Better #54

Hey there friend,

I start today with a (mild) warning lol.

It’s about AI, and it’s not about the whole cognitive offloading thing, which does concern me (what are we without our critical thinking?). But instead about our reliance on the tech companies that supply a lot of the AI we currently use and enjoy.

The warning is: let’s try not to become too dependent (see? Mild as).

For me, the current AI boom feels a bit like the social media boom all over again. You know, back in the day, when the social platforms sold us this magical dream of connection and efficiency and democratisation of knowledge and all that stuff. Which was kinda true. But then we all got locked into reliance on the platforms to do all our comms, engagement and marketing - and before we realised it the opt-out costs had become so high that we all felt a bit stuck.

The marketer Mark Ritson recently wrote about Meta in AdWeek, saying that despite all the terrible recent scandals and court decisions, in reality “none of it matters” to most marketers, because they can’t or won’t leave the platforms in outrage because their industry depends too heavily on them to operate.

As he put it, it’s “not because the people authorizing the spend are villains. The CMO holding the Meta budget this quarter is not making a moral choice. She is executing a media plan. The moral choice was made for her, by the industry, years before she arrived”.

It feels like we could be doing something similar now with OpenAI and Anthropic and all of the others, and while we perhaps get great value, we also probably don’t want to lock ourselves into a long-term relationship or eternal subscription that could well become more dodgy and extractive as the years roll by.

Yes, AI is different to social in some ways. There are open models, more competition, and we are more aware of the risks than we were in the early social media era.

But companies and platforms still love lock-in, recurring revenue, and becoming essential infrastructure so that we have little choice not to use them (see Google and Microsoft as well). So as our organisations rush to ‘embed AI’, I just want us all to ask ourselves if we might be embedding dependency as well.

We know how mega tech companies behave, and I see little reason to believe the new bunch won’t act like the last lot.

So at the very least, let’s walk into this brave new world with our eyes wide open. And maybe keep our noggins working hard as well so they don’t turn all mushy.

Cheers,
Seamus Boyer 👋

Verity Johnson is one hell of a writer.

In fact, I reckon there are few better anywhere, particularly when it comes to starting and having uncomfortable conversations at scale about stuff that matters.

As a writer, presenter, and MC, Verity’s weekly opinion column headlines are pretty legendary in New Zealand:

• We’re an emotionally constipated country

• The most galling national myth we tell ourselves, ‘New Zealand’s not racist’

• New Zealand is broken - and you’re dumb to stay

These are big, rip-off-the-plaster-and-a-bunch-of-hair-with-it conversations. They deal with tricky subjects we don’t often choose to talk about with strangers, which in terms of uncomfortable convos is pretty high up there, right?

On the other hand, the public sector is generally useless at these kinds of discussions. Public servants and politicians don’t want to rock the boat, and audiences can get all hand-wringy and defensive (as another Verity headline puts it: Why can’t New Zealand take constructive criticism?).

But as comms pros that doesn’t mean that we can’t or shouldn’t have these big conversations with our communities. I mean, they are literally the ones that really matter.

Today, Verity gets to the heart of what makes good writing - how to be clear, loud, and brave around subjects that increasingly demand clarity, volume, and bravery from all of us.

👇

Let’s jump straight into it, Verity. Why do you think your writing resonates so well?

I never try to sound smart or like I’m an expert. I’m trying to be very, very honest and very, very easy to understand. I always write everything so you could read it at 2am when you’re having a kebab.

I want everyone to be able to read it, so I’m very consciously trying to sound exactly how I would if I sat down opposite you in the kitchen drinking a wine. That’s how my voice should sound, and I think that’s why people like it - because it’s not intimidating or off-putting. It’s actually genuine.

When people read, they can always tell when someone’s written something in ChatGPT, or is trying to sound smart, and they hate it. What they respond to is people who are just trying to sound exactly like they would in real life.

Social media is jam-packed with people taking false positions or producing opinions for theatre or attention. How do you convey your sincerity to readers?

I believe humans have a subconscious, if not conscious, ability to tell when someone is being deliberately inflammatory for the sake of it. And I think people can see that in your writing as well.

I only ever really talk about topics that I would happily talk about in real-life conversation. I’ve never written anything where, if you came up to me in the street and said, “Why did you say that?”, I wouldn’t want to defend it.

I love your LinkedIn tagline around, ‘you may not agree with me, but you do enjoy reading me’. Does some of your popularity come from the fact you seem to come at issues from a practical place rather than a set ideology?

I would agree that I don’t start from an ideologically defined standpoint. I don’t start from trying to prove a story, because the thing about that is you already know what they’re going to say. I never want you to be able to predict what I’m going to say just because I’m talking about a topic. I want to be unexpected.

I also think - and this is very important for writers and comms people in general - that I’m sort of across many worlds.

I think it’s very important, if you want to write things that really get cut-through, to come from many different worlds and perspectives. And also not try to argue that you’re right and everyone else is wrong, but think about how an issue affects multiple different worlds simultaneously.

So some of your value, then, is as much in asking good questions of audiences as in providing answers?

Oh s..t, yeah. That’s like 90% of good writing. You’re not trying to tell them all the answers. You’re trying to ask really good questions and make them think about how they see an issue. The secret is never to tell them what to think. It’s to make them think about what they think in a new way. You never want to be didactic and tell them how to feel. You want someone to examine internally how they feel as a result of reading your thoughts.

There are so many good questions in government right now - lots of things we probably should be talking about, but they are quite difficult conversations. Are New Zealanders good at difficult conversations?

F..k no [laughs] although, ironically, they’re very receptive to them. So not good at starting those conversations, but very receptive to having them.

I genuinely think in New Zealand we’re very worried about starting difficult conversations because we don’t want to stand out, sound like a dick, p..s anyone off, or be too controversial. But at the same time, we all have this heightened sense that we need to have these conversations, and we’re not having them. So as soon as someone is willing to have one, people are very receptive and thoughtful and engaged, because there’s been a lack of it. That makes people very keen to get into it.

Is there space, then, for government and local government communicators to facilitate more of these discussions - on things like rates, water, affordability?

I genuinely think the first thing I ever learned about being a columnist - but also from being a stand-up, and from working in nightclubs - is never, ever underestimate how smart your audience is.

I understand why councils might not want to have those conversations - a lot of the internet is trash, I get that. But if you aim the dialogue low, the conversation will stay low. If you aim it high and try to have complicated, interesting discussions, you will absolutely find a niche and really engage very smart people. It won’t be as mass an audience as you might want, but it will be meaningful.

Do you think now is actually a good time to be having some of those conversations? Does it feel like, over the last year or so, we’ve been getting to a point where they’re becoming more crucial, so easier to have?

Yeah, I think it’s very much the time. There’s a lot of frustration and panic - a feeling like that nightmare about being in Year 11 with a maths exam coming up that you haven’t revised for, and suddenly you’re in the exam and you still haven’t revised. That’s how I think New Zealand feels right now.

You’ve got climate change, massive infrastructure problems, a cost of living crisis. It feels like we haven’t prepared for any of it, and now it’s all hitting at once. Climate change resilience planning and town planning are good examples. There’s this sense of panic that we haven’t had the discussions or the hard conversations. Everyone really wants to have them now, so it’s a good time to do it. And obviously, the secret to curbing anxiety is action.

What kind of responses do you get when you raise these difficult topics?

Overwhelmingly positive. I get a lot of people saying, “Thank you for talking about this. No one’s f…ing talking about it.” I think what they mean is that smart people in New Zealand work in silos. They do good, smart work, and then it just doesn’t get out. It stays in the bottom drawer somewhere.

I think the role of comms is opening that bottom drawer and taking that smart work out, then disseminating it more widely. That’s the missing link. Most people are very positive. 

There’s also a lot of f..kery - I get lots of people being like, you know, ‘insert generic abuse here’ - but that’s kind of a given. I don’t read too much into it.

How much time are you putting into the attention part? Is it a specific process of working back from your argument to how you’ll make it land?

Since I started, I’ve always thought: I have to be funny, or no one will read this boring concept. The concept might be important, but it won’t get read unless it’s funny. So humour became my entry point into difficult conversations. You have to bring people’s hostility down - for me, that’s through humour. Or through being relatable. Often that’s using real-life framing.

When I talk about Christopher Luxon in terms of a boyfriend or a relationship, it works because everyone understands how to think about it that way. That’s about using accessible references and framing. If you want to be noticed, you need to be funny or highly accessible and understandable. People don’t engage with the substance unless you give them an easy way in.

So not comms-speak or official-ese then?

If you’re writing comms or social media, never change your voice to make it more palatable to who you think your reader is. People do this all the time. It’s why no one reads LinkedIn posts - because people write in their “LinkedIn voice”. Which is like when your grandma answered the phone, she had her telephone voice. As soon as you do that, people tune out. What they want is your actual voice.

One of the biggest things about being noticeable or making a splash or whatever is doing it in your voice, not anyone else’s. People think, “I’m writing something smart, so I have to sound smart”. But no one reads that. 

Do you feel concerned about the rise of AI?

People read me because they want me to have an opinion. They don’t want ChatGPT to have an opinion. They want mine. So I can’t imagine AI changing that, because AI doesn’t have opinions. And I don’t think anyone would want me to sound like AI, because AI is designed to soothe, and I don’t do that [laughs].

The mass end of comms might go to AI and produce slop, and then people will stop reading it, and the pendulum will swing back toward hiring humans again. So the next 10 years might be rough, but in 15 years it will probably be fine. I think everyone's gonna be like, ‘Oh, we should use AI’, and then they'll be like, ‘Oh, this is f..king terrible’.

Are you proof that we can still have tricky, grown-up, difficult conversations online?

I think I’m one of many examples. If you look hard enough, there’s a real hunger for smart, difficult, curly conversations online. Everything I’ve ever said is built on learning from people who’ve mastered having those conversations. There’s a whole culture of smart people wanting to say smart things online. It’s very much a thing.

Quick 6 with Verity Johnson…

1. Strategy or tactics?
Strategy

2. Favourite platform?
LinkedIn

3. Least favourite platform?
Twitter (never got into it, what a cesspit) 

4. One public sector account to follow?
NZ Police (and they also have an IG for the official police cat, Arnold)

5. One non-public sector account to follow?
Bernard Hickey on Substack

6. Something you wish you’d known earlier in your career?
No one knows what the f..k they’re doing. So relax.

That’s it for today, hopefully you’ve found something to shake your bones and stir your soul.

Hit reply and let me know what you made of it. I genuinely love hearing from you.

And I’ll see you again very soon for more tips on how to get a little bit Better 👋