Mastodawn

The Oatmeal Oct 7

Let’s talk about AI art.

https://theoatmeal.com/comics/ai_art

Excellent analysis. This reminds me very much of my early days as a communications professional, specialising in small business needs.

At the time, technological limitations (anf the skillsets needed to use professional-level prepress tools) meant that generally, most clients recognised the need for professional help with layout, design, and so forth.

But the *copy* (text) of whatever was needed? Clients overwhelmingly insisted they could write and would want to provide that content -- despite it generally being terrible for the intended use.

It took me a long time to figure out that many of them considered writing merely to be a functional thing that they already spent 12 years in school doing, so they 'must' already be experts.

There was zero understanding that graduating grade 12 is not the same as knowing, practising and developing the conventions, skills and techniques specific to writing for different genres and audiences, or in this case, target markets.

😐

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Lady Oct 8

@likelyjanlukas @oatmeal I have a Communications degree but no one will hire me in that field...

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Likely Jan Lukas Oct 9

@ladystannis

In my city at that time there were numerous opportunities as there are extensive offices for three levels of government.

However, I ended up trying going it alone -- which was its own joy and horror, in equal measure. 😛

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James Oct 8

@likelyjanlukas @oatmeal

There was this thing where companies wrote their own positive, motivating mission statement. The company I was at wrote something on the line of, "We do the best we can."

Corporate slapped them down - hard.

A few years later I'm at a company that wrote advertising copy about life-saving equipment with the line, "we do the best possible."

I told the writer I found it somewhat weak. I got reported to their boss, my boss, HR ...

I still find it a wimpy statement.

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Likely Jan Lukas Oct 9

@JHB17

When done well (AND rigorously applied/used by an organisation), mission statements can be extremely helpful.

Alas, they're often gibberish.

I concur the one you mention is weak but at least it is intelligible. 😛

Ottawa, Canada's national capital, was (perhaps still is??? I live thousands of km further west) known as 'Silicon Valley north' back when tech giants such as Blackberry were booming there.

I don't know who got paid for the job, but somehow the tagline "Ottawa: Technically Beautiful" made the cut … until the big public reveal and pretty much everyone laughed themselves silly that any organisation would *willingly* use that phrase to describe itself. 😂😂😂