ConVEx Observations - A Shift in AI Acceptance?
Issue #53 - April 14th, 2025
Last week I was honored to attend the latest iteration of the ConVEx conference for content developers in San Jose, California. It was great to catch up with colleagues and friends from around the industry, and from around the world. There was a definite positive buzz to all the conversations.
Thanks to everyone who turned up for my session on DITA and Storytelling and how storytelling and technical documentation have been intertwined for millenia. It was an engaged audience that asked some great questions as well as telling a few stories of their own.
Of course one of the hot topics remains AI but it was interesting to note a subtle change in attitude from the unquestioning acceptance of GenAI in particular at the last conference I attended, to a more cautious and considered realization of the limits of AI as well as what it can achieve.
Here’s just a few of the soundbytes that I captured in my note book that I think provide a good illustration of current thought:
AI can be a powerful analytical tool within a controlled corpus of trained content.
For AI to work the one thing it needs more than anything is good content. - Content that is clear, concrete, and compelling.
Without good content AI is only marginally useful.
Above all - protect your content.
As content creators we need to position ourselves in the driving seat with AI. Lead the change, don’t just accept it.
The underlying message from nearly all the sessions I attended was that we need clean, controlled, structured content. Just trusting AI trained on externally supplied oceans of content is a path to poor results and frustrated customer experience.
Alan
A Note of Appreciation
Thanks to the folks who have reached out in recent weeks
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Talking About Storytelling
Upcoming Events
NEW - Happy to share that I'll be returning to The Content Wrangler webinar series to talk about Effective Storytelling in Personalization! Make sure to join us on May 22.
In June I’ll be making a return to the CX Behind The Scenes podcast to discuss the AI Hype Cycle.
NEW - I’ll be back at Lavacon this year - so come join me in Atlanta in early October where I’ll be presenting my thoughts on the adoption of generative AI.
Customer Focused Storytelling Workshops
WE ARE NOW TAKING BOOKINGS FOR JULY AND AUGUST
SECURE YOUR SPOT BY EMAILING US AT AJP@4JSGROUP.COM
“Weaving storytelling into the mix makes the content more compelling, accessible, and effective!”
Learn how to deliver content-driven experiences that your customers relate to on our two-day Customer Outcome Focused Storytelling workshop.
In this workshop, we will:
Examine content from the customer’s perspective.
Plan how to adapt content delivery to meet the needs of a rapidly changing marketplace
Examine why every business transaction is a story
Outline the 10 Rules of Storytelling as applied to Customer Experience
Apply proven storytelling techniques to your content.
Identify potential opportunities for incorporating storytelling techniques
into the production of your customer-facing content assets.Facilitate an interactive feedback session on your existing customer-facing content.
If you would like more details, or you like to discuss reserving a date for yourself and your team to benefit from a Customer Focused Storytelling Workshop, just email us at ajp@4jsgroup.com to reserve your date.
In The Bookstore
If you enjoy the contents of this newsletter and would like more, we have three books always available from XML Press.
CX Trinity: Customers, Content, Context
The Content Pool: Leveraging Your Company’s Largest Hidden Asset
WIKI: Grow Your Own for Fun & Profit
You can also check out The Content Pool website or follow us on FaceBook. - you can also find Alan on most of the social media platforms @alanjporter.
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Till next time - have fun paddling in The Content Pool.
Alan J. Porter
The Content Pool™ is a division of the 4Js Group LLC