We're back!
After a years-long hiatus and probably thousands of promises to myself to restart this newsletter, I think it finally feels like the right time.
Weathering the Storm
Feeling stressed?
Yah.
Feeling uncertain how to plan not just for 2025, but for next week?
Totally.
I am a die-hard proponent of laser focus. The world is going to throw everything at you, and, through it all, you just have to keep your eye on the prize if you want to succeed.
However, while that’s still true in a big-picture sense, I do think there is enough disruption happening in this current environment that requires leaders, particularly in the nonprofit sector, to eschew some of the typical things they might be doing at the outset of the calendar year.
NOBL, a change and transformation consultancy that I really admire, put forth these four intentions to help guide leaders and organizations through these times of rapid change and uncertainty.
Know your fundamentals and protect them. Map your organization’s core business model and keep an eye on any direct threats to your stability and profitability. Also assume, however, that you won’t have direct control over much of what happens to them. For individual leaders, this means understanding your part to play in the overall business and defending it well.
Give your team the time back from the usual strategic planning processes. That’s right, skip it this quarter. If you need an estimate, think in wide forecasts and not predictions. Like Meta in 2022, Intel in 2023, and Southwest Airlines during Covid, refuse to offer guidance given the sheer amount of uncertainty.
Build and practice your rapid response muscles. Empower a small cross-functional team to plan how they might respond to an urgent threat and let them run some simulations (just as firefighters run literal fire drills).
And otherwise, store up your resilience. Uncertainty saps the energy that you need to take action. Don’t doomscroll. Don’t respond to every external event. Choose your battles wisely and use your collective effort to its maximum potential.. We are committed to the craft of transformation and to delivering real, substantive impact for our clients.
They also closed this section of their newsletter with this quote from author and risk expert Nicholas Nassim Taleb…
Not seeing a tsunami or an economic event coming is excusable; building something fragile to them is not.
Game Changer or Parlor Trick?
As I bounce between feeling like AI has transformed by life and then being disappointed by what AI actually delivers, I think often of this quote from Morpheus to Neo in The Matrix…
I've seen an agent punch through a concrete wall; men have emptied entire clips at them and hit nothing but air; yet, their strength, and their speed, are still based in a world that is built on rules. Because of that, they will never be as strong, or as fast, as you can be.
I remain confident in my ability to make certain connections and see certain opportunities that AI cannot. I also remain confident in my ability to communicate those connections and opportunities in ways that can be better absorbed and understood and engaged with by other humans. But I may have a bone to pick with Morpheus on his assertion about speed. AI is pretty darn fast at doing things.
So, with all this in mind, what are AI agents particularly good at and how can you best deploy AI at your company or organization?
A Substack that I follow, Nail It and Scale It, put together a comprehensive list of tasks and categories of tasks where AI really shines…
Personalized Communication
Personalizing copy at scale
Engaging in conversation and answering questions
Data and Content Generation
Writing short-form copy
Fleshing out long-form copy
Drafting images and video
Writing and editing code
Working with Data and Content
Summarizing information
Interpreting and classifying data
Making predictions about data
Image and video recognition
Information search and retrieval
Sentiment analysis
Project Management
Mapping out projects
Brainstorming
Optimizing Workflows
Web scraping
Monitoring systems
You should absolutely read the full post for all the details and caveats, because it’s super helpful.
And if that isn’t enough, Nail It and Scale It also created this Google Sheet with a list of 20 specific tasks that can easily be handled with AI.
Give Nail It and Scale It a follow!
Quick Tip
Everyone has three or four 401Ks and 403Bs and Roth IRAs hanging out in the accounts of former employers, right? Right?
Please say just yes so I don’t feel like such an unorganized mess. I am definitely guilty as charged.
Or should I say I was guilty as charged!
I now have all my accounts rolled over into a single brokerage account (well, actually two since I have these retirement funds portioned out across a Traditional and a Roth IRA, but they’re with the same bank).
This money- and time-saving change is all thanks to Capitalize, a service that helps you through the often tedious rollover process. And this is not any sort of ad. I just genuinely had a great experience and got efficiently stewarded through some typically time-consuming tasks that I had been putting off for a while.
I hope to be writing more often going forward, and I’d love to hear from you! Reply, comment, text, fax! Hope you all are weathering the storm!