can generative AI do and not do, and what does that actually look like for most businesses in their marketing and content ops?

A little chatting, some workshops. And the coffee and danishes are 🔥. It'll be a fun morning.

Tickets on Eventbrite are $15, but you know a guy :). Let me know by Monday, 7/15, and I can get you in for $10.

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See you soon,

Alex