Happy New Year, everyone! Instead of making specific resolutions this year, I’ve decided to focus on a few key themes that will guide my work and personal life. For work, my two main themes are all about embracing the cutting edge: (1) using AI more at work and (2) mastering "new media" in B2B contexts.

AI at Work: Content Creation

My first work theme is diving deep into how AI can make our work more efficient and impactful. I'm particularly excited about the potential of large language models (LLMs) for content generation. We’re already experimenting with using NotebookLM, GPT, and Granola to take our podcast videos directly from YouTube and turn them into various forms of content. I'm also planning to use AI to identify key clips that we can turn into engaging shorts.

Beyond our podcast, I’m looking at how AI can help the prolific YouTubers at Laravel. These two are creating great video content, but they’re missing out on valuable SEO opportunities because they don’t write about them. My goal is to get them using LLMs to generate written content from their videos. This is just one example; I’m eager to find many more ways to use AI to enhance our productivity.

Of course, there’s the big question of whether AI-generated content will actually work. Will Google penalize content that's solely written by AI? Will a "human in the loop" be necessary to ensure the quality and originality of the content? (NOTE: yes… this post was generated by NotebookLM from the podcast transcript, but I'm making lots of little edits.) I'm going to be experimenting with AI-generated posts on our podcast, using our original words and thoughts and putting those in a written form. It’s not about regurgitating aggregated content from the Internet, but about creating derivative works that enhance our original content. I think that's a key distinction.

Mastering New Media

My second theme is all about mastering the new media, which includes modern developer relations, content, and PR. This space revolves around social media, content creators, and influencers. To me, this is the most critical skill for B2B marketers to master right now. It’s a stark contrast to my focus six or seven years ago, when my key focus was automation and building workflows. Now, automation is commoditized and easy, so the ability to create and engage with content across social/video channels is the new bleeding edge.

This is also a key reason why I value doing this podcast: we get to experiment, try new things, and reflect on what works. It's also clear that AI will play a significant role in content aggregation and information dissemination. AI might even break the parasocial barrier that limits human influencers, potentially creating a deeper sense of connection with followers I think the next few years are going to be very interesting.

I’ve even started using the GPT voice chat as a kind of sounding board for my ideas. Before talking to any of my friends about my themes, I talked to ChatGPT in a phone-call like back and forth entirely focused on my history with themes and what's next for me. While poor at challenging me and relating my thoughts to external stories and anecdotes (like a real friend would), I was kinda blown away.

Personal Themes: Focus and Adventure

These work themes are also informing my personal objectives. I am working to trim down on advisory work to focus on my main job. I think focusing more will bring many benefits this year (Laravel is gonna blow up, I'm betting on this in a huge way). In addition, I want to make sure I am making time for adventure, with my family, friends, and even some solo adventures. My kids are old enough now that I don't feel bad about leaving them for a little bit, and I want to take advantage of the increased financial freedom I have to explore and create new memories (e.g. wife and I are going on a scuba trip w/o the kids soon!). But also my son is 10 and perfectly capable of adventures (e.g. he and I went to a theme park last year on our own - I need more of that with all my kids).

So this year I'm excited to share my experiences with AI and new media, and I know there are going to be some learning curves along the way. I'm also motivated to make sure that my friends are able to take advantage of these trends. I'm hoping that by sharing my experiences and insights, I can help others navigate these changes. This is going to be an interesting year!