Tag: communication

Take AI down to earth

FabrizioLeave a comment

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?

Cover letters

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There are four key elements to any cover letter, and they are often missing or misunderstood.

First, the appeal of the company. The question you are trying to answer is why do I want to work for this company?. You might not have a reason when you see the job ad, but you better find one soon. This require some research online. Look for stories that might resonate with who you are and what you stand for, or even for characteristics the company has that meet some of your outstanding experience. “I have heard a lot about company X”, or “I have always wanted to work for company Y” does not really cut it anymore. Basically anybody can claim the same, and you should start singalling uniquess from the very beginning.

Second, the passion for the role. The question you are trying to answer is what makes this position important for me?. Here is where you start telling about your passion for the field, about the times you have worked in the same role elsewhere and have excelled, about how you have tailored your curriculum to exactly arrive at this moment, applying for this position. Even if you are a new graduate, you probably have some passions or preferences for one field or another, and expessing them is always better than “I am just ok with any job you could offer me”.

Third, your experience. This is what most people get wrong. It’s not about making a list of places you have worked, roles you have covered, skills you have accumulated. There’s a CV for that. The question you are answering here is what have I done so far that matches the requirements listed in the job ad?. Many applicants preach to the wind, figuring that their experience would be good enough for most jobs. But actually, you want to look at the list of requirements carefully, think at what you have done so far (professionally, academically, personally, in order of importance), and see what you have learned that might be applicable in the role you are applying for. It will take a while, and you really have a chance to stand out in this section. It helps if you look at your career horizontally rather than vetically. Pick two, maximum three, relevant examples, and use a story format: “We had this problem at company X, we tried this and that, we eventually achieved a x% improvement in A, and this tought be the importance of B” (where B is what the target company is looking for).

Fourth, and last, the deabreakers. In this final section, you want to list things that are a must for you. “What could the company fail to provide that would make me change my mind about all of the above?”. Here is where you list availability to travel or relocate, salary requests, need to work remotely, and so on. If you have more than two or three items, carefully think if they are all _so_ important that you really want to point them out in the cover letter. Eventually, you do this to avoid a waste of time, but you also want to signal some sort of flexibility to further underscore that this role at this company is truly what you want.

Harmony

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Harmony is rarely a first choice.

As humans, we are wired to seek for friction, to look at the world from our perspective, to burst when somebody does not agree, to focus on one negative even when it comes with one hundred positives. We never shy away from a challenge, and then we try to escape the distress that comes with it by crafting stories that point the finger or tell about how inadequate we are.

Harmony is almost never the first choice. Yet, it’s still a choice. One that requires effort, commitment, groundlessness, humbleness.

It needs to be chosen every day, until it becomes the only possible choice to move forward. Are you up for it?

Communicate or manage

FabrizioLeave a comment

Most change happens inadvertently. Some things, or more often than not many things, evolve and stop to be what they were in the beginning. Gradually, you change as well, and at some point you stop, look back, reflect, and realise that change has happened. It’s nobody’s fault (or merit), just the nature of things.

Some change happens because of an agent. That’s when a situation is no longer sustainable, and some person, or more often than not a group of people, decide to bring about change. At the beginning, it’s probably not very clear where they are going to land. But the intention is there, and eventually the context and its features are modified. Whether the agents are successful or not.

One way or the other, the people that are touched by the change rarely want to hear “this has happened”. They are often scared, they don’t know what’s going on, they see some of the fundamentals in their worldview shaken. And they want a forum where they can express all this and get some sort of reassurances. This process is part of the resistance to change, and it will happen, one way (in an organised, public way) or the other (in a dispersed, private way).

It’s the difference between communicating change and managing change.

Important conversations

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There’s two tactics that are very useful in preparing for an important and difficult conversation.

First, write your thoughts down. It is unbelievably useful to get what you think out of your mind. That’s how you fill the gaps in your reasoning, how you complete the story you want to tell, how you make sure that your arguments are solid. And in particular, that’s how you avoid the conversation you are about to have from being a stream of thoughts that might be difficult for the other person to interpret.

Second, talk about the issue with somebody. Other people are a great sounding board for your thoughts, feelings and ideas. They add perspective to what you have to say, and they identify the flaws in it much better than you might ever do. They are your first audience, and you should pay great attention to how they react, what words or points they focus on, and the counterarguments they make.