I read and watched several things that surprised, delighted, and disappointed me as I engaged with the digital content strategy instructional materials assigned for Modules 5 and 6.
Limitations of AI
Val Swisher’s discussion of the strengths and limitations of AI as a content tool in her guest lecture surprised and delighted me. I am highly aware of the growing usefulness of AI tools for increasing the efficiency of content production, but I have not heard as much about the limitations of AI. Prior to this guest lecture, I hadn’t considered the cost or difficulty of training and implementing AI chatbots. I have always relied on human oversight when using AI in products. As a result, I didn’t consider the challenges and extra needs that customer-facing AI chatbots bring. I hadn’t considered that as a point against using AI more often because I take no issue with talking to a computer. These insights will be valuable in my career because without them, I would recommend implementing AI too often.
While I have also read Tom Johnson’s article “What I learned in using AI for planning and prioritization: Content strategy might be safe from automation”, which discusses how he found Notebook LM to be of limited usefulness for planning and prioritizing tasks, this result did not surprise me. I was, however, delighted to read an informed voice agreeing with me that jobs requiring analytical and strategic skills are likely to be safe from automation.
Text processing AI such as Notebook LM are, in my experience, poorly suited to strategic or multivariate tasks. I have found AI tools to be most effective when they are given very detailed prompts with a simple goal. Using AI for complex inputs often requires more effort than doing the task manually.
A Model for Content Strategy
The level of detail provided about maturity models for content strategy development in “A Maturity Model for Content Strategy Development and Technical Communicator Leadership” by Kim Sydow Campbell and Val Swisher, Val Swisher’s guest lecture, and Dr. Kim’s module 6 video lecture surprised and delighted me. I appreciate the depth with which the instructional materials explore this concept because this concept seems like one of the most important for me to take away from this course. These materials’ depth helped me understand how content strategies and tactics can improve the information process maturity level of an organization.
The focus on translating content improvements to business goals presented in these materials will be very important in my career. The value of content process improvements can easily be underestimated unless technical communicators document and show how they increase revenue, decrease expense, and decrease risk.
Conclusions
Val Swisher’s discussion on the practical limitations of AI in content applications and the comprehensive coverage of maturity models for content strategy in the instructional materials both surprised and delighted me. Tom Johnson’s conclusion that AI is not very useful for strategic and analytical tasks did not surprise me, but it delighted me.
It will be important to explain how content improvements will translate to business goals and to keep the limitations of AI in mind in my career.