by Chris Pehura — C-SUITE DATA — 2024/04/04
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Are you stoked about AI? Because I’m stoked about it. I wrote my thesis on AI, on syntactic pattern recognition. It was all about how to analyze waveforms and patterns of waveforms to see if AI could be used as a substitute for digital signal processing chips. These are the kinds of chips being used in all computers today. That was 30 years ago. Today, everyone’s talking about AI. Even Tim Pool is talking about AI. It makes me feel good that everyone’s talking about it. But like always, people aren’t talking about the ecosystem. AI is part of an ecosystem and this ecosystem has been around for quite a while. And AI has been a part of it for quite a while too.
too much sizzle, not enough steak
You wouldn’t know that this ecosystem has been around for as long as it has. Every time people talk about the ecosystem they bias it. They slant it according to the technology that they want to advocate, promote, and sell. AI is just the latest and greatest iteration. This ecosystem is data-based with lots and lots of data. It’s made up of things like Business Intelligence, Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence. Did I mention it had lots and lots of data? But at its central core are Rules, Rules on how people do things, how people think, what people assume. These rules are embedded in software code, reports, policy handbooks, and procedural manuals. These rules dictate how activities are structured, how people work together, and what they need to accomplish.
I’m the boss of you
Rules are the core of the ecosystem. And it’s the core that dictates how all the other parts of the ecosystem are tailored and set up. The core determines how components in the ecosystem interact with each other and how they change each other. Analytics would change AI in terms of what data it has and what models it uses. AI will change Business Intelligence, it’ll change the nature of the data, it will change Analytics.
Everybody is changing everything. But the core, the Rules, is the Lord and Master. of the ecosystem. Rules are the secret sauce. Everything else you can get off-the-shelf. Not those Rules. Those Rules you developed are from your culture, your people, from how you do things. They are the secret sauce. They are what make you special. They are your competitive advantage. People aren’t talking enough about the Rules.
know the rules
I haven’t heard much about people talking about how AI needs to change to follow those Rules, to jive with those Rules. When people are using AI to generate courses, images, or solutions, things look right to the layman. It’s because they don’t know the Rules. They don’t know the Rules for how to make something look beautiful in marketing. They don’t don’t know what solutions work in engineering. What the AI produces is very vanilla. And when people assume what AI spits out is of high quality, they’re opening themselves up to crashing and burning.
the only constant is change
Anytime you add something to the ecosystem you have to tailor it to the Rules of that ecosystem. Sometimes the Rules don’t jive. Sometimes it’s time to change the Rules. There’s nothing wrong with that but the Rules always remain to be the Lord and Master. They drive everything. They drive how things change in the ecosystem. They drive how things change in companies and cultures. Ecosystems have been talked about for generations. The last one was about Big Data, the Big Data ecosystem. And before that, it was things with Analytics. And before that, it was things with Business Intelligence and Data Management. During this evolution, the importance of the Rules were rarely emphasized. They touched on it with Rule Engines a while back, but it was a blink and miss it moment. People keep moving on to the next great big thing and keep forgetting that Rules are the driving force in the ecosystem.
your takeaway?
Anytime you talk about AI you talk about the ecosystem of AI and the Lord and Master of that ecosystem, the Rules. Because if you don’t do that and just talk about AI, people are going to think of AI as its own thing. They’ll just optimize AI. They will just use AI. And they will make mistakes with AI. AI always needs to jive by the Rules. Right now, I see marketing images being pumped out that don’t look nice. I see course materials being pumped out by training houses that don’t look quite right. They’re missing that secret sauce, those key ideas. Generated solutions for AI such as hybrid models and practices look off. And in all of these cases, you wouldn’t see that or know that unless you knew the Rules of the discipline, of the field, of the business. This means the end customer and client don’t know either. So we better know your Rules because you’re going to have to communicate it to those guys.
share the secret sauce
If you don’t share at least some of the Rules with our clients — at least some of the secret sauce, they’re going to make all their big buying decisions on price alone. They won’t have the opportunity to have good products and services. This is going to be an overwhelming challenge. Everyone is using generative AI right now and it’s going to raise the bar for everything. You have to be prepared to know the Rules. Your customers right now are buying trashy products and services at discount prices. And if you don’t show them how something is of high quality, they won’t pay a fair market price for it.
Be prepared to learn salesmanship and trumpet your secret sauce. Let customers know why they should buy from you.
Email us at contactus@csuitedata.com to see how we make your plans work.