Vol.19 The "Converment"

Converment: The Art of Bridging Dialogue and Argument

Definition

Converment?| k?n?v?rm?nt | noun: A harmonious blend of conversation and argument that is neither a casual conversation nor a hostile argument.

Converment encapsulates the essence of a dialogue where diverse perspectives converge towards a positive and constructive outcome. It signifies the art of engaging in discussions that, while spirited and dynamic, maintain a focus on mutual understanding and collaboration.

Converment embodies the spirit of open communication, encouraging participants to express their viewpoints passionately while fostering an atmosphere of respect and cooperation.

Example in Action

Example Sentence 2: "During our converment about the upcoming project, we bounced around various ideas, debated the pros and cons, but in the end, we found common ground that left us feeling energized and excited to move forward together."

The Need for a New Term

First of all, converment is a (totally made-up) novel word, it did not exist, until now.

Converment describes a type of dialogue that is neither a casual conversation nor a hostile argument. It is a way of engaging with people who have different opinions, beliefs, or perspectives, without resorting to insults, aggression, or avoidance.

A converment is a respectful exchange of ideas, where both sides listen, learn, and challenge each other, without losing sight of their common humanity.

Converment is not about winning or losing, but about understanding and growing through actual dialogue.

So let me explain why. The English language is pretty complex. Let's face it, there's a lot of difficulty and challenges for non-English speakers learning the language. A perfect example of this is "their," "there," and "they're".? Confusing enough?? So why not add converment to the mix?

Converment in a Personal Context

Keeping that in mind, think about how people communicate with each other. We engage in conversation, we engage in dialogue, we have talks, but are we really understanding each other? On the other side of that, we have disagreements, we have arguments, we have a debate, but does any of that ever really translate into understanding and progress?

Follow me along here for a moment, this commentary is based on many years on this planet mixed with a professional career mixed with a clinical career.

We simply don't have a word to describe the middle ground between conversation and argument.

Thus, this article is the official introduction of the word - converment.

Think about it, in personal contacts with family and friends, we have conversation that can quickly devolve into an argument.

Don't believe me? Try having a talk with someone with opposing views on religion, politics, social issues, etc. Do those types of conversations stay with talking or do they quickly turn into argument, avoidance, disrespect?

Converment in a Professional Context

Now consider this in terms of business. Disagreement often translates into avoidance. Important issues are often not brought up because of how people feel or think the other person will feel. The rules are different in business than in personal lives.

While there is a propensity and a desire to argue about things, that strategy is not exactly welcomed and promoted. In general, when there is a task that needs to be accomplished, its usually done through some sort of direction and emphatic guidance, often taking the form of KPIs.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, there is little room for argument in business.

Disagreement quickly devolves to an argument state where neither side of the equation are getting their needs met. Again, think about it in terms of career, not a healthy situation and does not promote career longevity. Disagreement is often avoidance, with many unintended consequences.

Now consider the converment. Imagine a business world where discussions are entered into with full transparency and understanding that we are going to have both a discussion and an argument about a topic, meet in the middle in the middle and walk away with mutual respect, understanding, and joined outcomes.

?Lol, easier said than done. In fact, in a business sense (and far too common), you might even be laughed out of the room.

Converment in the Age of AI

Now welcome to 2024! Welcome to GenAI – Hello Microsoft Copilot, OpenAI and others. Nice to meet you, thank you for being here.

While the strategy of a converment may be difficult with humans, it's exactly what's needed to work with GenAI assistants, chatbots, etc. It's my opinion that this is exactly what's needed to produce meaningful output from artificial intelligence systems, get better results, better return on investment, and advance the usage of these technologies.

Humans have an uncanny ability to taking shortcuts. I know that opinion may be unpopular but think about it. You ever see those pictures of a perfectly planned community park with meticulously manicured grass, you know the kind with concrete walkways around the perimeter and a beautifully landscaped metal.

Give it about two months and then unplanned pathways appeared through the groomed landscape. People, and their ability to make shortcuts will always find a way thorough.

If city planners had it right, they would simply plant grass, wait six months, see where the normal traffic patterns are, and then turn those tracks into walkways. Like I said, people find shortcuts (always have and always will).

Challenges in AI Adoption

Working with AI is not a shortcut. In fact, it actually takes intentional effort. There is much written about the need to upskill and learn how to interact with new technologies.

I would argue that the learning should be about logical and critical thinking, focused on better communication, focused on how best to express oneself. The skill set is not about the technology it's about how to get what you are actually asking for.

This becomes problematic when people don't know how to express themselves or don't feel capable enough working with the artificial intelligence systems.

These systems, these LLM's, are simply run on garbage in garbage out. They tend to hallucinate, they tend to give us incorrect information, they tend to give us exactly what we have asked for (for better or worse).

They don't understand us, they don't understand what they're writing, they are not human.

Now, take your average human and put them in front of an AI system without this understanding. People will say, “this is terrible, it's garbage, don't know how to use it, the system stupid, it's not giving me what I'm looking for, it's not listening to me, it doesn't know what I want”.

Fun fact, the items in that previous statement are what I've heard from people around the world across cultures regions languages.

Look again at the image at the top of this article. The AI appears "confused" and will simply provide output in response to the input it gets, albeit right or wrong.

Adoption Paradox

An interesting phenomenon has happened in this past year. The adoption curve of GenAI tools its very interesting, and I'm hearing about it from some of the top publishers about their own products. People are excited and enthusiastic about getting access to the tools, they get it, the adoption rate goes really high for a couple of months, and then often falls off a cliff.

How can this be? Why? If people are so excited then why aren't they using the systems as designed? The answer is simple, this all points back to Adoption and Change Management, or more accurately, the lack thereof.

Getting back to converment, The AI systems respond to the injput of the individual human. The output provided is directly correlated to the quality of the prompt provided.

Anyone using the system has a responsibility to learn how to actually use it. If we simply ask it a question, are we really getting the responses that we need? Or better yet, are we getting value out of the system?

This phenomenon is not new. A lack of skills and ability inevitably leads to frustration and unfortunately, tool abandonment.

My Experience with Converment

As someone who has been using generative AI tools for the past 13 months, I can tell you that there has been a learning curve. After the excitement wore off, I too found a lull between getting what I wanted, or expected, and simply thinking it was not worth the effort. My response was to lean in.

I figured out that I can do amazing things with AI. I can tell you concrete examples where something that would normally take me a week to do I have now accomplished in one day. I can confidently tell you that I have authored content within my professional environment that is mine, uniquely mine, with AI as my assistant (and not taking the lead).

My Rules of Self-Governance

It's worth noting that this article was written without AI. I used Microsoft Word with the dictation feature. The reason for this is simple, I set up my own governance (my own rules) within myself whereby I would rather express myself personally in this newsletter than using AI.

Conversely, when I am working in my professional setting, I use AI to augment and enhance my productivity. When asked to author original content, provide guidance or guidelines, frameworks, express thought leadership, etc., I’ve learned a very specific way of working with AI to help enhance with my output with expediency at a very high-quality level.

My Personal Approach to AI Interaction

Here's a look into my world, I'm not saying this is perfect, but this is what I do.

I think of an idea or a concept that I want to write about, go for a walk with my dog and I imagine and think about the content Along the way. Sometimes I'll grab my phone and send myself a text with a really cool thought, others, I just let it marinate in my brain.

I then get home and take out a literal piece of paper and a pen. I write a very rough sketch outline and connect the thoughts together. I then take that outline put it into an A generative AI tool and explain that I am writing content based on this outline.

Time to Converment

Before I have the system generate output, I prompt it to ask me questions about what it is I want to accomplish. I am literally engaging the system in conversation.

I clearly say please and thank you and prompt it as if it were a real person.

I positively engage with the system with pleasantries and reinforcement. Interesting to note that there is some scant evidence that says that if you reward and reinforce the AI, your output will be better. I don't know about that, although the evidence is inconclusive, one thing's for sure, when I put myself in a positive place, I know that I produce better outcomes.

It's because of that exact reason that I choose to reinforce and be positive with the systems.

After I get a sense that the system knows what I want, I ask it for output. I then challenge the output, I'm respectfully confrontational with it, prove your sources to me, show me why you said that, give me an example that supports the argument, link what you are saying to research, cite your sources, etc.

When I'm comfortable with the output provided, I then copy it into Microsoft Word. I carefully carefully read the output and make my own edits, adding my own personal content. The output provided by the AI is my starting place. It's often said that AI is better than staring at a blank page. I don't really subscribe to that thought.

Converment is My New Default

I prefer to use my brain and a piece of paper as my blank page. I don't look for the AI system to provide me with content that I can pretend to be my own. I use the AI to enhance the thoughts that I already have.

My next step is to then take my written document and ask AI to either “clean it up” or "enhance it". I then take the output back into Microsoft Word, or if I'm using copilot, then simply do it this within Word, and have this back-and-forth conversation argument with the AI and myself.

Key point here, back-and-forth dialogue.

The output is measurably better then if I did it by myself. The back and forth with the system is absolutely 100% worth the effort. Some people have said, why should I write a book of instructions to the AI when I can simply just write that stuff myself?

The answer is simple, what I’ve described there is actually the new skill. This is the new reality. This needs to be the new focus.

Enhancing Communication Skills

I predict that there will be less reliance on technology and more reliance on our individual abilities to communicate and effectively collaborate, interact with, respect, and interact with artificial intelligence.

There is a giant skills gap when it comes to artificial intelligence. Organizations the world over are attempting to find new and innovative ways to teach people about artificial intelligence when they themselves are seeking their own answers. According to the large research houses something like 85% of workers want training on this and only 15% of organizations are actually stepping up to the task.

Converment as a Key to Success

This may be a somewhat unpopular position, and I own it, I am of the opinion, that focusing on communication skills, logical and critical thinking is the key to achieving business outcomes.

In a world of discord, getting people to agree is a real challenge. Conversations are more about disagreements, increasingly devisive, and unfortunately, all too common. It's no small task to find common ground.

Thus, the converment is the key.

Call to Action

I did some research, and it turns out (with some effort) that made-up words often find their way into common language. The best way to do this is to use it and promote it through social media. Let's get a conversation going about this, please join me in my quest to have this word become the word of the year for 2024. Let's make converment go viral!

Please join me by sharing this new word and article with your networks. Wouldn't it be fun for you to be part of the converment movement? #Converment

Converment is a critical part of Adoption and Change Management. Ask me about how (together), we can embrace GenAI, positively impact each other, and change the world!

SoftwareOne #ACM (Adoption & Change Management) is here to help.

~Kevin (aka "The Cloud Therapist")

Please submit topics and questions for future volumes (I'm listening)

A quick note to my readers - thank you for your feedback, support, and encouragement. I strive to bring you relevant thought-provoking content. #grateful that you choose to spend your time with me.

I appreciate your commitment to reading these all the way through. I know they can be quite lengthy. My goal is to bring you unique perspectives and things to mentally chew on.

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