so what is this #originalvoice thing? ... #humpdaythoughts

it's an AI world. everyone seems to be "experimenting". whether it is universities, governments, companies from market research to marketing to procurement to, well, everything. AI to take short cuts, drive efficiency, deal with vast data, write a report, create a TV commercial ( yes my beloved Coca-Cola remaking it's classic Xmas ad ) ... STOP ... everyone is doing the AI thing.

and that is all GREAT. if you know me you know i have been using AI and LLM platforms for doing market research for near a decade. i have shared lots of cases of doing so at lots of conferences around the world. FYI what amazes me is that up until 2 years ago when i presented those cases at marketing/market research conferences it was met with "yes, well, its not real research if your using these platforms". Since the GPT revolution it seems every speaker at every conference seems to need to talk about AI, even if only in passing. AI has become a sort of legitimacy.

that is all fine and dandy.

BUT

the risk is always "sameness".

think about this months trend on LI ... people saying " I asked GPT, or another platform, to creative an image of me based on what it knows of me". and to be honest they nearly all look pretty much the same. same style of design and artwork, same imagery, same background going off in to a futuristic background. I tried it. same thing. weird. especially given i actually work from home in an apartment stuffed with books and old asian furniture.

think about using platforms to write reports, articles, summaries of research studies, sales tools, etc etc. notice how they sort of all seem to read and sound the same. now of course i can say "dear AI platform please use my previous reports as a style guide to write a report that sounds like i wrote it". and what you get is that ... what you sort of would write like/sound like based on passed behaviour.

BUT

well i dont know about you but i have found people dont hire me to sound like a i used to sound. they hire me to be think and say and explain different, to be original. every project, every client, every situation.

take my "history of mens underwear" speech. probably delivered to 70-80 conferences and events in 20+ countries. never exactly the same. I get asked " hey that was great , can you do it again for our event in Paris next april?". and sure i do. but it will have changed. because the audience is different, the event is different, my knowledge of the subject will have evolved, i will pull out some different examples, my mood will be different, my language different. you get it. same basic message but every time is "original"

this morning a i spent an how on zoom with a new contact in the USA talking about ageing populations. at some stage she stopped and said, literally, " hey you have some original ideas but you also have an original way of explaining the issues" ... original.

now back to all those people talking at conferences. conferences of all types. all forcing the term "AI" in but few explaining in an original way how they used it "originally".

of course new tech always is seen as blocking originality. Socrates thought that a standardised alphabet and the ability of all to learn to use it to read and write was a bad idea because it would mean eveyone copied what they read and stopped thinking ... originally !!. the same happened when gutenberg invented ( well sort of ) printing. the intellectual class worried that mass distribution of books would lead to less thinking, more copying. and so on and so on. remember when the internet was "hot" and the world figured out our kids could copy and past cliff notes !.

BUT

here is the thing ... new tech does not mean easier means to copy and cheat. it can just mean more efficiency to collect, sort and prioritise more sources with some new presentation tools ( clay, papyrus, velum, paper, radio, film, text, etc etc ). the real trick for the winners was originality.

lots of people in 16-17th century engladn could write and tried writing plays and poems ... but that guy from Stratford-upon-avon was original.

how to use the new tech and mediums to say things in a unique way that caught attention. that is what has and will make a difference.

and that is what #originalvoice is about. an old idea borrowed from the art world where the concept is a century old. use the mediums, use all the latest short cuts and tools and tech ... but make sure the output is unique to you.

its a subject i am and will be talking about more

here is a short interview Rhiannon Bryant from ESOMAR did with me a couple of weeks ago . .. https://www.buzzsprout.com/1381276/episodes/16232327-maintaining-original-voice-in-the-age-of-ai-with-dave-mccaughan

I will be talking about it more as the closing keynote speaker at the Asia Digital Insights Summit ( 8-9 January ) ... its free and virtual so do sign up and thanks to Craig Griffin and Mike Stevens for asking me to share #originalvoice thoughts https://www.insightplatforms.com/summits/asia-digital-insights-summit/

a little , and obvious, 2025 prediction ... AI wont go away, how we deal with it, take advantage of it and stay original will be one HOT issue

#marketing #marketresearch #artificialintelligence #AI #originalvoice