The Debrief: August 9
Getting deep on topics like make-up lessons and AI detector tools
Coming to you live from my kitchen where I’m trying to entertain two sick kids indoors for 48 hours straight — we are living on iPad, chicken nuggets and a more requests for apple juice than I would like. Wish me luck.
The Readout
I’ve mentioned earlier this week on Instagram that I feel like we are facing an impending tsunami coming at us in September when my son starts Kindergarten. I have no idea how to prepare for it. Yes, I’ve read all the prep content. Yes we are doing all the special activities to prep for Kinder. Yes, I am talking about it to my son. To keep with the analogy, I have floats, boats, water bottles and whistles but I’m not sure what else I can pack that will be waterproof and useful once it all hits. I am a person who learns by watching and experiencing. I need to feel the tsunami to understand how to ride the waves. I know I’ll figure it out but for now, I’m clearing out calendar of any major commitments and protecting our peace as we transition to having two kids in two schools. Taking any and all tips and tricks. Thankful, as always, for Kelly Nolan (her next cohort for her time management course is open now - not sponsored, just a happy client and friend).
On the Record
This week I shared a new recording of some old content I posted last summer — some thoughts I have about women supporting women. I’m deeply convicted about how we as women (myself included) uphold the patriarchy with our own judgements and criticisms toward other women. Most especially when it’s disguised as “intellectual discourse” — looking at you fellow liberal women. I think it’s okay to disagree, but it’s how we disagree that matters most.
I’ve shared a few times about how our family will do a “charcuterie board” of snacks in a muffin tin instead of real dinner. The catch to that is that we have to hand wash our muffin tins and it is a pain to do. A friend used this travel container at the lake this summer and I immediately ordered and replaced my muffin tin hack with this DISHWASHER SAFE hack. Win win win.
I’m working on a Subscriber only Substack to publish this week (fingers crossed, it’s taken me 3 weeks to finish the draft). The working title is: The Sideways Move For Working Moms That Beats Quitting — Why a lateral move preserves your career capital while an external move forces you to forfeit what you’ve built. Yes, that’s my Claude generated title. And yes, it’s too long. I like to use Claude to organize my thoughts and then do 75% of the writing myself. The title is horrible for SEO/AEO so I’ll work on it before I post. The content centers mostly around why a lateral move inside your company isn’t always the set back some career experts say that it is. I share my personal career shifts and how I’ve been intentional about my moves to get to where I am today. It’s a LONG post, so it’s taking a while for me to edit it.
Currently
While we are on the topic of AI generated content…Let’s talk about the announcement that Substack made about it’s partnership with AI detection tool Pangram. I had a strong, visceral response to it. I use AI every day at work, for personal use, and with The Cabro. I use it to brainstorm, draft, and edit a lot of content. A LOT of content. I am a very, very active human in the loop with anything that comes out of my LLM model usage. Because I know, at the end of the day, I am responsible for what I publish alongside my name regardless if AI helped me or not.
I’ve used many AI detection tools to test my content. I do it nearly daily. My thoughts? They are wildly flawed. And at the end of the day, if human was actively involved in co-creating the content (generating the topic ideas, guiding the LLM on creating the words, editing the outputs), how much AI involvement matters when someone else is reading the content? What constitutes AI generate content? The fist output? The original idea that the LLM model generated? The first draft outline? The final edits? The checking for nuance? The rewritten sentence…paragraph…page? As a ghost writer for many executives in my career, I can tell you that most C-level executives are not writing their comms, blog posts, or key notes. Someone else (or a team of people) is doing it for them. And yet, we are not calling them out for not creating that content themselves when their names are attached to press statements, blog posts, and canned interview responses. All we care about is that the content is useful, truthful, and relevant.
Why is AI any different? Truthfully, I think the vigilante nature of hunting for AI content will subside at some point. If your AI content sounds like canned AI, people are not going to read it or they will discountinue reading your content. They want interesting, thought provoking, human sounding content. Slop will lose in the end — but don’t confuse slop with AI supported content. In my opinion the two are being compared as the same and yet they are wildly different in terms of quality. Just some food for thought from a someone in marketing at a data and AI company. Views are all my own, of course.
I did not expect to release that very opinionated take on AI generated content during a weekly roundup and yet, here I am. Would love your thoughts.
Worth Stealing
My hero image for this post is one that I took immediately after my makeup lesson with my makeup artist, Gaylin. I can’t recommend a session with a good makeup artist who can help you create a look that works for YOU. It’s an investment, but it’s saved me so much time and money in the end. I could spend time trying to find something on YouTube but often I end up wasting money on looks that won’t work for my face, shape, and coloring. Gaylin is great — not sponsored, just a happy customer. And yes, I’m finally a fake eyelash convert. I despised them for years but Gaylin slowly and gently brought me to the dark side.
The Ask
I’m running a Beta online course with a small cohort of Cabro followers — those who have attended a live event, an online webinar, or a mom group — around a combo topic around work reputations and the B+ week titled Sustainable Ambition. The plan is to get the Beta attendees feedback and if all goes well, launch the self-paced online course in October. If you’re interested, join the wait list. I’d love to have you.
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