Armies of one
Coincidence or not, I am fascinated by how new AI-powered tools are showing up at about the same time that more people go independent.
The bear case for this is that fewer people have fewer jobs, and AI is gonna take the remaining ones that are left. The bull case is that there are more opportunities now to operate as, essentially, a crazy fast army of one.
Now, some baseline principles before you grab your pitchfork:
Not everyone is suited to self-employment, this is for those who want to genuinely pursue it and build it as an intentional path
Speed is not the only advantage there is, but sometimes it helps, like when clients are allergic to big shop strategic bureaucracy
Never let speed be an excuse for people to pay you peanuts, if anything you being faster (and good) should come at a premium
AI can't replace our thinking (yet), but it can fuel it (thanks Joel)
I don't know yet how this will affect the development of juniors coming into the industry, I'm merely exploring what works for me
All of this to say, I've been deep into building custom GPTs. Partly because I'm a dork. Partly because I like to scratch my own itches. Partly because I was never disciplined enough to actually learn to code 'for real'.
Anywho, here are a few tools I've built so far, which you may find useful:
Themethy Olyphant. It's a content theme generator. But it has a terrible pun as a name. Why? For love distinctiveness, that's why.
Positioning Poseur. A tool to generate positioning options. None of them are the answer. But they're useful enough shitty first drafts.
Feel The Bernbach. A creative thinking tool for solos. The name doesn't even make sense. And yet, it does. Just like a good idea.
Marshall Cultural Matters. A cultural analysis tool. Based on Marshall McLuhan's thinking. But with a 00s rap pun. Em, sure.
TOV-100. A hundred tone of voice attributes, in the palm of your hand. With actual choices made. No "we're human" crap allowed.
I built these tools because sometimes you need to work at pace. Or you need to do constant context switching. They help me get my head into a useful place without needing to waste precious hours getting around to it.
Could I get to better answers than these tools? Eventually, yes. Could I get to 80% similar answers in 50% of the time, if that's what's needed? Not so sure. Are they useful to give me choices, which I will then craft? Hell yes.
Either way, these are experiments. I don't always use them for my work. But it feels good to know that, every now and then, I can. They're not perfect, but they can be useful. For me, for sure. I hope for you too.
