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- Steal These Thoughts 09.05.23 | The Power of Context: Why Content Alone Isn't Enough
Steal These Thoughts 09.05.23 | The Power of Context: Why Content Alone Isn't Enough
The Power of Context: Why content alone isn't enough
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What is a map without a compass?...
Also, not forgetting the usual dose of weird, wonderful and what I hope is helpful content from the rest of planet earth in my curated roundup.
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The Big Thought
Content is king but without context (the queen!) it's often worthlessJust like in chess, where the queen is essential for thoughtful and calculated moves, context gives content purpose and direction.Content needs context to make a meaningful impact.The pandemic of content overloadThe amount of information available to us today is staggering.By 2025, the world will have produced enough content to fill five Libraries of Congress or nearly 16 zettabytes of data. While this abundance of content presents us with unprecedented opportunities, it also poses a challenge: how can we make sense of it all? Without the right context, content can become overwhelming, confusing, and even dangerous.Content paralysis is a legit issue, people.
Context is the compass that reveals how we can make sense of it all.
When you have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve and who you’re trying to reach, suddenly all that content becomes a whole lot more useful.I think about this a lot (probably too much) for the L&D world.I speak with lots of practitioners who are on a hamster wheel of either trying to survive the content avalanche of their libraries or doing the ill-advised act of creating more content to combat the poor quality of current content.
Before we carry on, let me frame the problem with more relatable data.The team at Askwonder delved into the scale of content consumption in their article “How much Information do we Learn Everyday?”. They unpacked the content consumption of an average American.The team shared “According to a report by the University of California–San Diego, the average American consumes about 34 gigabytes of data & information every day. That is estimated to be the equivalent of 100,000 words heard or read every day– or about how many words in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit (95,356 words).”This is a phenomenal stat considering I could barely read The Hobbit over the last decade let alone in one day!
Comparing this to activities today, the team found you can use the 34GB of data to stream every episode of popular Netflix hit Stranger Things, 15,000 hours of playtime in the video game Fortnite and 94hrs worth of doom-scrolling on TikTok.
Another Tuesday afternoon mindlessly consuming mediocre content
Gen AI + cookie cutter content on steroids
It’s a sign of the times when you can’t write an article without writing the sacred words of AI.I’m not fully endorsed in the cult of AI (yet). I’m certainly on the outskirts of looking in and asking, what is this buzz all about? Jokes aside, I’m excited about generative AI. Yet, it also brings the tsunami cookie cutter content creation (a quadruple threat 😉).You’ve probably seen a lot of it on your social feeds, blogs and even emails. It’s generally poor-quality and the everyday human use of generative AI tools is taking this to a new level.As much as AI can fuel more content, it can also save us.It can do this by providing context. If used in the right way, AI can summarise, define and be precise on the context of content you consume. Thus, saving you the precious non-renewable life force we call time.We’ll talk about AI as a context partner throughout this journey.
Content that has caught my attention and might interest you too.
An hour-long webinar from Ethan Mollick with Harvard on AI & teaching, focusing on how AI will impact classrooms, and the ways teachers can use it to boost learning and reduce their workload.
The team at the section school identify the 10 essential skills for individuals and teams to best navigate the business world.
If you're curious, here's three ways I can help you 👇
1/ My L&D toolkit stack with 20 free tools.2/ Grab a copy of my book to survive and thrive in a 9-5 career. 3/ Bounce ideas around with me in a 1:1 session.--Please do share your thoughts with me on these pieces or anything I share on LinkedIn or hit 'reply'. Chat to you soon.
“Every day of our lives, we are on the verge of making those slight changes that would make all the difference.”Mignon McLaughlin
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