Andrew Stein: Content Design and AI Leadership – Episode 34

Andrew Stein Like many content designers in the fall of 2022, Andrew Stein was concerned about the possible negative impact of generative AI on content and design practice. And his concern was heightened by the large number of content designers on his team. Since then, Andrew has discovered many ways to apply AI in his content design work, both in conventional digital-product design and in content work on AI products. He has also discovered a happy additional benefit of taking the lead on AI. His expertise has led to exciting new collaborations and leadership opportunities. We talked about: his work as a content design and AI leader his take on the best ways to use AI in content-design practice how to maintain focus on the fundamentals of content as you work with AI to create new content or manage and validate existing content, and a tool he is developing to automate this new content-employment opportunities that he sees emerging the clean slate on which content people can create their new AI roles and responsibilities some of his techniques for demonstrating how your content skills can help your AI collaborators: find opportunities to serve adopt a learner's mindset "just do" - experiment with tools on your own some of the people he follows and resources he has consulted as he has developed his AI expertise: Noz Urbina Leah Krauss the conversation design community, in particular Maaike Groenewege his encouragement for all content designers to find a balanced approach to incorporating AI into their career Andrew's bio Andrew is a Director and Principal Content Designer at a financial services company. He’s led content in smart home, social media, AI robotics, and FinTech. Andrew’s experience includes both consulting, and companies like Lowe’s, Wells Fargo, Truist Bank, and Meta. Andrew is currently focused on the way AI tools serve the content design process, and bringing a content-first approach to the development of new AI products and services. Connect with Andrew online LinkedIn ADPList Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/hxoMSzyDCFk Podcast intro transcript This is the Content and AI podcast, episode number 34. When generative AI burst onto the scene there were plenty of reasons for content designers to be anxious. Andrew Stein channeled his concern into a deep exploration of AI tech and how it might be applied in content work. As a design leader, he has discovered a number of ways that content designers can use AI tools, and build AI products. As an advocate for content practice, he has found that his AI expertise opens many new doors for influencing his business collaborators. Interview transcript Larry: Hi everyone, welcome to episode number 34 of the Content and AI Podcast. I am really happy today to welcome to the show, Andrew Stein. Andrew is an independent content design leader. He works currently for a big financial services firm. He also has his own consultancy on the side, does various content things including AI stuff for folks. So welcome, Andrew. Tell the folks a little bit more about what you're up to these days. Andrew: Yeah, very cool. Well Larry, super-happy to be here and as I mentioned earlier, I've seen all the episodes and get so much out of them every time, so really happy to be here. Yeah, right now, like you mentioned, I'm doing quite a bit of work both for the company I work for and on the side, working in both AI projects and traditional content design projects and really where those two merge together, both helping to build teams and build structure around how we approach AI from a content perspective, which I think is really key with all of this. And also how to bring AI into the work that we do as well as content designers working on traditional products and services as well. Larry: Yeah, I think that latter is probably the more familiar scenario for most...