The Age of UnCreativity

I’m back! After a short break (which was much less productive than I’d planned it to be, as those things usually are), it’s time for another edition of MarketINK!

Recently I had a conversation with a close friend doing a marketing course and she shared that everyone on it was using ChatGPT to write their email campaigns. In fact, the teacher had encouraged them to use it. Which is great, but it got me thinking about how AI will affect the relationship of this next generation of marketers with writing.

I’ve also shared a few clever books to keep you company this holiday season. Happy reading!

🤖 Chat Write-For-Me ✍️

When a friend of mine was dissatisfied with her email campaign, I suggested she rewrite it. She said she would - but this time she would use Gemini, as it was allegedly better at writing. I then suggested she… try to come up with something herself?

I’ve spent most of my life writing and I’m well aware of how hard it is to stare at the blank page, feeling unproductive, when a ready-to-go answer is just a prompt away. AI writing tools are quickly becoming a necessity if you want to stay competitive in today’s relentless content mill. People should be using it.

But I find the overreliance on it, especially by people just starting out in their career, to be a bit worrying. Yes, the future will belong to those who can leverage AI to the fullest and work in the most efficient way. But there is a catch.

Companies want to hire marketers and programmers, not prompt engineers. Without a good understanding of the basics of your subject, you won’t know a good AI answer from a bad one. And you only become good by putting in hours upon hours of work. Reading, writing, editing, day in, day out. Running to ChatGPT for answers saves time, but it also saves you from improving as a writer and thinker. Don’t let it steal that from you.

📚 Shelf Shocks 💥

1. How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius by Donald J. Robertson

Looking for a great entry point into stoicism? Donald Robertson’s book accessibly distils the teachings of the ancient philosophy, while also being a rich and engaging biography of arguably the most famous stoic: Marcus Aurelius.

The Roman emperor faced many challenges and had to develop strong mental and emotional resilience, resist the temptations available to the most powerful man in the empire, and outwit his enemies and deceivers. The lessons he recorded are a treasure trove of ancient wisdom, which Robertson masterfully helps us apply to our modern lives.

🎧 Summary

2. Small Move, Big Change: Using Microresolutions to Transform Your Life Permanently by Caroline L. Arnold

Do you struggle with sticking to resolutions and long-term goals? Caroline Arnold had the same problem, until she discovered microresolutions - small changes that are made to last and lead to meaningful changes.

Similarly to Atomic Habits, the book will teach you how to set up microresolutions so they steer you in the right direction and inspire action, not regret. If you need a little extra push to get yourself going toward a goal, this easy-to-read, example-driven book might be just what you are looking for.

🎧 Summary

3. The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics by Tim Harford

As the author of The Undercover Economist and Messy, Tim Harford is an expert at taking complicated topics and presenting them in an easily digestible way. In The Data Detective, he explores the fascinating world of statistics and data science and explores the curious (and often flawed) relationship between statistics and human behaviour.

Even if you are not a “numbers person,“ you will find the stories in this book engaging, as they tackle our flawed psychology and social interactions, as well as stats and percentages. In the end, this book will help us be more critical of the information we see and overcome some of our biases.

🎧 Summary

Fun Links ⏰ ❗️

1. Make your images tiny!

Can this cute low polygon panda help your website load faster? Of course it can! With TinyPNG, you can easily compress your images to a few kilobytes with minimum quality loss. It can also convert them to .webp, which is a more optimised format for web pages.

And it is absolutely free. Go here!

You've reached the end of my newsletter. Hooray! If you’d like to see more of my work, you can GET MY BOOK Write Better: A Simple Guide to Better Business Writing or connect with me on LinkedIn for more fun and educational content.

If you have any comments or would like to share what you enjoyed the most, feel free to get in touch! See you in two weeks!

(📚 За всичките ми български читатели - здравейте! Ако харесвате съдържанието ми, може да се запишете за коя книжен бюлетин БУК Клуб.)