Automation (AI)

“If I automate my work, my boss will just fire me.” Have you ever heard a similar sentence? I do. For me as a boss, she's pretty scary.

Let's start with a banal example. You have a habit. For example, you are transcribing texts from one document to another. Gradually word for word. Then someone will teach you ctrl+c+v. You will extremely increase your productivity.

A short-sighted boss will fire most of the rewrite team because of your innovation. A strategically thinking boss will expand your scope to include things you haven't had time for so far. There's always work that we don't pursue yet. And it's often crucial to long-term prosperity... there's just no room for it.

When you keep retyping instead... even though others have long since copied ctrl+c+v... you're dear. Logically. It ends in a crash. Logically. And then the boss actually fires everyone. Logically. Whatever it is, whatever he wants.

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Our first rule of automation

If something is worth automating, then we need to automate it.

The emphasis is on two words. It pays off and we have to.

1 ️ ⃣ It makes no sense to automate everything and always. You need a payback. See comic xkcd. It's got to pay off for us.

2 ️ ⃣ At the moment when it pays off for us, then we have to do it. We are all part of a game called capitalism. And he does not forgive imperfections.

We don't have a choice. If something is worth automating, then sooner or later someone will do it. And it will gain an advantage. The more competitors change, the more we will fall behind.

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Second rule of automation

The devil is in the details.

The boss does not see the details of your work. He doesn't know what you could actually automate or not. That initiative either comes from you or it doesn't come at all. A strategically thinking boss will make room for you. A strategically minded employee will do it himself.

And you might be a little afraid of that.

I used to think... 80% of my job is HTML coding... if I don't code... what am I going to make money on? Then it was the graphic. Then wireframes. And you know what? I always found something else that suddenly took up most of my work and it added a lot more value than it used to.

I've been running a small business for 10 years. My best colleagues are those who care for the House of Cutter for a long time. Because then the company can take care of them. Taking care of the company means brings in more money, or more money saves.

Part of that is changes. Automation. New products. New approaches. New customers. All the time and constantly. The normal situation of the company is continuous and constant change.

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Generative AI

With generative AI, our possibilities from the point of view of automation of office work grow significantly. For marketers, we solve it at AI Marketing Lab... because you have to know the technical details in order to even imagine what is possible today.

Do you have a business?

You have to automate.

You need to build relevant competencies.

Are you an employee or a freelancer? My guess is that the better companies will start recruiting people with an emphasis on what automation they have in Make/Zapier/N8n...

A pro with relevant automata (and, in the future, agents) will be an ORDER of magnitude more valuable than one who doesn't have them.

“Fear is not actionable. “
— Ondráš Přibyl

Reading for the weekend

The Era Of The Business Idiot

Incompetent management is a phenomenon across corporations today.