Author: Fabrizio

Few words

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Whatever you are going to do this year, make sure you can express that in few, concise words. Being able to tell about your project with clarity, inspiring curiosity, unlocking questions that drive the conversation forward. These are features that can give a real edge in a world of short attention span and endless content availability.

If the eyes of the person in front of you wander away, if your audience had doubts you feel you have already adressed, if your visitors drop without any action. You are not there yet.

It takes time and effort, conscious thinking and some rehearsing.

It will be your jump start to the change you seek to make.

Celebrate

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At the beginning of this year, I had a few things I wanted to achieve in 2019.

Now I can say I have managed to stick to my three resolutions. I am particularly happy, and surprised, by the fact that I have managed to blog every day. It’s not always been easy, not always rewarding, at times almost a burden, and yet 368 blog posts later I am proud I have continued doing it.

It helped my confidence in writing, cleared my thoughts, cristallized some ideas. It made me face the fear of the blank page (and blank mind) in many occasions, as well as overcome the pressure of metrics and analytics. And most of all, it strenghtened my practice and made me even more comfortable in the day-to-day act of doing.

If you also have something to be proud of tonight, remember to celebrate.

Not the new year, not a new beginning, not the hope that it will be different. Celebrate your success, the difficulties you’ve overcome, the intensity of achieving. And celebrate continuity, because change is very rarely the product of a sudden revolution.

This one is to me, and to you.

Happy New Year!

The journey

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When a lot of importance is put on a single goal, there’s a huge risk to lose perspective.

As the goal is set and gets nearer, corners are cut, shortcuts are sought, poor work is normalized. And soon, the initial goal is either discounted or made unreachable. There is no more excitement in getting there.

This is why the way things are done are more important than the things themselves and the places they take us.

Goals are temporary and variable, practices are grounded and stable.

Keep a wide view on the horizon as you put one step after the other, relentlessly, day after day. You might spot new destinations, and at the very least you will have developed the muscles that will allow you to continue the journey.

Take AI down to earth

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A number of things a useful AI could take care of in place of the fallible human.

Understand that tomorrow is a bank holiday and suggest that you turn off an alarm set for weekdays.

Read from a list of favourite sites and actually recommend content from such sites.

Organize the notes you have taken in different articles and suggest connection between them.

Collect the common operations done after a certain meeting (e.g. set up a follow-up, send e-mail with notes, schedule update call) and prepare an automation for you to approve.

Send a notification when it’s time to head out of the office to go to an appointment that is scheduled in your calendar.

Remind that the annual subscription to a service is about to expire.

Break up a single, unique goal (e.g. organize summer holidays) in many different tasks (e.g. book flight, book accomodation, rent car, book train tickets, …) and send notifications when the prices on common booking sites are below the average for the period.

These (and many others) are example of a consumer-centric AI.

Many will tell they are just around the corner. But if you have ever interacted with AI, or even if you have just tried to do some of the above operations with your phone, you know that is probably not true.

It’s about time we take AI in the day-to-day, and for this to happen its promoters will have to forget about their agenda for a while and focus on the consumers pain points.

Who will make this happen?

Year end

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I know many are thinking about resolutions for the new year these days, I at least certainly am. I wrote something last year that might still be useful today.

And I would add one thing today, something that has become more and more important for me as time passed.

Be consistent – When your resolutions, put together, show some kind of pattern, a way of being that you aspire to, a trajectory you want to follow, that’s when they become deals you seal with your future self. It’s going to be much more difficult to break them.