Beyond the Basics

This post will share updated information from this post from a year ago based on my own experience and adding insight from a couple of resources. 

Are Newsletters Useful?
"Is it worth my time to create a newsletter?" - yes! Let's review some statistics.


​From this Stripo article, January 2026:

• Return on Investment: For every $1 spent on email marketing, $10-$36 is generated in sales and even as much as $50 for high performers.
• B2C (Business to Customer) conversion: 59% of consumers attribute purchases to email notices received. Sales due to emails account for roughly 11% of company eCommerce sales and, perhaps more importantly, engage customers after sales and increase brand loyalty. 

36Agency confirms many of these numbers and adds more:

• "Regularly connecting with customers, past customers, and leads builds loyalty and keeps your brand at the forefront of their minds. Personalized content boosts open and engagement rates by 26%,..."
• "Monthly newsletters establish a direct line of communication with your customers, keeping them up-to-date with essential information and developments. Unlike social media posts that can get lost in the noise, emails land directly in recipients’ inboxes. This directness ensures that your audience receives your updates without any extra steps, making it a reliable method of communication."
• Newsletters also enable you to gain feedback from customers through survey questions and email replies.

According to Media Beats: "Newsletters are among the few channels that you fully control. They offer data privacy, independence, and long-term customer retention. 88% of people read their emails daily, with 78% doing so before starting work. No other communication channel reaches users as reliably and consistently."

But What About AI?
Newsletters remain useful in this developing AI world—I suggest more than ever!

From The Current's February 11, 2026 post:

• Regulators in Europe and the UK are moving to curb Google's AI Overviews which are increasingly limiting traffic to websites. Proposals have included publishers being able to opt out of AI overviews to others taking legal action, filing antitrust complaints. 
• A repeated theme in sources including The Current post above and Creator's MBA encourages newsletters as one of few owned media options, enabling one to be seen in inboxes and even monetize through subscriptions or advertisement relationships. If AI summaries will reduce website traffic, email newsletters are the way to connect with customers. 

Media Beats identifies newsletters as a powerful tool to boost reach, trust, and revenue. 

Newsletter Options
There are a number of platforms to consider for your newsletter once you've determined your strategy and market. Many, including me, provide a newsletter on multiple channels, including all three listed below. Consider your audience for what your best strategy should be.

• LinkedIn: Newsletters on LinkedIn are a series of articles you identify at the beginning as a "newsletter," which becomes a series of articles going to your subscribers. It's recommended you defer creating a newsletter on this platform until you have at least 1,000 followers as the first edition goes to every connection you have so they can then subscribe to receive news. LinkedIn helpfully offers new connections to subscribe to your newsletter - an automatic feature. Portions are sent to subscriber email addresses and guided back to LinkedIn for the full post. The trick on these is you do not own nor can you see the addresses of each of your subscribers. 
• Substack: Newsletters on Substack are a series of articles initially created as a "newsletter," just like on LinkedIn. It takes longer to build a substantial subscriber list, but you can begin creating your newsletter immediately rather than hold until you reach a certain number to begin. These newsletters can be shared for free or monetized as monthly or annual subscriptions. Substack does have a fee on subscriptions you collect but not extreme. You can download and keep the email addresses of subscribers so they can become your forever property. Substack news goes to subscribers' feed and via email. 
• Direct email provider: You control, create, and select this service provider. A variety of options have been covered on this blog post from a year ago. Many provide a free version of their service to start.

Your Turn!
Do you have a newsletter? Do you offer it on one or more platforms?

I'd love to hear how it's going for you and I love to subscribe to newsletters! If you'd like to talk strategy or need a hand creating a newsletter, Let's Chat or find me on LinkedIn or Substack!

Defining Entrepreneurship

Let's begin on the same page with the basics. Per the Center for American Entrepreneurship:
"Entrepreneurship is the process by which individuals or groups pursue a commercial opportunity by bringing something new—or meaningfully improved—to market, most often through forming a start-up company designed to grow. It is a dynamic process that operates under uncertainty and risk and plays a central role in innovation, economic growth, and long-term productivity."

Characteristics of Entrepreneurs
This list combines insights from American Intercontinental University and Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center.

• Passion
• Business savvy
• Leadership skills
• Planning and adaptability
• Networking skills
• Money management skills
• Persistence or resilience
• Risk taker

Benefits of Being an Entrepreneur
triOS College shares this list:

• Freedom and flexibility
• Personal growth and learning
• Creative control
• Make an impact

Myers-Briggs and Entrepreneurs
This story in Inc. shares a study indicating there is an entrepreneurial personality type. The study cited indicates “The entrepreneurs in the group showed a significantly higher orientation for creativity, risk-taking, impulsivity, and especially autonomy than did non-entrepreneurs. Competitive ambition did not distinguish between those who were or were not entrepreneurs, but did relate to those who saw themselves as more entrepreneurial. People with a preference for extraversion, intuition, thinking, and perceiving tended to show greater levels of entrepreneurial orientation.”

Which personalities you may ask? N and P - Intuition and Perceiving. This article by Thryv goes in depth into multiple personalities and their nuances. 

The Value of Entrepreneurship
Economic Impact Catalyst notes "Entrepreneurship creates new businesses, which in turn create jobs, generate income, increase productivity, and contribute to economic growth. Entrepreneurship also drives innovation, which leads to the development of new products and services that can improve the quality of life for consumers." 

This article in USA Facts shares information about small businesses, generally considered that step above entrepreneurs or solopreneurs. A small business is defined as one with less than 500 employees. As of the article in December 2025, "Small businesses are 99.9% of all businesses nationwide. According to an SBA report from June 2025, the US had 36.2 million small businesses. These small firms employed 62.3 million people, or 45.9% of all private-sector employees. They were responsible for 88.9% of overall job growth from 2023 to 2024."

What About Nonprofits?
Nonprofits definitely have a large impact on the economy, directly and indirectly. This Philanthropy Roundtable post from September 2024 proclaims, "The nonprofit sector is a cornerstone of American society,..." The post further shares: "Since 2000, the number of nonprofit organizations in the U.S. has grown by 36 percent. Nearly 60 percent of the growth in 501(c)(3) organizations from 2002 to 2022 is due to an increase in human services and public and social benefit organizations." 

The American Society for Public Administration notes in October 2025: "Beyond direct employment, nonprofits foster opportunities for millions of others indirectly. For instance, child and elder care services provided by nonprofits enable family members to enter the workforce who would otherwise remain at home. Workforce training and job placement programs also help underemployed or unemployed individuals secure sustainable employment. This ripple effect illustrates how nonprofits strengthen the labor market well beyond their immediate staff."

Educating for Entrepreneurship
Geoff Woods, author of The AI-Driven Leader, notes our current education system continues to be based on the system initiated by John D. Rockefeller in 1902. Geoff notes in the transition from agriculture to Industrial Revolution, factories needed disciplined workers who followed orders. The goal of his General Education board was to produce "reliable workers rather than independent thinkers." As we enter the era of AI, a focus will need to be on "strategic thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration."

Multiple episodes of The Artificial Intelligence Show echo this sentiment, suggesting a return to humanities studies, entrepreneur classes when available, and training in AI use in episode 171. 

​Get to the Point
I have to agree with Paul Roetzer on multiple episodes of The Artificial Intelligence Show that the way forward in this AI world is through entrepreneurship. 

• Noted in episode 185, it will be up to entrepreneurs to create jobs and work needed in small focal points to weather the transition of large businesses shedding employees. 
• Noted in episode 165 alluding to AI replacing young workers: "I would love to see growth and innovation and entrepreneurship as...the future engine of economies." 
• Who are entrepreneurs? You are if you're reading this! 
  • Solopreneurs and freelancers
  • Nonprofits, especially the small to mid-sized ones who are in the social services realm
  • Authors - entrepreneurs themselves and idea generators

Here's to the Entrepreneurs!
What made you decide to take a chance and start a business or nonprofit? It's hard work, but what do you like most about it?

Let's Chat! or find me on LinkedIn or Substack to share your thoughts! 

Viral Dueling Posts About AI

AI founder of OthersideAI Matt Shumer posted a long article on X/Twitter that has many buzzing. You should be able to view the original post on X/Twitter without an account there. The link embedded on his name is his LinkedIn profile where he also shared the article. 

I first saw the post as shared in a LinkedIn group. I learned more on episode 197 of The Artificial Intelligence Show. This link takes you to the show notes which also tend to be on most podcast players. Head to roughly the 8 minute mark for this particular story. 

Shumer's article on X/Twitter has over 83 million views and growing. I learned on The Artificial Intelligence Show that this post is one of the early articles X/Twitter is now encouraging, a style of writing new for the platform, that may also be behind it's "viral" status as X/Twitter is encouraging others to write long form content now. It's also rather an alarmist style post—always good for generating clicks. 

Always More Than One Side
As should be expected, a response questioning the intent and the content behind Shumer's post came the next day from an editor on Fortune, Jeremy Kahn, who himself is an author about AI - Mastering AI: A Survival Guide to Our Superpowered Future. 

The hosts of The Artificial Intelligence Show podcast know Shumer. They often raise similar alarms and concerns on their podcast about where AI is taking us and the divide in society between those actively using AI and those completely unaware or dabbling at most. 

I also caught this article from Robert Rose on LinkedIn with yet a different take on the points Matt Shumer raised. A more in depth version of Robert's thoughts are on his Substack post. 

The Truth is Generally in the Middle
Reviewing both Shumer and Kahn's pieces, I posit while there is certainly concern to be raised about AI—concerns on a variety of fronts—the alarmist nature and counter are both a bit over the top for me. 

• We are operating in a few bubbles of perspective.
  • The heavy users of AI racing to figure it all out seeing the huge potential for general job loss in the near future. 
  • A still large majority who don't or barely use AI tools with little interest to dig into its complexities. 
  • A rather First World perspective of access to this tech with the leaders of AI companies based in the US.
  • The rest of the world with controlled availability and use of AI (UK and Australia are early to build rules about AI), let alone Third World countries who are doing their best to survive.
• Will it help or harm?
  • AI will bring innovation and expand medicine, science, and more faster than only human brain power, hopefully bringing cures and advances for all.
  • Just as there is good, there is evil. AI has just as much capability to be used for nefarious reasons at local and international levels. 
  • AI is a tool trained to be helpful and come up with a response—any response. Many call potentially false responses "hallucinations."

Get to the Point
How do these posts and concerns raised about AI impact us in the nonprofit, solopreneur, and author spaces?

• I've noted AI use often on prior blog posts for benefit to our market--here, here, and here. 
• My clients have understandable concern about AI in many cases between data and privacy concerns or simply not interested in dealing with the new tech. 
• Any time someone is "screaming" panic in the streets about anything, it's time to step back and ask questions.
• The Future Impact of AI (according to Lezlee based on significant research and education):
  • I doubt it's going away any time soon. It is helpful to many who use it. These folks will not sit by for the technology to be taken away.
  • We are making advancements in science, medicine, and technology faster due to the assistance of AI. It has its benefits. 
  • Many have no use or interest in AI at the moment and it's not all "older" folks resisting. My Gen Z daughters want nothing to do with it which is rather common for that generation. They've been scared by teachers of being accused of plagiarism and the hallucination that does exist. 
  • Job losses are happening attributed to the rise in AI capability and use, either with layoffs or lack of hiring. I anticipate a time soon where the job losses or lack will become felt enough that the public will push back on its use.
  • The rise of AI is often likened to the Industrial Revolution two centuries ago. We have no concept what that actually felt like. New and different jobs were created as many were displaced, but there was a definite "messy middle."
  • We are in no way sufficiently ready with the infrastructure needed to support AI to the level we're told "it's coming." Solutions are needed for water, electricity, and space to build data centers to meet the supposed demand. I anticipate social push back on this as well. 
  • Government involvement or regulation is likely. AI development is currently reliant on approximately six corporate founders in the US, impacting national and international markets. At some point, I suspect "for the good of humanity," use and development will become centralized. At the moment, it's the "wild west" of development and innovation in the US while other countries are beginning efforts to regulate use.

What Do You Think?
What do you see as the future impact of AI? Are you increasingly concerned about your friends and family not "getting it" about the impact AI is already having? Do you think Matt Shumer's post may have been more dramatic than needed?

Let's Chat Let's Chat! or find me on LinkedIn or Substack!

The Times, They Are A'Changing

As tech advances, marketing shifts are needed. Email remains one of the strongest ways to connect with your audience, but recent advances in AI and email servers are challenging how to get noticed. 

MailChimp reports according to a study on its behalf: 

• 95% of marketers agree email marketing has excellent ROI (return on investment)
• 4 in 5 customers prefer email over other forms of communication

Forbes shared December 31, 2025 that "email dominates as the most effective channel (72% of brands)".

What's Changed?
AI is increasingly impacting our inboxes. Pretty much all email servers have some sort of spam filter to "helpfully" set aside items you may consider junk or ads not worthy of your time. When those spam filters work, they're extremely useful and I'm glad not to see those messages. However, we've all had plenty of instances of "losing" emails our server identifies as spam that we actually want to see. It feels like it's more work clearing through multiple folders email is sifted into to either truly delete, actually read, or try to train the AI system what we want in our inbox - repeatedly - as identifying what we want to see never seems to stick.

Google shared in this January 8, 2026 blog post the impact their AI, Gemini, will have in inboxes.  The post reviews a variety of features—some may thrill you, others not so much. The generative AI options of helping you compose and edit may help some folks; summaries and search functions may be useful. As a marketer and the point of this article, there are concerns about Gmail "helpfully" re-ordering our inboxes to prioritize what it thinks has deadlines and dates (not always accurate) as well as prioritizing email from those it sees you interacting with more often. Interaction with emails is being picked up as someone you trust and relate to, someone you want to hear from. This reordering also messes with date/time order of messages you see. This omeda article from January 12, 2026 indicates Apple is going to the same email format beginning Fall 2026. 

How Do We Address These Changes?
This post was inspired by listening to a series of podcasts from Yale Keon—episodes 146, 147, and 148—which can be found here. Episode 148 is especially enlightening as she addresses email filtering and opening with the impact of AI. I definitely recommend a listen—15 minutes well spent. 

I've rounded up a number of articles with helpful suggestions as we consider getting eyes and opens on our emails. These are great if you have time for a longer read.

• cmercury offers a number of actionable bullets in their post.
• Forbes offers a number of suggestions.
• knak has an extensive review of the matter. 

Get to the Point
Let's get to some actionable highlights of ways to maximize your email reach as it will remain the best way to connect with your customers. 

• Engagement is key: Elicit open, click, and reply. Consider buttons for easy reply to your email, polls—some reason to interact with a response to indicate you want these emails. 
• Focus on priority over creativity: Create a clear call to action, deadline date reference, and no vague language. These will trigger the AI layer to alert to your important message.
• More text/less images: Rethink placing your logo at the top—try to look more like a personal friend than a brand. While gifs are fun, adding a bunch starts looking a bit spammy with less real content. 
• Personalize your domain: Invest in a service to send as [email protected]. (rough example) Google Workspace offers a reasonable monthly payment service and adds features to your gmail experience. There are other vendors who provide a domain name service you can connect to your website and email tool. It took me years to bite the bullet on this expense but now find it well worth the (currently) $8/month investment that also enables a Gemini Pro tier, more Google Drive storage, and much more. 
• Clean your email list regularly of those not engaging in 90-180 days: The more emails unopened or without engagement, the more email servers will begin to treat you like spam. I personally differ on this one. While it may help your numbers and potential (potential!) delivery rate, there's also something to be said for showing up in someone's inbox to be there when the time is right to connect further. 

How Has Your Email Engagement Been?
Are you monitoring your "open" and "click" rates from your email distribution? These aren't gospel but they do offer a bit of insight into engagement with your messages.

Any tips or tricks to share that you've used that resonate with your email list? Love to hear what's working to share with others! Let's Chat or find me on LinkedIn or Substack!

AI Slop

There is a growing backlash against so much content or even full works being created by AI and shared. Some isn't hard to spot - pretty average sounding words, little emotion.

Others are harder, from just being hard to distinguish as Human vs AI to even stealing author's names and publishing books for sale! This is being seen in just about any profession, but we'll focus on authors today. 

Labels
Some are leaning into labeling themselves to note "Guaranteed Human" or some percentage of what is human vs AI work. Others are date and time stamping posts on socials to confirm humanity, in case material may get swiped by AI or people. You may also be in a rapidly evolving field where your date/time reference helps put perspective on the post you made. 

​Stolen Property
Some authors are going through the time and expense of trademarking their name. This is a fascinating story with step-by-step cues on the process. 

Dave Malone shares an article on Jane Friedman's blog suggesting categories of AI usage to post - AI Assisted vs AI Generated. Many use AI these days - most have no problem accepting that. The thing that's useful to know is how much is AI vs Human.

Jane Friedman shared her fight in August 2023 against books posted on Goodreads and Amazon with her name as the author that she never wrote, stealing her name and reputation. She regularly updates the post as this evolves.

Amazon has developed Content Guidelines in an attempt to curb the flow of AI content. Amazon announced in September 2023 a new limit of 3 per day self-published books by the same author in an attempt to control a flood of AI content. That does not appear to have been updated or changed. 

Lean into Human Value
You are uniquely you in all your amazingness, flaws, quirks, life experiences, stories, and lousy first drafts. Your human factor is what sells. Be Human in as many ways as you can.

• Events: Show up. Network. Be a speaker and authority. You are fully human here.
• Share the process: In newsletters and on social media, share behind the scenes tales of your process which will help bring your book to life with your audience and develop your following. 
• Website and email: These are your owned property. Develop a regular, consider weekly, habit of blogging. This will give you material to populate your email news to those who subscribe or follow you or have requested your information. 
• Social media: Each platform has a different approach and vibe. Focus your energy on 2-3 at most as your go-to social spot. This is a great way to share more frequent insights or communication with followers, daily to 3x/week. These posts can be pure text, text + image (photo), or short video. It would not surprise me if we begin seeing tags at the end of posts noting "100% Human Created Content" or something similar. 

Human Branding Sells
Use AI. It's a useful tool. But be aware of how much of your work is you vs the tool. At the end of the day, it makes a difference the level of Human in your work. If you have a pro AI account, you are able to toggle an option not to make your chat public which may be extremely useful to protect your content.

This isn't intended to be an all or nothing perspective. The best option is often a blend of human and AI. It's a tool we can use to improve our words and how we share experiences. This May 2025 article encourages a blend. Even Google suggests a blend of AI and human content is successful. The article also suggests human content outperforms AI by 47%. I definitely appreciate that.

Human Branding
How much are you creating as human generated content? Are you feeling a need to label it as such?

Love to hear your thoughts - Let's Chat or find me on LinkedIn!

Where Do You Begin?

Anything discussing AI (Artificial Intelligence) can be quickly overwhelming. It's so BIG - where do you even start? Do I even want to deal with AI personally, let alone for my nonprofit? How safe is it, especially when we're talking about donors and our organizational data? What about those "hallucinations" you hear about? Is it already too late to start? 

​There are seemingly more questions than answers. You are not alone. 

The suggestions presented here are aimed at a basic start as surveys suggest nonprofits aren't using AI at all yet. Many tools nonprofits use or purchase have AI embedded in them. Those are topics for another day along with more advanced organization use of AI.

​Is it really worth it?
If I were writing this 6 months ago, I'd have likely said "It depends." Now I offer "Yes - with caution and training."

My nonprofit focus has always been the little guy—small nonprofits, from just getting started to finally able to afford salaried staff. This is my area of expertise. Mid-sized and larger nonprofits have been our front runners testing out AI in nonprofits and blazing trails for the nonprofit world. Even so, studies indicate while many think AI may be valuable, it's not really as heavily used in nonprofits as you may think. This recent study indicates AI is not in high use for fundraising. This survey reflects how little AI is being used in general in nonprofits at this time. 

How Do We Start?
This article by Wendy Clow offers some great ideas and a beautiful graphic for 10 steps. For the small nonprofits I assist, this is still more advanced than many are ready for. We're going to dial it back even further. For as little as AI is being utilized in nonprofits, these suggestions may be a practical path forward no matter the size of your organization. 

• Education: Learn about AI and the variety of things it can do. Start personally with your own life and uses. Hopefully more than one in your nonprofit are interested so you can share ideas to benefit your organization. Consider ways it may be useful in your nonprofit starting in small ways. There are loads of free education resources available to guide your AI literacy. I highly recommend The Artificial Intelligence Show podcast, emails, and free webinars offered by SmarterX. Google, OpenAI, and Microsoft also all offer free education in how to use their AI tools. 
• Create AI Policy: Now that you're familiar with AI and the potential for what can be done with it, your team should set some guardrails and guidelines about what's acceptable in your organization. While AI can do a lot, your nonprofit holds sensitive information about your donors, volunteers, and board members. While it's easy to wave a hand and think "it's all public knowledge anyhow" - it's not.
  • How much access will you give AI to your files? (I suggest it's very limited to a shareable file and not your full computer.)
  • Consider tools or software you may purchase, the information needed to do what you need, and their AI policies. Sharing personal information is a huge legal concern.
  • How much will your team be able to use the nonprofit AI for their personal use, and how much might they inject into the organization's system? What's acceptable and what are hard no's? 
  • Find templates: There's no reason to reinvent the wheel on this one. Do searches for a version you like that's adaptable for your organization. Community IT Innovation offers one with nonprofits in mind. 
• Identify 2-3 easy use cases: How might AI make your nonprofit time faster, better, or more efficient? Look for the easy wins to start. 
  • AI as note taker: This may make your Recording Secretary's job easier to build minutes. AI may even create a draft of your minutes using past minutes as examples. (note I said draft - human review before posting is always recommended) There are AI tools that are free or cheap, possibly built right into your smart phone, that can record conversations that can be shared with the team. (with permission, of course)
  • AI to create emails: Emails can be time intensive, especially if you feel like you're repeating yourself. You will still want some way to personalize messages before you hit "send." Your nonprofit may also need to put into words or policy what your "brand voice" is to create consistency between people in the organization, let alone to train an AI tool. 
  • AI as a thought partner: Generative AI can help you flesh out fundraising ideas, organization strategy, or event planning with generally more details in less time than you would do on your own. These chats have results more advanced than the basic "search" option but not as in depth as research assistant level. This is often very conversational by typing or voice.
  • Research assistant
    • NotebookLM: This Google tool lets you upload docs, pdfs (including entire books/manuscripts), videos, audio, slides, websites, and more to help you learn about topics with a variety of outputs - quizzes, "podcast" with two voices "interviewing" each other about the topic, and more. This is specialized in using only the materials you provide as its source material, reducing "hallucinations."
    • Deep Research: Another Google tool using Google Gemini (Google's AI system) in "Deep Research" mode. (you can select different search modes depending on your project needs) Deep thinking can use your prompts, or ask it to interview you to create a best prompt to go deep into any topic. This often returns pages of content and sources on the order of a major analytic paper. While significant content is created, it is then up to the human to confirm and validate the information and sources returned. This is often a barrier for users with big ideas but short on time to vet the information before running forward with it.

Have You Used AI in Your Nonprofit?
Love to hear how you're incorporating AI into your nonprofit or what's holding you back! Let's Chat or find me on LinkedIn or Substack!

'Twas the Night Before Break

Enjoy the full post by Robert Rose as shared on Content Marketing Institute! The video is fun but the words are what struck me. 





What Matters
The words that struck me in Robert's poem are this stanza:
"But as I looked round at the mess he’d left there,
A small folded note drifted softly through the air.
In Santa’s own scrawl were these words, warm and true:
'In chaos and metrics, remember what you do.
A story still matters; a connection still stays.
The work that is human outlives all the craze.'"

"The Work that is Human Outlives all the Craze"
Words I choose to believe and live by. This seems even more critical as the talk and noise has increased about AI - will it help, will it hurt, how painful will this adjustment be in an "AI Revolution."

These are words to cherish and hold dear for my nonprofits, fellow entrepreneurs, and authors. You, the person or organization - in your beauty, flaws, and all - are what makes living worthwhile and will make the difference in the end in the job market and appeals. 

AI can only do so much. AI needs human brains and insights to be worth anything, much as we're hearing otherwise. I envision a time coming where society will take a stand to define some boundaries around AI. 

Any human I chat with, including those who are proficient with AI, are quick to point out we must remain Human First in our approach to AI. You can hear more about this concept on a May 6, 2025 episode of The Artificial Intelligence Show podcast. 

Being Human Sells
I'm finding my client opportunities and best conversations are those I have in person or via zoom where I'm able to chat and interact with people. Words on blogs, profiles, or socials go only so far to help you decide on someone you wish to do business with, whether for your services, ideas, or connections. You really need to speak with someone to determine compatibility. 

My nonprofits are finding the same. More donations and memberships happen when they're affiliated with events and interacting with people. 

Storytelling is Key
Storytelling is a very human talent.

• Your conversations at events - you're sharing stories. 
• Your website and social media
  • You're sharing stories of impact if you're a nonprofit.
  • Referrals and recommendations share your impact as a solopreneur.
  • You're selling stories if you're an author. 

For better or worse, AI is improving at storytelling and images, making it harder to tell if a story is human or AI generated. More are considering the benefits of labeling work by percentage of AI or human creation. Studies note while it may be difficult to spot AI vs human created content, "moral disgust" impacts human responses per this study in ScienceDirect. 

Per this March 2025 blog post on Stryng: 
"52% of readers felt less connected to content once they realized AI was involved, and 26% linked AI-created web content with a lack of personal touch.

Consumers also prefer honesty. About 60% support disclosure of AI content, which helps build trust. These preferences highlight how much emotional tone and transparency matter." (emphasis as noted in original post)

How Do YOU Make a Difference
​I have no problem with AI and use it regularly - as a tool or thought partner. All work is mine and original. That is also the type of content that resonates with me. I appreciate it most when I meet and talk with creators to get to know them personally. 

I've been working through a number of certification courses through AI Academy by SmarterX and Paul Roetzer's team. They suggest there are 3 levels of AI use:

• Automation - what is basic enough you could delegate to a tool with slight oversight or review
• Augmentation - thought partner assistant, co-you
• Acceleration - how can you go beyond a 10% improvement to a 10x change

You Matter
Every step of AI use relies on human input and guidance - the human behind the machine. Each of us feels better getting to know the person behind any cause or endeavor. 

We need YOU to show up. To return to Robert Rose - "The work that is human outlives all the craze." 

Your Biggest Cheerleader!
If you'd like to talk strategy as we enter an AI-infused world, Let's Chat! I'd love to help ensure you can share your message and services with the world. You can also find me on LinkedIn. 

Human vs AI

In a world that is increasingly AI driven, in our own use as an assistant or being bombarded by AI content, you can't help but wonder what's real and what's not. 

Your human-ness will be the driving factor in your success! I firmly believe that and advocate for it.


Ways to Show Up and Be Human
Let's review a few ways that really do make a difference.

• Show up: Attend things. In person. Get out of the comfy clothes if you're working from home and get out there!
  • Networking events: Find any number of groups on social media in your location or your field of customer interest. Go interact with people. This Forbes article and another from Novoresume from 2025 confirm the power of in person networking. 
  • Volunteer opportunities
    • Focus on options that may connect you with your prospective customer or those who may lead you to potential customers. 
    • Follow your heart in whatever volunteer option that speaks to you. Grab a selfie or ask for a photo to share a story on socials about what moves you. (image attached - packed and distributed food boxes locally with Credit Union West and Glendale Chamber)
  • LinkedIn Live events: You only need to dress your top half for these events! By clicking "attend," you are able to reach out to all attending the event and send connection invitations, even after the event! 
  • Virtual/online networking events: While not quite as powerful as in person networking, online networking events definitely build relationships and opportunities to connect with folks from around the world!
• Have conversations
  • Social media
    • Spend time interacting in conversations in comments, not just mindlessly surfing. Just take at least 15 minutes/day for this—30 minutes is even better. 2-3x/week is sufficient. 
    • Direct messaging, even quickly, helps you stand out from the crowd and you build friendships, even if only online. 
    • Conversations lead to quick opportunities to zoom with new connections to learn about each other a bit more easily and how you can support each other. 
  • Online events: there are typically "chat rooms" set for attendees and speakers to interact—take full advantage of that! Build warmer relationships to support each other in the future. Go for name recognition! You gain connections from around your country and around the world that you wouldn't otherwise make. This is one of the few beneficial outcomes from the COVID days. 
  • Email
    • Check in with current and past clients. Remind them of your services, ask them to share your information if they find someone you could assist. Simply thanking them for working with you keeps you top of mind!
    • Create a newsletter: This is an excellent way to get into people's inboxes and can be shared with others. 

No AI Shortcuts
AI has its purposes, don't get me wrong. But don't AI prep all of your communications in posts, messages, or emails. Be real. Be YOU! Take just a few minutes to share the light inside you to help you ENGAGE with your clients! That is what folks are hiring—people want and need more Human in their lives right now. BE that human. BE YOU!

How Have You Been Showing Up?
Networking is especially challenging for the introverts of the world. There are many steps you can take to get out there in small doses or in friendly spaces.

How have you been showing up? Attending events online or in person? Focusing more on messaging in the socials? Or is this on your 2026 goal list?

Love to hear and grow together! Let's Chat or find me on LinkedIn!

How to Get AI Answers - Effectively

Everything is about AI these days. You can't turn around without an article or video about it. Unfortunately, much of the noise seems to be predicting doom and the awful results of the increasing AI. (Artificial Intelligence)

I have plenty of my own questions about whether we truly need this level of tech assistance or impact in our lives. Sure, some advancements are already pretty cool, but the level the "tech bros" talk about or that you can see as the train at the end of the tunnel coming at you? I'm pretty sure none of us have asked for that level of AI "assistance." 

AI Bubbles
There are very definitely the Users, the Non-Users, and the Ignore At All Costs bubbles at the moment. (NOTE: I am completely making these terms up for my own frame of reference)

• Users: If you use AI, you tend to really use AI. These folks keep up on the AI news. It becomes hard to get away from it. (thank you, algorithms, feeding you more of anything you look at) These are the most immersed folks. If you land in this bubble, it's hard to see there are many who don't use AI - at all.
• Non-Users: Believe it or not, especially if you use AI, there is a silent larger group of Non-Users! Most of the world doesn't actually have any interest or contact with AI nor feel a need for it. These folks will often be most concerned about energy, water, and conservation issues which are very valid. 
• Ignore At All Costs: Shockingly, many in Gen Z fall into this category. My kids are two of them. There are a few articles reflecting this on Medium,  Persuasion, and Forbes. 
  • They have been repeatedly told in school growing up about cheating and that use of AI is often seen as cheating. If AI isn't cheating, it's at least often and heavily picked up in plagiarizing check tools. These tools and teachers allow a certain level as "can't help it" when the the checker tools pick up overly much, but still—no one wants to be accused of cheating. 
  • These folks are also stuck on the "AI Hallucinates" bandwagon. Sure, it exists, but less so than initially and further prompts can reduce or eliminate that factor. It's also human responsibility to fact check and vet what AI provides. I don't see the need to fact check AI going away any time soon. This is actually a roadblock for some high AI users for the time needed to vet deep research projects. 
  • This post won't get into the impact AI is having on the entry level job market of Gen Z grads, which is definitely not encouraging use of the tool or generating any love for AI. 

Prompting Framework for Generative AI
I caught Joe Pulizzi on a recent podcast of This Old Marketing referring to a framework he heard from Geoff Woods at a recent MAICON conference that he shared in a blog post. There are a few similar versions for prompting, but this is a useful reference if you're getting started with AI or looking for small ways to improve your results. 

CRIT = Context, Role, Interview, Task

• Context: Give your tool (ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Claude - any of the models) a frame of reference you are coming from. Share your goals, tone, and audience.
• Role: What role would you like the AI tool to take? A fellow marketer, business owner, author, or nonprofit? A strategist who will poke holes in your ideas or article?
• Interview: This is a new idea to me - ask the AI tool to ask you three clarifying questions, one at a time, to help you think more deeply on the matter. 
• Task: What would you like the AI tool to do - how can it assist you? Provide a summary? Write an article you can then edit as a draft? Help you see next step actions?

Brilliant Use of AI!
This is a great succinct way to work through better ways to prompt AI as a thought partner rather than using it as a "do this for me" tool. This reflects my typical use of AI with the addition of the Interview idea. This is also a far better human-first approach to using AI! 

With Gratitude
My many thanks to Joe Pulizzi for sharing the thoughts and Geoff Woods for inspiring Joe! I just picked up Geoff's book The AI-Driven Leader on Audible as it inspired Joe's post. I'm looking forward to the read and sharing insights! 

How Will YOU Use AI?
Are you an AI User, Non-User, or prefer to Ignore At All Costs? Hopefully the CRIT idea offers useful options to enable you to prompt better to be more effective in your use or even to help get you started!

Love to hear how your AI journey is going - Let's Chat or message me on LinkedIn!

How to Get Started with AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI) made a big leap forward into the general public consciousness November 2022. AI has made rapid progress in its usefulness and skills. Humans have made progress in how to best interact with the tool that is AI. 

How Many REALLY Use AI?
ChatGPT, one of the largest generative AI models in use at this time, has posted 800 million weekly active users since April 2025. ChatGPT is 1 of roughly 5 big AI platforms as of this writing. Many using AI use multiple platforms for their work or more specialized AI platforms focusing on the mode of output desired (audio, visual, or even video) bringing the number of AI users to at least 1 billion and climbing. 

What Would I Use AI For? 
AI is now "multimodal" - it can think and output in multiple formats. We're going to focus on these as a reference point knowing AI is also embedded in many products we routinely use - Alexa from Amazon, online/digital shopping, "smart" home devices and appliances, phones, social media platforms, and more. 

• Text (most commonly used)
• Reasoning
• Image generation
• Video
• Audio

Where Do I Start?
Prompting - or how you query the system - is how you begin. The technology has been around long enough at this point that some consistent suggestions have developed for how to maximize your results with AI. You can find a variety of ideas here, here, and here. 

My personally favorite resource is Paul Roetzer with SmarterX and Marketing AI Institute. I've completed some of their AI Academy courses and love their clear formula for prompting that becomes second nature with use. 

Talk to AI - Yes, Seriously
This is simply the easiest and best way to think of how to prompt or query your AI - "talk" to it as if you're instructing a smart intern. "Talking" can be literally if your device does voice mode or by text typing your prompt. It's a bit more robust than what we're used to in Google searches.
Bearing that in mind, it does help to have a few cues in mind to get the most out of your prompting to reduce your time shaping the response you're after or throwing up your hands in frustration declaring, "It doesn't work!"

• Give it a role: Who is the AI? What role do you want it to play for its frame of reference?
• Task: What do you want it to do?
• Context: What does the AI need to know?
• Examples: Are there any relevant examples?
• Format: What format and style do you want for the output? 

Still Stumped? 
The crazy thing is AI has advanced enough that we can ask it how to better phrase a prompt for our desired result - seriously! You may be good at prompting with text for a text output, but image or video details are not your specialty to use the above formatting. You can simply ask your AI tool to give you an example of a prompt you could use for whatever vague information you do have. It may take a couple of tries to shape the information you're after, but it beats being stuck or floundering needlessly! Copy/paste the recommended prompt, place that into a new chat, and you're on your way to now shape what you're after. 

You've Got This!
My clients are often older. Major tech changes can be very intimidating. I'm here to assist you! I'm learning the stuff so you don't have to.

• I'm happy to provide assistance within your budget.
• I focus on teaching you how to do the work to put myself out of a job!
• I'm a big fan of independence and self-sufficiency.
• If you'd like to learn, I'm happy to teach.
• If it's easier to simply hire for what's needed while you focus on things only you specialize in, I'm here for you. 

As I'm working my way through an AI education program, this seems a useful time to share some of the basics with my potential customers - small nonprofits, fellow entrepreneurs, and nonfiction authors. This AI-stuff doesn't have to be hard and it doesn't have to be a barrier for you. You do not need to feel like you're being left behind!

Have you been playing with AI? What do you think? Are you getting the hang of it or is it feeling a tad overwhelming? Let's Chat or message me on LinkedIn!