MARKETING
Employee-Generated Content: Tips To Inspire Interest
There never seems to be enough resources to execute all your killer content marketing ideas, does there?
No matter how large and prolific your team of creators, how efficient your creative processes are, or how ample your outsourcing budget is, too many great content ideas are left on the drawing board. Meanwhile, you’ve got an increasing number of gaps to fill with engaging stories across multiple platforms.
Fortunately, a solution is sitting practically under your nose: Enlist the assistance of fellow employees – including internal subject matter experts (SMEs) and colleagues in sales, customer support, and other functional departments.
Have content gaps to fill? Enlist the assistance of employees outside the #ContentMarketing team, says @joderama via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet
Read on for tips on how to activate their interest, overcome common objections, and reap the rewards of having a wellspring of employee-generated content (EGC) at your disposal.
Tip 1: Provide process clarity and examples of success
Enlisting colleagues outside of marketing to help with content creation can be a big ask, if not a downright imposition. To make the request more palatable, set clear expectations and establish a framework for their participation. Use your process to solicit content from external industry experts or social community members to inform the EGC process.
Knowing in advance exactly what they’ll be asked to do and the time it will take can help reassure them they aren’t committing to something they don’t have the bandwidth to fulfill.
As part of their employee-centric LinkedIn evangelist program, B2B podcast company Sweet Fish created an internal document outlining requirements for participating, detailing what the commitment involves, and informing them of the benefits to both brand and employee. Those who join the evangelist program receive personalized brand development and content training and information on LinkedIn best practices.
It’s also helpful to provide examples of EGC efforts that performed well, so new contributors can get a feel for the types of content, tone, and voice used in their efforts.
@SweetFishMedia created an internal document outlining the requirements to help employees participate in its @LinkedIn evangelist program, says @joderama via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet
In a LinkedIn post on how SaaS business Chili Piper activates its sales development reps (SDRs) as brand evangelists on social media, they point to a team member’s contribution. The SDR’s post generated strong engagement and inspired other employees to post similar content on their own profiles. (Special thanks to Emily Brady for sharing this example.)
HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:
Tip 2: Provide tools, support, and training
Employees might raise objectives, such as they don’t have strong writing skills or they aren’t creative. While experience crafting quality copy certainly helps, EGC doesn’t need to be polished and perfected – or even in written form – to be an effective marketing vehicle.
To help reluctant contributors upskill and gain confidence in their writing abilities, consider providing support through these approaches:
- Invite them to the creative’s table: Ask interested colleagues to attend your editorial planning meetings and creative brainstorms. They can get a feel for your processes and goals and get a chance to weigh in with their ideas. Being “in the room where it happens” can deepen their interest and investment in bringing new content to life.
- Use technology to sharpen their skills: Experienced content marketers aim for technical precision when crafting copy. But it’s unrealistic to expect EGC creators to memorize the AP Style Guide before contributing content. Reassure colleagues that their writing skills can be developed and enhanced with the help of headline generators, apps like Grammarly and Hemmingway, fact-checking tech like Nexis for Media and Meedan, and other writing support tools. They’re easy to use, and many of them are available for free.
- Point them to training opportunities: If your company offers a career development program, aspiring creators may have access to writing classes, creative workshops, photography and videography training, and other educational resources. That can include free access to LinkedIn Learning courses, Udemy classes, or even internal training tools. Document the opportunities and post them on your internal newsletter, intranet portal, or Slack channel. It is an excellent way to let colleagues know your team welcomes their content contributions and wants them to feel prepared for the task.
- Create tutorials and guides: If no formal employee education program exists, try the DIY route: Ask your content team to write, screen-capture, or film the process as they do their next blog post, newsletter article, expert interview, or social content. Seeing how it’s done teaches colleagues the best practices and guidelines. This content also can be repurposed into brand-relevant lessons, such as tip sheets, how-to demos, and other behind-the-scenes stories to share on customer-facing platforms.
The CMI editorial team is always refining the guest blogging guidelines to onboard new contributors – internal and external. We include successful posts as models and educate writers on the kinds of submissions we accept. We also curated some of our best writing tips and advice from existing articles to produce an e-book on the secrets of successful content creation. We shared it with other teams across our enterprise.

CMI shares writing tips to help less-experienced creators succeed.
Tip 3: Make content creation easy and organic to their experiences
If aspiring contributors still feel intimidated, you can develop more ways for them to contribute to the content marketing cause. For example, if employees already post brand-friendly content on their social streams, downgrade your ask to create content to a request to share content.
If employees aren’t ready to create original brand-friendly #Content, ask them to share the company’s content, says @joderama via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet
For example, Reebok used #fitasscompany on Instagram to provide a space for its employees to share photos from their personal workouts and other active hobbies.
Brands like Dunkin Donuts actively encourage employees to capture and post informal photos and videos of themselves during their workday using #DunkinCrewAmbassador. The company frequently reshares those posts on its official TikTok and Instagram profiles.
@clairerottman Popping bubbles coming soon @dunkin #dunkin #boba #dunkincrewambassador ♬ original sound – Claire Bear
Sephora makes it even easier for employees to play a role in creating the brand’s Instagram content: The company conducts employee profile interviews and shares snippets on its Sephoralife account, using #EmployeeSpotlight.
Not only do these approaches make it easy for non-writers to collaborate on content, but they tell a more personal and relatable brand story that tightly controlled and scripted content can’t.
Of course, it also takes less time on the interviewed employees’ part. This tip may not add more stories to your content calendar, but the subsequent amplification assistance from the employee can make a big impact on your brand’s reach, search rankings, and content performance.
Working with internal communication tools like EveryoneSocial, SocialWeaver, Bambu, and Hootsuite Amplify can help streamline the process. Use them to automatically distribute your freshly published assets to willing “content deputies” who can share those stories with a few clicks. Some such tools even provide scheduling capabilities, feedback surveys, and gamification features to make the experience more convenient and engaging for contributors.
Tip 4: Fuel their creative journey and provide an outlet to share personal passions
Employee-generated content doesn’t need to be about your company to further your content goals. Shifting the storytelling focus from brand to personal experiences of the workforce can result in relatable, empathetic, and engaging content.
One way to do this is to leverage team outings and events as a source of relevant, authentic brand stories. If your company hosts off-site retreats, allows colleagues to attend industry conferences, or organizes volunteer opportunities, consider splurging on a couple of disposable digital cameras or a photo booth or lending a few smartphones. These tools give employees everything they need to capture spontaneous moments of camaraderie and interactions throughout the day. They can livestream or post them on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or TikTok.
On a smaller scale, you can organize a happy hour or host a cross-team trivia contest (live or virtual) to give colleagues something fun to talk about. Or approach individual colleagues who have exciting roles, unusual hobbies, or have taken part in unique work opportunities that your audience might be interested in. Ask to interview them or for them to snap and share a selfie or write a summary of their experience that your team can polish up and publish.
Look at this recent post on the We Are Cisco blog from a team member who moved to the United Kingdom as part of the company’s employee rotation program. It gave the author a chance to tell a personally meaningful story – one that Cisco also can use for its recruiting efforts.

Team members share personal stories about their brand experience on the We Are Cisco blog.
Tip 5: Incentivize, celebrate, and recognize
For some team members, the chance to share their knowledge and exercise their creative skills are all the motivation they need to jump on the EGC train. But others might need to know WIFM (What’s In it For Me?). You need to give them a more compelling reason to participate.
Take a page from Walmart’s playbook and offer an incentive. On its employee-centric Instagram account WalmartSocialChamps, the company recently launched an associate video contest to solicit more brand-friendly visual stories from its workforce. In addition to offering a prize (a free trip to its Associate Week event), Walmart made it easy to enter by providing starter ideas, animation assets, filming tips, and posting instructions.
If a sweepstakes is too much for your marketing, provide rewards like gift cards or company swag. If your budget is non-existent, offer public gratitude and recognition. Here are a few ways to do that:
- Give a shoutout: After sharing the content they created, post a word of thanks or image of gratitude. Tag their personal social profiles or link to their personal website (with their consent). Not only is it a nice thing to do, it can raise their industry profile, grow their personal brands, and help them connect with others in their chosen communities to further their careers or achieve other personal goals.
- Invite them as a featured guest on your team’s Twitter chats, webinars, podcasts, or livestream video shows: If their initial content asset references a personal passion, hobby, or specialized skill, they might relish the opportunity to continue the conversation and connect with others who share their interests.
- Nominate them for company awards and recognition programs: It rarely hurts to raise HR and management team awareness of a colleague’s above-and-beyond efforts to support your brand, and it may even help get their name on the short list when their applying for an internal role or are up for a promotion.
EGC formula: Enlist, empower, and activate
The everyday responsibilities of co-workers outside the content team might not have a creative focus, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t ready, willing, and able to show off their knowledge, lend you their talents, and spread their enthusiasm for your brand. Often, all they need is some direction, encouragement, and the right motivation to get them started.
Please note: All tools included are suggested by the author. Feel free to include additional tools in the comments (from your company or ones that you have used).
Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
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MARKETING
How to Schedule Ad Customizers for Google RSAs [2024]
![How to Schedule Ad Customizers for Google RSAs [2024] How to Schedule Ad Customizers for Google RSAs [2024]](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/How-to-Schedule-Ad-Customizers-for-Google-RSAs-2024.jpg)
It’s no wonder that responsive search ads have steadily grown in popularity in recent years. Through Google’s machine learning capabilities, RSAs provide a powerful way to automate the testing of multiple headlines and descriptions to ensure a closer match to user intent. The benefits are clear: RSAs mean broader reach, better engagement, and improved performance metrics.
However, all these benefits come at a significant (but reasonable) cost – they can be extremely difficult to manage, especially when it comes to updating ad copy to promote limited time offers.
I know this firsthand – I work with several ecommerce clients with promotions that constantly change. Not too long ago, I found myself going through the consistently tedious process of updating a client’s RSA headlines and copy. As I was making the changes, I thought to myself: “There must be a better way to update this ad copy. I shouldn’t have to use find and replace so many times while pausing and enabling my ad campaigns.”
After expressing this to my colleague, Jordan Stambaugh, the two of us agreed there must be a better way. But we’d have to make it happen. A few weeks later, we put that idea into action and created a more efficient process for updating RSA ad copy on a scheduled basis. If you want to try this process for yourself, just keep reading.
Responsive Search Ad Customizers 101: Basic Options & Execution
Before diving into the process of scheduling automatic updates for your RSA customizers, it’s essential to understand some key Responsive Search Ad fundamentals.
First, you can customize three main options within RSAs: the Attribute Name, the Data Type, and the Account Value. Each of these plays a vital role in personalizing your ads:
- Attribute Name: This is essentially the identifier for the customizer. It is how you’ll reference the specific piece of information you’re customizing within the ad. For instance, if you’re running a promotion, you might name an attribute “Promotion.”
- Data Type: This indicates the kind of data the attribute represents and it determines how the information can be formatted and used within the ad. Common data types include Text (for plain, non-numeric text), Percent (to represent percentage discounts), Price (to denote monetary values), and Number (for any numerical value).
- Account Value: This is the default value for the attribute that you set at the account level. It acts as a fallback if more specific values aren’t provided at the campaign or ad group level.
For example, if you wanted to promote a 10% off discount using RSAs, you’d use the “Discount” attribute, a data type of “Percent,” and an account value of “10% off.” Then, when someone is searching for products, Google would test automatically inserting a copy regarding a 10% off promotion into your ad.
Once you’ve set up the right customization options, you can start to format your RSAs with customizers.
Here’s how:
- Start by typing in {
- Click on Ad Customizer then select your attribute
- Google will populate your attributes that are already uploaded
- For a simple offer, use the “Default text” attribute as a catch-all. This will ensure your ads run smoothly if Google can’t pull the right messaging from your RSA feed
How to Schedule Your Ad Customizers with a Feed
Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s cover how to schedule your ad customizers.
Just follow this three step process:
1. Create the feed
Start by creating two sheets: The Parent sheet, and the Child sheet. The “Parent” sheet will act as the primary data source, while the child sheet will pull data from the parent sheet.
We’ll start by building the parent sheet. After opening the sheet, start by renaming the active tab to “Promotions.” Don’t skip this step, it’s crucial for referencing this range in formulas later on.
In your “Promotions” tab, head to the top row and label columns A, B, and C with the headers of your ad customizer attributes. For example, you might have “BrandSaleHeadline” as your attribute in column A, “text” as the Data Type in column B, and “Shop the Collection” as the Account Value in column C.
Once your headers are in place, move to cell C2. Here, you’ll input the expression =lookup(today(),F:G,E:E). This formula will play a key role in dynamically updating your RSA customizer based on the current date.
Next, go to columns E, F, and G, which will be used to manage your scheduling. In these columns, you’ll list out the different values your chosen attribute might take, alongside their corresponding start and end dates. For example, under the “BrandSaleHeadline” attribute, you might schedule various promotional headlines to appear during different sale periods throughout the year.
Here’s how your sheet might look:
Now look back at the first 3 columns on your sheet. They should look like this:
Now create a second sheet. We’ll call this sheet the Child sheet. It’s going to automatically pull in data from the parent sheet you just created, and will be the one you link to Google Ads later on.
Columns A, B and C will be almost identical to the child sheet, but we will be using a special formula later so we can automatically populate this. So, start by labeling Row 1 Column A “Attribute,” then the next column as “Data type,” then column C as “Account value.”
Then go to C2 and use this expression to populate the right account value from the parent document: =importrange(“[PARENT DOCUMENT URL HERE]”,”Promotions!C2″)
Your sheet should now look like this:
We recommend adding a date range with default text for any days you’re not running a promotion. In the example above, we have “Shop Our Collection” appearing as default text.
2. Input attributes
Once you have your feed created, the next step involves inputting your attributes into the Google Ads platform. This can be done either manually or through a bulk upload.
For the manual approach, navigate to “Tools & Settings” in your Google Ads interface, then go to ‘Setup’ followed by “Business Data.” Here, you’ll find an option for “Ad Customizer Attributes.” Click the plus sign to add your attributes. It’s crucial to use the same attribute names that you’ve established in your Parent Google Sheet template to ensure consistency and proper data synchronization.
Alternatively, if you prefer the bulk upload method, again head to “Tools & Settings.” This time, select “Bulk Actions” and then “Uploads.” For this process, you only need to upload columns A to C from your template.
Be aware that it might take some time for your uploaded attributes to be reflected in the business data section of Google Ads.
3. Set up an automatic schedule
At this point, you’ve almost finished scheduling your ad customizers. Navigate to Tools & Settings, then Bulk Actions, then Uploads, then click the Schedules tab at the top. Select your Child Google Sheet as the data source, and share your Google Sheet with the appropriate email.
And there you have it – Google will automatically pull in the data you populated in the sheets into your RSAs.
Common Challenges When Scheduling RSA Ad Customizers
When we test these sheets with our clients in the wild, we’ve uncovered five common challenges. Be on the lookout for these issues – solving them before they happen can save you a lot of trouble down the line.
Not scheduling your upload when the site changes
The first and most significant hurdle is the mismatch between the scheduled data upload and website content updates. For instance, if the Google Sheet is set to upload at 11 am, but the website changes occur at 3 pm, there’s going to be a discrepancy where the wrong message could be displayed for several hours, or new messaging could appear prematurely. Conversely, if the website updates happen before the scheduled sheet upload, outdated promotions might linger until the new data is imported. Synchronizing these schedules is crucial; it’s best to align them so updates occur simultaneously.
Skipping QA during a message change
Another pitfall is neglecting quality assurance (QA) during message updates. It’s vital to regularly check the business data section to verify that the correct values are in place post-update.
Issues with the IMPORTRANGE function
Then there’s the technical aspect of setting up the IMPORTRANGE function correctly in the Google Sheets template. The ‘child’ template must reliably pull data from the ‘parent’ sheet. If this function isn’t configured correctly, data won’t be imported as needed.
Not sharing access of the Google template for automatic uploads
Pay attention to your access permissions for the Google Sheets template. Google will prompt you with the email address that needs permission to access the ‘child’ sheet for automatic uploads. Overlooking the sharing of your sheet with this address will prevent the system from working.
Having date range gaps in your parent sheet
Lastly, a common oversight is leaving date range gaps in the ‘parent’ sheet. Every single date must be accounted for without overlaps. A practical tip is to have an ‘evergreen’ backup message ready, scheduled to run continuously, ideally through the end of the year, to cover any potential gaps.
Conclusion
Leveraging Google Sheets in conjunction with Google Ads to schedule RSA ad customizers is a game-changer for managing dynamic promotional content. This process not only streamlines your workflows but also ensures that your ads remain relevant and up-to-date, reflecting current promotions without the need for constant manual intervention.
By adopting this method, you’ll save significant time and effort, allowing you to focus more on strategy and less on the minutiae of ad copy updates. Give it a try and experience a more efficient way to manage your RSAs, keeping your campaigns fresh and engaging with minimal hassle.
MARKETING
10 Advanced Tips for Crafting Engaging Social Content Strategies

In 2023, there are a total of 4.89 billion social media users worldwide. One of the many reasons you should build your brand’s presence on social media is to capture a slice of this pie.
So, if you’re a marketer wanting to crush it online — this is your time to take action. The social presence of billions of users shows great potential to connect, engage, and build lasting relationships with your target audience.
The real power lies not just in being active on social media networks but in planning social media goals in advance and crafting engaging social media content strategies that make a meaningful impact.
And creating one isn’t as easy as it sounds. It requires a thoughtful approach that goes beyond the basics.
To help you accomplish your social media goals, we’ll cover ten advanced tips that you can use to craft an engaging social media content strategy.
1. Conduct A/B Testing
A/B testing allows you to optimize your social media marketing strategy based on insights and social media metrics.
Experiment with different content formats, headlines, captions, and visuals to see which format performs better.
You can also try different content styles and focus on visual content, which is 40x more likely to be shared on social media.
Example: Test two different headlines for a product announcement social post and use the one that users engaged with and shared more. You’ll need to track social metrics like reactions, shares, and new followers during your test.
2. Personalize your content
Before creating a social media marketing plan or content calendar, segment your audience based on demographics, behaviors, and interests.
Craft tailored messages for each segment and find social media content ideas for that target audience.
And to encourage them to engage with you, publish funny content. 80% of marketers say that funny content is the most effective form of social media posts.
Example: Tap into Instagram retargeting ads to promote personalized product recommendations to customers based on their past purchase history.
3. Embrace User-Generated Content (UGC)
User-generated content is a powerful way to build trust, gather a sense of community, and increase engagement rates.
Encourage users to share their experiences and stories about your brand.
Plan a posting schedule using social media tools, highlight, and feature UGC in your content, and give credit to the creators to showcase the authenticity.
Then, create a dedicated UGC marketing campaign.
Example: Invite customers to share photos of themselves using your product with a branded hashtag. Comment on and share these photos on your company’s social media (with permission, of course), thanking the participants for joining in on the fun.
4. Incorporate influencer collaboration
Partner with influencers in your industry who have high engagement rates. 67% of marketers agree they prefer working with micro-influencers with 10k-100k followers or subscribers.
Collaborating with influencers allows you to tap into their social networks and leverage their credibility to boost engagement.
Use social media management tools to co-create content, host giveaways, or collaborate on campaigns aligning with your brand and the influencers’ style to extend your reach and gain engagement.
If your target audience is Gen Z, you can prefer Instagram Reels for influencer marketing.
For context, look at the stats below:
Example: Partner with a fitness influencer to promote your health supplements through workout videos.
5. Use interactive elements
To accomplish your social media marketing goals, you can engage people to interact with your brand via polls, quizzes, and surveys. Encourage them to participate and share the results.
Incorporating interactive elements into your social media marketing strategy will spark active participation between your social media team and audience, making them more likely to engage and share opinions.
Example: Host a poll on X (formerly Twitter) to let your audience choose the next product feature you’ll develop or the types of content they’d like to see.
6. Leverage user reviews and testimonials
Showcase user reviews and testimonials as part of your content strategy. Highlight positive feedback and make improvements by taking accountability for negative feedback.
Incorporate these testimonials into your social media strategies to create dedicated reviews or testimonial videos. Sharing this social proof helps build trust and credibility with your audience.
Example: Feature video social proof of a satisfied customer explaining how your software improved their business.
7. Create long-form content
While social media platforms are mostly known for short-form content, they’re switching gears to focus on long-form content.
It’s great, especially if your business receives great engagement on X (formerly Twitter).
“Long-form posts on the microblogging platform are now at 3 billion views per day and rising.”, said Elon Musk, the owner of X.
“This is roughly on par with all newspaper articles views on Earth,” he continued.
Educational content and case studies tend to work great on LinkedIn. Additionally, blog posts can also help you establish your brand as an authority in your industry.
Publishing compelling content is a great way to increase engagement and shares. You can also repurpose educational content on multiple sites and tailor it to each platform for the best results.
Example: Publish content about challenges and opportunities your company faced and how it helped you increase return on investment.
8. Collaborate with other brands
Collaborate with complementary brands or businesses for promotional content.
As part of your digital marketing strategy, come up with mutually beneficial collaboration ideas that can help you both increase reach and tap into ideal customers.
Joint campaigns, cross-promotions, or co-sponsored events are great ways to use the power of collaboration.
Example: Team up with a travel agency to promote your hotel and their vacation packages through a joint social media campaign.
9. Emphasize customer service
Social channels aren’t just a source for publishing content but also for providing excellent customer service.
Marketers these days actively invest in building social media communities to better connect and interact with potential customers.
Respond promptly to inquiries, comments, and feedback from your audience. Show them you genuinely care about them by addressing their concerns and providing helpful solutions.
This level of engagement can build customer loyalty and community building.
Example: Respond to customers’ support requests on social accounts and resolve their issues within a few hours.
10. Monitor trends and stay updated
Stay updated with social media trends, algorithm changes, and content formats. Track performances, content audits, and social media KPIs.
Experiment with new features or types of content introduced by social media channels.
Plan your social media content calendar based on engagement metrics. Keep an eye on what your competitors are doing and identify strategies that work well in your industry.
Out of all content types, short-form videos are taking the spotlight. Research states that 64% of shoppers ended up making a purchase after seeing branded video content on social platforms.
Example: If video content is becoming popular on social platforms, create your social media content strategy around it.
You might also consider incorporating data storytelling into your strategy. Why? More brands are moving towards storytelling in their social media posts.
This helps reach larger audiences and accomplish business goals. If you haven’t thought about it, give it a thought. The early bird catches the worm.
Final Words
And there you have it — ten advanced tips to level up your social media marketing strategy.
Test the waters with new features on social channels and plan your content marketing strategy accordingly.
With consistency and some creativity, you can increase your brand awareness and establish a strong foothold in the vast sea of social media.
Are you ready to boost your social media presence and accomplish all your business goals? Here’s to your success!
MARKETING
3 Questions About AI in Content: What? So What? Now What?

In the United States, Thanksgiving will give us the needed break to take a collective breath.
I don’t know about you, but getting my bearings around the disruptions of generative AI presents an extreme challenge. Innovations come so quickly that once we think we have our arms around it, something new appears.
Almost one year into seeing what generative AI can do for content creation and marketing strategies, OpenAI has introduced custom GPTs for those who pay for access.
You can build custom ChatGPT applications to use the tool’s newest capabilities to do things specifically valuable to you. For example, your company could upload 10 years of blog articles and instruct the custom GPT to use the knowledge gained from the content to formulate answers to questions on the blogs’ topics. In theory, you get the depth and breadth of ChatGPT’s large language learning model focused on your knowledge base and able to take specific actions, such as sending an email or automating a task.
Impressive. But sheesh. What does that do to your plans to integrate tools into your marketing workflow? It seems like one of a hundred things that you’re supposed to pay attention to right now.
Time to reflect
If your time frees up this week either because of the holiday or because the Americans are on holiday, take a moment and reflect on these disruptions to your current marketing and content efforts.
A little more than 20 years ago, a nursing professor at Swansea University published a helpful framework for self-reflection and communication. His exercise has helped me in times of disruption, and perhaps it can be for you as well.
Answer a few questions that fall into three stages – what, so what, and now what?
- What? Describe what has happened simply and objectively – without judgment or interpretation. Some helpful prompts: What happened? What did you observe? What events occurred? What is the current situation?
- So what? Answer questions about what you know now that you didn’t know. You can introduce emotions. Some helpful prompts: What did you learn? What difference have the events made? Answer as yourself or within the context of your team or company.
If it’s just you, potential questions could be: Did what happened clarify an interest? Did you hear or feel anything that surprised you? How is your experience different than what you expected? What do these events mean to you?
If you answer on behalf of a team or group, you can ask the self-questions along with these prompts: What do these events suggest to you about this group? How might the group work better or worse with these events? How were decisions made or not made based on these events?
- Now what? Reflect on your future actions based on the first two steps. These broader implications react to what happened. Questions center on defining and looking at the root cause: What would contribute to a successful response? What would be in the way of successfully navigating through this? What learning has now occurred, and how can I/we apply this learning?
Ask your team to do this same exercise. When you meet back up, create a workshop or team gathering where you discuss the answers and determine where opportunities may exist.
Real reflections aren’t hot takes
If you find yourself thinking that process is basic, well, you’re right. These three questions – and the provocations that come from them – mirror a progression you’ve all tried to work through a problem. However, you don’t often do it for big disruptions in the moment. It’s just too easy to jump to the third step, “now what,” and confuse it with “what’s next.” You get overwhelmed by all the actions you can take.
You can see this challenge happening with the disruption of generative AI.
Check out this article that reflects on the disruption of generative AI in the video game industry. To make the case, it leverages Bain & Company research that “more than half of video game development process will be supported by generative AI within the next five to 10 years.” It uses “what happened” to make a case for “what’s next.” The author didn’t even bother to ask “so what” to reach the conclusion: “Microsoft wants AI to solve problems that game makers say they won’t actually have.”
If you reflect on what the Bain research actually said, you can see it’s almost the opposite of the Microsoft conclusion. The research plainly says few executives believe AI will reduce development costs. They say AI will not significantly impact talent and “do not believe it will replace the creative spark necessary for game development.”
By misinterpreting what happened and not asking, “So what,” the author jumped to predicting what’s next, which is almost useless to make any productive change to address what’s really happening.
This is why working through this process is helpful.
Now, to be clear, hot takes are fun. I’m not suggesting you do away with predictions or the occasional response. Hot takes are a great way to start the conversation, not to finish them.
Take the time – and the process – to work it out. It’s not perfect. It’s also not meant to be a fail-safe way to predict the future. The three-question stages are meant to help you balance facts and feelings to make more productive and satisfying responses to the disruptions you face.
The process is meant to change your future, not by helping you see it more clearly but by helping you clearly see how you change it.
It’s your story. Have a wonderful, reflective Thanksgiving, and tell it well.
Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
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