We’re meeting today at noon ET for Branding for Founders, looking at your personal brand and how your headline helps people understand the work you do. We’re not trying to solve everything in one call. This is a chance to lay some groundwork and start thinking about how you want to talk about your work. I’m trying something a little different and sharing the slides and fillable worksheet in advance if you’d like a peek. No need to finish anything beforehand; we’ll have time to think and work through it together. @Emily Malec will also share an update on what she’s been working on. If there’s something you’d like to talk through, let us know at the outset of the call so we can budget time for it. 🙂 I will share the recording for those who cannot attend. Join us at noon ET: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87000909400?pwd=B9wFbPHCxL8GxN6EQtUIDhJMZ2VnzR.1 See you in the room! 💜

Our conversation with Sam went well beyond which AI tool to use. We talked about what happens when those tools become part of our businesses and everyday lives, how much access we give them, and how we keep our own judgment involved as they become more capable. I’ve known Sam for about a year, and one of the things I appreciate about his approach is that there’s room for people at different stages with AI. You can be excited about what it helps you do and still have serious questions about it. That was very much the conversation we had in The Rewriters Room. Sam is a professor of critical AI literacy and writes Slow AI on Substack. He opened with a point that stayed with us throughout the session: the line between useful AI support and something you don’t want in your life will look different for different people. How you use AI needs to be your decision, including deciding when you’d rather leave it alone. Your AI doesn’t have your reputation Once an AI has access to your email, calendar or website, how do you let it help without giving it more control than you intended? Sam described his own boundary: AI can help prepare work, but he signs off on what goes out. If a message damages a client relationship, the consequences belong to the person whose name is on it. He offered a useful comparison. You might trust a capable research student to prepare a literature review. Doing that well wouldn’t automatically qualify them to handle your taxes. A tool being impressive at one task doesn’t settle whether you should trust it with another. That distinction also leaves plenty of room for useful support. Sam described asking AI to help him understand tax documentation and flag clauses in a lengthy client contract. In the contract example, it highlighted terms he then questioned with the client. He still read the agreement himself. This is where agency becomes practical. We decide what the tool can access and which actions need our review, rather than treating every new capability as something we have to switch on. Support from AI doesn’t remove our responsibility for the decisions we make with it.

This group just keeps adding more and more great people! Welcome @Anna Levitt

My old boss pinged me today. She has a new team and asked me to come speak to them. She says my AI journey is inspiring. And how I embraced a partnership model once I started to use AI. I only started using it the end of January. I had been saying what’s the point. So that’s kind of cool. It was a nice message to wake up to.

We would love for us to get to know one another a little more. Where are you joining us from? What brought you to the room? And what’s something you’re into lately? Share whatever you feel like, and add a photo if you want. Animals are always welcome in the photos too of course. Totally optional, but a nice way to find a few things we have in common. Feel free to say hi to each other in the replies!