Tuesday (00:02)
And so once you create like your map and everything, then when you're coming to like a campaign, of some kind, you're now working against the backdrop of all this research. And this is where I think you really can maximize what LLMs are meant to be.
Benjamin Ard (00:44)
Welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by Tuesday. Tuesday, welcome to the show. Yeah, Tuesday, I'm excited for this conversation. We are going to dive into a whole new side of AI that I think a lot of people are ignoring. But before we actually get into the material, let's get to know you. Let's let the audience get to know your work background, history, all that kind of fun stuff.
Tuesday (00:50)
Thanks for having me. Sure. Like I just learned, a lot of your people who join have a broadcast journalism degree or just journalism degree, which I have. I worked in for Nielsen, a market research firm on their consumer good side of the business for a long time and then their media side of the business. Then I did some consulting and now I work for a nonprofit that is focused on research again.
Benjamin Ard (01:33)
Love it. That's exciting. That's going to be fun. So with the research vein in mind Tuesday, you use AI for high level strategy and trend analysis, all sorts of really cool things. I think sometimes myself very much included, we get stuck into the AI rut of content creation and kind of that's where it starts and stops. But you look for things like mega trends and you identify and organize content like accordingly and do really cool things. What is that? What are you using AI for? What is a mega trend? How are you learning about that? What does this look like?
Tuesday (02:04)
Yeah, so I'm a big fan of futurists and specifically this woman, Amy Webb, who releases very cool trend predictions and she's looking super far out. But the frameworks that she uses and many other futurists use are very similar and a very common framework is called the PESTLE framework, which stands for political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental. The idea is that you are doing research within these categories. It's just a way for you to organize your research. And from there, you can pull out longer trends, which I refer to as mega trends. So these are global trends that are happening at scale. They have a high likelihood of impacting the future of society and businesses. And that's really important, I think, from a content strategy perspective, especially if you're in B2B, right, because you want to be answering questions that your audience has not asked yet. And so you are trying to be your own mini futurist, understanding how your product or solution really will address a problem that maybe they're kind of aware of, but they haven't yet committed to like this being a big problem for them, but it's gonna come up soon. And so when you want to differentiate yourself in the market, a megatrend can be a really grateful way for you to think more long term. From a content strategy perspective, if you are really trying to position yourself at the edge, right? I'm the person who knows the most, who can help you in not just today's problems, but tomorrow's problems. So getting an understanding of a megatrend helps you get there faster.
Benjamin Ard (04:19)
Okay, I love this. Getting really tactical. It's almost like you're researching the researchers. Can you walk me through the conversation you're having with AI to find these mega trends? What does that look like?
Tuesday (04:26)
Yeah, so I talked about the PESTLE framework and so you are looking for — I think a lot of times from a content strategy perspective, we get very focused on your industry. But what you forget is that we all live in this very interconnected world and there are all these other things that are impacting your business, the business of your clients, people's lives, et cetera. And so what I'm using AI for is to tell me like, what are all of the biggest news stories, trends, et cetera, happening within a certain sphere. And the process is actually very robust when you first have to map out your mega trends. Cause you are just consuming massive amounts of information. And this is where AI is helpful. I think when I did my first analysis, we looked at 160 pieces of thought leadership, over 60 reports and I'm talking like world economic reports that are like 100 plus pages. And so you are taking all this and I am pushing Miro to the max but that's why ChatGPT is so great at summarizing. You're trying to summarize all of these things and then collect them all together to understand what are really the mega trends. And then how do I distill that even further down? If I think, for example, upskilling and reskilling is a mega trend, it's actually a trend and the mega trend is technological disruption. So technological disruption is influencing upskilling and reskilling. And then it's also influencing this talent and skills gap. And interestingly enough, population shifts have a lot to do with that too. So you can have a trend that's being influenced by multiple mega trends. And I think ChatGPT is really helpful in helping you consolidate information. What we all know is that LLMs are great at pattern recognition. And so you can identify that yourself and then you can validate that with ChatGPT or Claude or whatever you're using. And so once you create your map and everything, then when you're coming to a campaign of some kind, you're now working against the backdrop of all this research. And this is where I think you really can maximize what LLMs are meant to be. Because when you start off with just like, I'm looking at this idea for this product thing, all it is going to do is pull from other examples of what your same product or solution is. If you are asking the same question against the backdrop of research, then the conversation with your LLM changes and it's starting to pull from things that it didn't know it was supposed to be connecting before. The things that you'll get back are nowhere close to what you would get back if you just entered that last prompt. Because now it's pulling from actual research that researchers have done on these problems. I think you can have a lot more fun with LLMs. And then I think it creates better, more interesting campaigns that are rooted in the actual human problems that we're all experiencing.
Benjamin Ard (10:06)
I love that. There's a ton to unravel. It sounds like ChatGPT is a primary tool. Is that the only tool you use in all of this? Are there other AI tools you take advantage of?
Tuesday (10:23)
I mean, I think you can use a lot of tools. Any LLM is a great research buddy. That's what they're there for. And then there's the actual tools that will create workflows for you. I think that would be really helpful in terms of connecting the dots. I use Miro a lot. They use AI, they have a lot of AI tools within their platform as well. I do a lot of sticky noting being like, I think these two things are connected. And so it will do a great job of summarizing what those ideas are and making them into documents. I'm trying to lean into what AI is good at, which is summarizing and creating pattern recognition. And I think that's a better way to use it than to create content net new because you fall into that trap of losing your language. You're losing the differentiation of your voice if you're starting to use LLMs to actually write and create content. But if you're using it as a research assistant, that's great. It's so much faster than you are. And it's so much better at summarizing things. And of course, you do need to click through and make sure those things are real.
Benjamin Ard (12:20)
So you've gone through all the research. You're using these different AI tools. You're finding these mega trends, connecting the dots, seeing where things might go. And now you kind of have an insight. How are you turning that into value for the business?
Tuesday (12:35)
Yeah, it's hard because this is the part where I feel like maybe it's a little bit of art too. When I stumble upon a good insight, it's like the hairs on the back of your arms stand up. You're like, whoa, that's exactly what I've been feeling. I do feel like the biggest problem for people at work is just like, we're all feeling disconnected. And my solution then can fit into that. I think it's that you know it's a good insight when you walk around and talk to people. The way that it lands with them tells you if you're on a good path or not and you will see people's faces change. I'll be at the sauna and I'll just be chatting up people and being like hey have you thought about this? And they're like whoa I never thought about that — that's when you know. A lot of times it's not about the data point. It's about the emotional resonance. And the emotional resonance is a phrase or it's a moment that captures all the feelings of the tension that you've been experiencing. And when you know that you have something good for a campaign or an article series, you're like, I can say a lot about this.
Benjamin Ard (14:39)
I love it. That's so cool. Tuesday, thank you. I love your approach to finding these mega trends. The idea of looking into the future, finding things that will become people's problems in the near future rather than reactively finding things that they're caring about today or yesterday. It's the proactive approach. For anyone listening to this podcast, how and where can they connect with you online?
Tuesday (15:29)
Yeah, well I'm on LinkedIn of course.
Benjamin Ard (15:37)
Anyone listening, just scroll down to the show notes and Tuesday's LinkedIn profile will be linked right there. Click on the link, connect with Tuesday and it will be great. Thank you, Tuesday. Literally, I'm about to go do some research after this. This is great. Thank you so much for your time and insights today.
Tuesday (15:48)
Thank you. Thanks.
