This episode features an interview with Shaun Randol, Founder of Mister Editorial, a mixternal communications newsletter. Shaun has spent a large portion of his career piloting communications for international companies such as Bloomberg and BlackRock. In this episode, Shawn and Shaun discuss the myth of planning in storytelling, the importance of adapting to new technologies, and maintaining a strategic perspective on the evolution of communications work.
This episode features an interview with Shaun Randol, Founder of Mister Editorial, a mixternal communications newsletter. Shaun has spent a large portion of his career piloting communications for international companies such as Bloomberg and BlackRock.
In this episode, Shawn and Shaun discuss the myth of planning in storytelling, the importance of adapting to new technologies, and maintaining a strategic perspective on the evolution of communications work.
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“I think those of us who have 10 to 15 years left in their career, can't ignore [AI]. They should embrace it, learn to use it. Dial in to one or two tools or use cases and become deeply expert at it immediately. Change comms, multimedia, photography, graphics, storytelling, whatever it is. Pick one or two because there's many of them out there and just get known for it as soon as possible, because that expertise will be needed.” – Shaun Randol
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Episode Timestamps:
*(02:26): Getting to know Shaun
*(09:12): Where Shaun stands today on AI replacing people
*(14:19): How technology changes the way we communicate
*(18:45): Shaun’s opinion on slowing down generative AI
*(29:36): Shaun’s advice for comms professionals using AI
*(35:44): Other ways comms professionals can embrace AI
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Links:
Connect with Shaun on LinkedIn
Connect with Shawn on LinkedIn
Shawn Pfunder: Hey everyone, welcome back to the Cohesion Podcast. Today we're joined by Shaun Randol, founder of Mister Editorial and Editor-in-Chief of Digital Publications at Lam Research.
Shawn Pfunder: Shaun has nearly 15 years of experience in mixternal communications for multi billion dollar global corporations, including Bloomberg, BlackRock, and Splunk. Sean, welcome back to the show.
Shaun Randol: Shawn, thanks for having me.
Shawn Pfunder: Right on.
Shaun Randol: This may be the longest conversation I've ever had with someone who shares my name.
Shawn Pfunder: Oh. So, this should be fun. This will be it. This is the second time you've been on the podcast. Like, you joined us last year, July 2023, and talked about AI then. We'll talk about that again today. From ethical concerns to tools, possible use cases. Now, before we get into it, I have some like quick, personal ish questions to get to know you better.
Shawn Pfunder: And the listeners who have probably heard the podcast episode, and if you haven't back in July, 2023, these are probably more for me to get to know you a little bit better. And so what are the top five most open apps on your phone?
Shaun Randol: I keep my phone as far away from me as possible in life. So I looked into this.
Shaun Randol: Uh, I keep the phone over by the front door of my house. So it's, it's rarely with me. The top five apps, the message app, my CrossFit app, camera, weather, and the clock. I use the smartphone for hardly anything. For phone calls. For calls. And wads. Yeah, and wads. No wads. Okay.
Shawn Pfunder: This is funny to me. Cause. Anybody that is using their phone like that, in that way, or I met somebody that wasn't using Strava to track runs.
Shawn Pfunder: Like anybody that's sort of aside from that, and they're more like Wendell Berry, like Neo Luddite type of thing. I, they're like the cool people to me now. I don't know, like you've accomplished something.
Shaun Randol: Yeah. I wouldn't, I wouldn't say I'm Neo Luddite necessarily. Cause we're going to be talking about AI, you know, so I embrace AI, but I do look for balance.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah. Yeah. And you never, you never just went with a, a dumb phone? Oh, I've thought about it. Yeah.
Shaun Randol: But the phones I keep getting in my life, this is maybe this is too much, but they kind of come to me for free. So you know, they're passed down secondhand. So there's no need for me to buy a dumb phone if I just keep getting free.
Shawn Pfunder: What's the last book that you read for work or for pleasure?
Shaun Randol: For pleasure, I just finished last night, Cold Victory by Karl Marlantes. It's about espionage in post World War II Finland. Oh, wow. I enjoy his writing very much. That's a fiction book, nonfiction I read. Sebastian Junger's In My Time of Dying, about his near death experience and what it means to an atheist like him.
Shaun Randol: I don't really read books for work. I read a lot of nonfiction in other industries, business, entrepreneurship. business biographies, design, the crafts, and see what I can apply to the comms world. But I don't read comms related books ever.
Shawn Pfunder: I still have two more personal questions, but I knew we'd get derailed into these, these types of things.
Shawn Pfunder: Tell me more about that. I've had somebody ask me, like, what's the best business book? And I always name fiction books, because I think that they're more applicable. Like The Wizard of Oz is an amazing, like, self help book, right? And putting scenes together. Why, why do you avoid? Books about, now is it across the board, books about writing and books about communications in the industry and books about content marketing?
Shaun Randol: Yeah, I avoid comms books for sure. Communications, profession, communications, industry, I enjoy reading books about writing and especially from fiction writers.
Shaun Randol: I take a lot of master classes from nonfiction and fiction writers as well. I think it's because I like to position myself as an insider outsider with Mr.
Shaun Randol: Editorial. Insider being I'm in the trenches, fully employed, I am in the comms space, but I don't want to be influenced by what the zeitgeist or trends are from my peers. I like to see if I can swim against the tide a little bit, so I just stay out of the comms. Space. And I just don't want to repeat what maybe too many or others are saying.
Shaun Randol: So yeah, I try and find inspiration elsewhere.
Shawn Pfunder: Makes sense. What's a common myth about your field of expertise?
Shaun Randol: The, if you call my field of expertise storytelling, the common myth is that you can plan it. And that you can have a publishing calendar. In my experience, I've spoken with many internal stakeholders outside of the comms function who are, or even comms leaders, who are interested in seeing your publishing calendar for the next three, six, or 12 months.
Shaun Randol: It's impossible. I think if you can look out and And have a solid calendar for four weeks. You are excelling. If you've got two weeks, you're in a good spot. And that's just because the nature of comms is that something happens unexpected all the time. And it just jumbles the calendar. You can't have too many set pieces.
Shaun Randol: Because you've got to plan for the unplanned and have that flexibility. So when I share my calendars around, it's usually a two week outlook, even though many of them are desperate to see for four weeks or three months.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah. That would be a fantasy world.
Shaun Randol: It's just not reality. As much, as much as I'd like to have a longer term plan, you just gotta be a little more agile.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah. That makes perfect sense. If you could, this is my favorite question. If you could know the answer. To one mystery, what would it be?
Shaun Randol: There are a lot of mysteries in life, so I would like to know if there's an afterlife. Maybe I'm thinking about that because I just read Younger's memoir about near death experiences and what those people experience on the edge, and it's kind of sci fi like.
Shaun Randol: And kind of eerie and unsettling. There are several mysteries I want to know about, but because I have a sort of a mild fixation with death and dying.
Shawn Pfunder: You and Sam Harris.
Shaun Randol: Yeah. You're dropping Sam Harris. You said WOD. You're name checking. We share the same name. Am I talking to myself? Where do you live? And when you come through Oregon, we're going to CrossFit together while listening to the Sam Harris podcast.
Shawn Pfunder: Fantastic. Yeah, we can watch me dry heave while listening to Sam Harris.
Shawn Pfunder: Which is about the nerdiest thing I might have said all year. Yeah, so Last time we talked, getting into AI, and I'm really excited about this conversation. Like we have a lot in common on talking about these things, but we also have this in common being within the communications world, employee experience, editorial, writing, things like that.
Shawn Pfunder: And AI is a big, question related to this that can put me into existential mood. Like I hope we keep it light ish when we talk about it, but I, that's where, that's where I end up a lot of the time. And last time you were on the show, you agreed that AI won't replace people, but someone using AI will. Is this still your opinion a year later?
Shaun Randol: Yes. And yes, but now there's an extra qualifier to that and feel like we can't have this conversation without. Being, we just need to accept that for the next however long this conversation lasts, it will be a low burn existential crisis. Because I do think it remains that those who use AI will outperform and possibly therefore replace our peers who don't use AI.
Shaun Randol: If you think about the Students who are going through the university system now who may be majoring in communications, they are learning AI. They are going to bring it with them just like The younger generations are digital native, the forthcoming generations will be AI native.
Shaun Randol: And so it's coming.
Shaun Randol: So, in that sense, I think it still remains the case. But I also think that the level of productivity will increase. for our profession, and therefore hiring for comms pros will plateau quickly. Yeah. And then, I don't know, within three years, the number of new hires in the comms profession will decline.
Shaun Randol: Because people are becoming more efficient using AI, and there's no need to hire as many junior staffers. So it will, I think AI will replace our jobs, just not a one for one. I think it'll just cause a decline in the number.
Shawn Pfunder: You know, if you don't have the, this came up at the legal fields as well. This is going to make me sound like old man curmudgeon a little bit, but if you have these kids, young adults, Adults, whatever you want to call them, coming out of colleges that are using AI to do this type of stuff.
Shawn Pfunder: Does this mean that there's nobody's learning the craft of clear communications or the craft of clear writing? Because one thing I've noticed with AI, at least now, is you still have to know What's good or what's going to be affected or still make judgment calls on things, or even be able to write a prompt that makes sense as far as clear communication, craft, columns, plans, conversations, talking points.
Shawn Pfunder: What happens if that piece is missing of people learning the. The crafter, do you see that as like, AI will handle that?
Shaun Randol: I don't know if that's a crisis yet.
Shaun Randol: For one, there will continue to be people who learn the craft and I think they will be the writers, historians, journalists who rely on the written word to do their job.
Shaun Randol: Plenty of them will not find work in their fantasy field and will end up in comms. That's the case now. We have a lot of, you know, would be writers and ex journos in our field. So I don't think it's going to dry up in our field. Are people going to learn the craft though? That's a really good question.
Shaun Randol: Are engineers who have sweated and toiled over learning C and JavaScript, are they going Wondering if the people coming up behind them are losing the skills to craft elegant code. I don't know.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah.
Shaun Randol: But I wonder if that's happening there. Probably people are going to lose. They probably stopped teaching it to a large degree.
Shaun Randol: I saw a card written by a young person who recently graduated high school that was written in print because they're not teaching cursive and there was no punctuation whatsoever. in a four sentence card. And so I'm wondering, are they even teaching punctuation and grammar or are people, young people just writing like they text?
Shaun Randol: So if, if we're not learning cursive and we're not learning basic grammar skills, I can only assume that the craft of writing and storytelling is next on the chopping block.
Shawn Pfunder: I wonder, one thing that's come to mind related to this within our profession is I've debated. Whether or not to punctuate.
Shawn Pfunder: Some comms based off of the audience. Like, I had no idea that people saw me as angry in my text messages because I use periods. I did not know that was a thing until recently from my daughter.
Shaun Randol: So you're talking about comms between humans, not between employees who aren't human. Yeah, I can see that, but I only communicate with people around my age, really.
Shaun Randol: And I've learned that if I want to talk to my nephews who are teenagers, uh, they basically ignore me. So it doesn't matter. Because I'm using the wrong app, you know, I'm trying to send them a text message and they're like, why aren't you on Snapchat, Uncle Sheldon?
Shaun Randol: Whatever they're on. So. But, Shawn, if you get so bold as to remove punctuation from internal comms, please let me know.
Shaun Randol: Because that would be something.
Shawn Pfunder: I'll give it a, I'll give it a shot with one thing and then measure and then see what happens like without the syntax. You bring up a good point on the developer front, because I think if the comms that we're producing using AI is based off of a large language model. So a large data set of where.
Shawn Pfunder: Our communication. Styles of the writers that have all come before of the journalists and I don't know what's pulling from Dickens and Kurt Vonnegut and Margaret Atwood or whatever and pulling all these things together If it's based on that point in time, does it stay that point in time as far as how creative we get or how?
Shawn Pfunder: Experimental we get I mean there's things that happen with I would say these days it's become easier to shit on Postmodern literature and some of the things that came out of that. But I, I also think that it, like we communicate based off a lot of the influences that came from that, which were super experimental and how we do things now.
Shawn Pfunder: Do you think that years from now, we'll just kind of be in the, we'll be having conversations like this about where we might push the envelope or try something new or to punctuate or not punctuate. our comms that we send out. Or is it going to be sort of as is for the foreseeable future? Style, syntax, things like that.
Shaun Randol: Certainly texting has changed the way we communicate. Even in our more professional corporate communications, we're not afraid to use emoji, for example. I am. Are you? No! I was going to say, you got to get over that.
Shawn Pfunder: Well, no, I, like, I, I'll use it, but it looks as though emoji has become the period. Is that right?
Shawn Pfunder: Like, do you do a period
Shawn Pfunder: after emoji? I'm really happy to see you emoji, and that's the period. That comes after it. So I get it. I get it wrong. Like, do I put the smiley face at the front of it? Because it starts to feel like those children's books where it'll show a mountain and then the word mountain.
Shawn Pfunder: And I'm like, well, I said mountain. Why do I put a picture of a mountain in there? You need to have some youth around you to ask.
Shaun Randol: How will this be received? Because I do, I do add punctuation to my emoji. Text, but it, you know, it looks funny, but it also looks correct. I don't know. We will. The thing is about this whole AI thing is it's moving so quickly and evolving so quickly that what we can do now was hardly imaginable a year ago.
Shaun Randol: And so I can't even imagine what it's going to look like. next year. Yeah. I don't know if it, I don't know if like generative AI will necessarily be so dramatically different than the capabilities today. It feels like the learning curve is flattening a little bit there.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah. Do you use it now? Generative AI in your work?
Shaun Randol: I use generative, I use chat GPT and Bing and co pilot daily, personal and professional.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah. So it sounds like. Like this move to using AI, generative AI within communications. I mean, there's other things related to AI within comms as far as measuring and single sourcing and creating a bot for people to get answers for things.
Shawn Pfunder: If this is like, should we be trying to slow this down or is it just like, get on and ride at this point where we're moving forward?
Shaun Randol: Okay. If I were a policymaker, a regulator, a tech guru, I might have a different answer. But as a comms professional, I don't, no, we should not try slowing this down.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah.
Shaun Randol: We don't even have any power to do that.
Shaun Randol: Here's the, here's a couple of things to think about. One is, it's all about the money. Remind people all that all the time. It's about the money, honey. Companies will figure out ways to deploy artificial intelligence to make them more efficient and productive, possibly enable some innovations and breakthroughs.
Shaun Randol: Once they figure out that they can use AI tool to replace overhead costs. Which HR and comms are, they will, and they will take that money that would have paid for that headcount and put it towards engineering, product development, and sales.
Shaun Randol: Where that money, those employees have a more direct influence on the bottom line.
Shaun Randol: So, AI is coming and we don't have any power to slow it down. Um, Here's where I want comms people to take a step back and like, examine ourselves.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah.
Shaun Randol: So when we hear about technology to place, displacing jobs out there in the world, we don't tend to freak out. Uh, uh, uh, I think I'm right in generalizing here, but when we hear about technology, replacing manufacturing jobs or truck drivers or food service people, we're like, Okay, cool.
Shaun Randol: That's civilization advancing. Those people will just be learn new skills and get jobs elsewhere. But then when technology comes for my, for our jobs, you know, we adopt this Mindy attitude, not in my backyard. Whoa, what are you doing with technology trying to replace me? Oh, now you know what it's like to feel like a truck driver in the face of auto.
Shaun Randol: Coming up. So check yourself is one thing I like to say to comms pros. Why do you get that tizzy about this and not with other job displacements out there? The second, isn't it the utopian ideal that technology helps replace? Dirty work and drudgery, so that the human can thrive in other areas, possibly creative or leisure.
Shaun Randol: There's great meaning to be had in work. But I find that a lot of people in our profession are having trouble finding meaning in comms work. Despite what many LinkedIn profiles say about being passionate about comms, I don't think you are. Because how many comms people do you know who retire and then continue to do comms in retirement?
Shawn Pfunder: Right.
Shaun Randol: It's not a passion, it's a job that you're really good at. When people retire from comms, they're like, yeah, I'm out of comms. So shouldn't we be thrilled that there is a technology rising to take care of the, you know, the tedium and the drudgery that can happen in the comms space? Shouldn't we embrace that so that we can live that ideal utopian fantasy?
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah, I'm all about utopian ideal fantasies. As you were talking, and this is not a, This isn't an obvious answer, I think. It's cliche at this point to say AI is going to remove the humanity in some things. I don't think that's the case, but Within, there's two elements to this on tying to the humans and you suggested the one was does AI free us up to be more human, not only in our, our daily lives, which totally makes sense, but I have many questions for you about that.
Shawn Pfunder: But then in our, in our work lives, it could Ultimately, the, the point of communications, you know, to make sure that people know what's going on, to make sure people are cool with their job and what's happening at a company, to engage other people, to create excitement. Like I like to do a lot of humor and things like that in, in communications and sort of push forward.
Shawn Pfunder: I don't know, a goofy employment brand or one that's engaging and things like that. But ultimately it comes down to this human to human connection. You're using words and managers or whoever else to make that happen. Will AI enable more of that because the more trust you have in your organization, the further you're going to go.
Shawn Pfunder: Do you think that AI can be one of those tools that frees us up to do the, the more expensive human to human communications or building trust or working with other people.
Shaun Randol: That's what we say, right? Oh, the, yeah, let's use AI because that will free me up to do more creative and strategic work. But how many strategic people do you need on a comms team?
Shaun Randol: That's true. Like how many strategic projects are there to go around? So I think that will happen for many of us, but comps functions are generally small and there's not a lot of strategy and creative projects and funding to go around for all of them. One thing that's happening in the real world outside of work is that people are investing in experiences and lots of companies are springing up to provide really interesting
Shaun Randol: in real life experiences, you know, these haunted houses, Netflix is announcing like television themed, you know, like stranger things, pop ups, you know, sporting events, all these things that happen in real life. More and more people are engaging in these so called experiential activities. You go to art museums and you're surrounded 360 degrees by Van Gogh's paintings instead of staring at the wall.
Shawn Pfunder: Oh, that's true.
Shaun Randol: Yeah. Yeah. So maybe. There could be some creative employee experience that come out of being displaced by AI, but now we're talking like, is this an HR job? You know, the employee experience role is some people in comms are engaged in employee experience and some, you know, sometimes it's an HR thing.
Shaun Randol: But it's a really interesting question to ask because Most of my career has spent in white collar industries, and it's, you just need to be connected on a laptop. I work remotely for my firm. How much can I do for an employee experience in real life? Not much. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know, Sean.
Shaun Randol: What do you think? Can AI free us up for more creative roles?
Shawn Pfunder: I think so, but you bring up a very, very, very good point. And I didn't say, well, AI free us up to hire lots more people to create experience roles or experiences at work. I think what you mentioned at the top is that we'll be, I hate the phrase, do more with, with less.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah. In this case, I think it ends up being do more with more because this will enable us to do more for what we're working on and what we're putting together.
Shaun Randol: Absolutely. Right.
Shawn Pfunder: All right, so fully existential then on this front. I don't have a job anymore. And there could be other people. And not because there's like a new market that you can go to do.
Shawn Pfunder: Or like, are we? I don't know if it's in our lifetime, but are we, are we rapidly approaching the space where many humans won't have to work? Is AI going to take us to the point where we have farming or mining or these different things, like, where usually it's labor intensive, we have to have people on assembly lines or machine lines, even the blue collar work.
Shawn Pfunder: I might be able to take my car in, type in what the problem is, and My car goes into a convert, like mechanics could be sort of ousted. If that happens, because you brought up the, do people still do communications when they retire? If you have an entire generation that retires. A lot earlier than normal.
Shawn Pfunder: Like what then? I like to think, Oh, we're just going to party, but I don't think that that's what will happen. I think no, that's not going to happen. Yeah, a lot of people derive their meaning and purpose from their profession or their work.
Shaun Randol: I don't think technology or AI will cause a sudden social system in which people are just suddenly Doing watercolors and poetry 20 hours a week.
Shaun Randol: Because, like you said, we derive meaning from work, and that's a human trait, and there is no shame in saying that. And so I think people will find something to do. So that's exciting. It's like, what are they going to learn? So I don't think that's going to be the case. We're not going to be all walking around in togas, playing the harp and living off of universal basic income saying, aren't the robots great?
Shaun Randol: I think we'll be bored out of our minds within a week. And somebody is going to learn how to manufacture harps and somebody is going to be learning how to bespoke togas.
Shawn Pfunder: People will find a way to Bespoke togas. Part of me wants to be quiet and just have you keep creating these alternative versions of the future.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah, I think you're right. So, knowing this, this is really helpful to me because it's within our specific industry. And you said, uh, Check yourself with other comms folks. If you had to give advice to somebody, I would say that's been in comms. So not somebody coming up into it, but somebody that's been in comms 15, 20 years.
Shawn Pfunder: They've been doing this work. Maybe there's a sliver of employee experience in it and these things coming in. Here is AI staring at you, staring at your team. What other advice would you give them? Besides the, hey, check yourself.
Shaun Randol: If I had five years left in my comms career, I'd probably wait and sweat it.
Shaun Randol: I'd say write it out.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah.
Shaun Randol: Because comms is notoriously slow to adopt new technology for various reasons. Some of it comes to funding, some of it comes to anxiety around New tech and trying new things. People just want to write and so on. So I think the people in the late stage of their career have a little bit of time, five years max.
Shaun Randol: And then just not sweat it too much. Those of us who. are looking at another 10 to 15 years. It can't be ignored. It can't be ignored. What you can do is apply your 15, 20 years of wisdom to the new technology. We live in a world in which we have. Three, four, maybe even five generations within the workplace.
Shaun Randol: That's valuable. So it's not difficult to learn, right? You've used this stuff. It's so intuitive. It's so intuitive because you're just chatting with somebody. We're not asking you to do coding. We're not asking you to learn physics. Photoshop, which is impossible. It's just talking in a chat bot. We do that with customer service agents, bots or human.
Shaun Randol: We already know how to do this. So it's easy enough to learn this. So I think those of us who have 10 to 15 years left in their career, can't ignore it, they should embrace it, learn to use it, dial in to one or two tools or use cases and become deeply expert at it. Immediately. Change comms. Multimedia, photography, graphics, storytelling, whatever it is, pick one or two because there's many of them out there and just get known for it as soon as possible because that expertise will be neat.
Shaun Randol: I was talking with a colleague yesterday who was applying for a role because it was the first time they saw a comms role in which the job description required AI experience. Oh, wow. So it's coming. Yeah. You know, and when I hire people, I'm asking them how they use AI. Yeah. And by the way, they're all using it.
Shawn Pfunder: I know everybody's using it. What's your evolution been like on, on writing prompts. And I'm curious, have you gotten more personal? It's the wrong word, maybe, but more like you're actually chatting. Did you start more formal? Like, I guess, are you saying please and thank you, or that's cool. Or right on, let's try this now.
Shawn Pfunder: What do your prompts look like to now?
Shaun Randol: I forget to do that because I do, you do need to teach the system that was a good result. That was a bad result. So I haven't crossed that threshold yet where I think I'm talking with an intelligent being. So I keep forgetting to be polite. I'm not angry with it, but I'm not overly polite with it.
Shaun Randol: And so really my prompts haven't evolved too much. It's how I use them. ChatGPT, for example, you can set up these individual threads that remember the history of your conversation. And so if you open up my personal ChatGPT login page, you'll see one that's marked fitness, one that's marked cooking, one that's marked gardening, one that's marked math, one that's, you know, it's just these different topics.
Shaun Randol: Whenever I have a gardening question or a recipe question or a fitness question, I go to those individual chat rooms. And it's like I'm continuing a chat that's been going on for several weeks. So that's how I've evolved. It's less about becoming better at the prompting and just more efficient at using the history of my conversation with the tool.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah, yeah. You know, you do a lot of Ghostwriting for executives. I started playing around with trying to create the voice for individual executives. So when I opened up that, cause it, it again, learns from the history. As you dial it in and then you go in and type in the details of whatever it is you need to communicate, like whether it's sensitive, not sensitive, be direct, be not like, and then having it kick out in the voice.
Shawn Pfunder: Of that executive that you're working with. Like they like to use these words. This is the way they like to sign off. That's been really interesting. Like trying to get that down.
Shaun Randol: I don't know if anybody's going to take anything away from this conversation, but if they do, that's the one thing that they should take away.
Shaun Randol: That's the, one of the best hacks. for using these tools is to teach it to write in certain voices. And again, to have separate threads for those voices, you know, a thread for your CFO, a thread for your CEO, a thread for the head of HR. They all speak differently. They have different voices and styles. And if you can get those bots to be like dialed in on that.
Shaun Randol: Oh, man, you're saving hours, hours of time.
Shawn Pfunder: I know, I bet, well, and then they don't know. I've worked too many places where they know it's coming from me. Anyways, so the CEO writes it, and some of them are serious emails, you know, like we're doing
Shawn Pfunder: a reduction, a layoff. We're doing a layoff, and then we write the email, and then I get notes about how great the email was.
Shawn Pfunder: Because it's so It can be time consuming, difficult to try and get it into that voice instead of whatever your voice is or however direct you go with it moving forward. What other ways besides generative? Do you think communication professionals should be embracing or looking at AI?
Shaun Randol: That's a good question because my expertise is in storytelling, content creation.
Shaun Randol: That's where I'm most proficient at.
Shaun Randol: I'm not using AI for image generation, for example. I'll use it maybe to illustrate it, but it, whatever it spits out, I'm like, yeah, that's good enough. That's good. I think teaching people how to use AI will be a useful skill. And so if you can be that peer for your comms peers and for your workplace, if you can just learn, if you learn the basics and get them down pat, that's You can teach that to everybody else because everybody just needs the basics.
Shaun Randol: Nobody needs to really go deep on AI technology very quickly. It'll be super intuitive and user friendly and it will just require inputs and prompts to different apps and agents. I think if you just, if you learn to be proficient at prompting for various tasks and needs, And for your own output, I honestly think that's good enough right now in comms.
Shaun Randol: I think that'll get you through the next three years, honestly.
Shawn Pfunder: Well, where else, where can people follow you? Where can people connect with you? You have a substack that you publish?
Shaun Randol: Substack, that's the best place to find me. Mr. Editorial. Google it, you'll find it. I'm on LinkedIn, but only on Fridays.
Shaun Randol: Honestly, I only go to LinkedIn on Friday. And so if you send me a message on Tuesday, I'm not going to get it for a few days.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah, I know that you're serious when you said it, but it's still, it's still hilarious. It's like something I would say just to say, I'm never on LinkedIn.
Shaun Randol: I checked it this morning.
Shaun Randol: I'm done.
Shawn Pfunder: I did my LinkedIn duty for the week. Well, Shaun, it's been a pleasure. Gave me a lot to think about and I'm sure gave our listeners a lot to think about moving forward.
Shaun Randol: I hope so. I, I think, you know, the one thing I like to remind people in my sub stack is comms is just a job and AI is a tool to help you do that job.
Shaun Randol: Don't freak out about what's happening at work on a day to day and a week to week basis. Get your priorities straight. But as far as this conversation goes, you cannot ignore AI because it is, it is coming for our profession.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Shaun Randol: So like. You know, get your head on straight about that. And then close your laptop at five o'clock.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah. And hide your phone by the front door. Definitely. Perfect. All right. Thanks, Sean. It was a pleasure.
Shaun Randol: Thanks.