“Rather than striving for ever more efficiency, we need to strive for balance between efficiency and a second feature: resilience. A system is resilient to the extent that over time it can adjust to its changing context in ways that allow it to continue functioning and delivering its desired benefits.”
— Roger Martin, When More is Not Better
Well over three years ago, I wrote:
“If GPT can do your job today, it will be doing your job tomorrow.
But if you’re using GPT to amplify your abilities today—or you’re using it to discover unique advantages you have over it—you’ll be able to keep creating unique value.
Because it’s not about the tool, it’s about the unique resource of value that the tool helps us create, deliver, or improve.
If we understand our value, any tool can help us amplify it.
If we don’t understand our value, any tool might be the one to replace it.”
Wow, look at those em-dashes! I don’t use those anymore, since they’ve become a hallmark of AI writing, but boy do I miss them.
But that’s not the point of today’s newsletter.
The point is resilience.
Not personal resilience against change or disruption, but value resilience. The flexibility to pivot or adjust our value delivery based on changing forces or circumstances.
Because when we lean too far into any particular technology or process, we’re making ourselves rigid and inflexible. So that when something changes (like AI tools watermarking their outputs), we might be unable to respond or adapt as quickly as necessary.
That’s why I insist on still hand-writing these newsletters.
Because if I lost that ability, I would be losing so much more at the same time. Like the ability to adapt when an AI platform goes down, degrades its output, or goes away permanently.
Efficiency is a benefit, but at least for marketing, it cannot be the sole priority.
We want to be as efficient as possible while maintaining resilience and flexibility.
Otherwise, when a tool or technique changes, we might not be able to change with it, or around it.
Which could cause our marketing to fail the only way it ever can:
By stopping.
Kelford Inc. are content marketers for expert advisors. If you’re struggling with what to say and where to say it to attract your ideal clients, we’ll show you the way.