As someone who has spent her career in media and marketing and now as an educator, the homework has never stopped. Whether it’s researching a new client or doing a deep dive into the next trend on TikTok, homework is and has always been part of the day job. This is why it never ceases to amaze me when I get something like this in my inMail on LinkedIn.
“Hey Joanne, this might sound a bit out of the blue, but have you ever thought of writing a book? I know someone who turns great stories into bestsellers. Would you be open to an intro? Let me know or you can grab a time for a quick call here….”
✋Full stop.
Yes. Not only have I thought about it, but I have also written not one but four books. It’s not like that information is hidden somewhere in the deep dark recesses of the internet. It’s right there on my LinkedIn page. 🤦🏻♀️
I’d like to tell you that it is an isolated incident but it’s not. I get it firsthand on LinkedIn and through my website all the time. Attempts to connect that show not one iota of homework completed. Sometimes I will take a few minutes to make it a teachable moment. Other times I just sigh, hit delete, and move on.
The thing is it’s not that hard to do your homework anymore. All you need is a good internet connection. Whether you go what I will say is soon to be old school Google searching or use an LLM like Chat GPTor Perplexity, homework is a whole lot easier than in the dark ages of my youth when you had to go to a library and scour old newspaper articles for information.
Just for fun, I asked Perplexity if they could give me any information on books Joanne Tombrakos has written. Here’s what I got:
“According to the information available, Joanne Tombrakos has published at least four books to date. Her works span both fiction and non-fiction genres, with a focus on personal development, marketing, and storytelling.
Tombrakos’ background in digital marketing, personal branding, and corporate experience seems to have influenced her non-fiction works, which appear to be geared towards helping others improve their professional skills and personal productivity.”
See. It wasn’t that hard. In fact, it appears that AI understands me and my books more than that human trying to convince me that I should think about writing one.
This week one of my students asked me if I thought that generative AI was going to make us stupid. After a long pause, I told her it was a philosophical question that would take more time than we had that day to discuss – not to mention a cocktail. But as I have been thinking about it maybe it is not stupid as much as making us lazy and far too reliant on what is served up to us in a search query than in our own critical thinking skills.
Individuals like the one who wants me to think about writing a book take the easy way out. They do a keyword search that they assume is infallible and giving them what they need and then press send. It’s a modern day version of an old school tactic we used to call spray and pray which relies on sheer numbers instead of the quality of leads contacted.
It’s not just in business. We had an election this month in which many people based their decisions on a sound bite that was served up to them in their social media feed without doing any homework to see how true or untrue that might be. Many are already surprised as they learn of what the President-elect is planning on doing claiming that is not what they voted for. Homework. Doing their homework would have avoided that.
Even when you do your homework you have to approach it with a healthy dose of skepticism as not everything that’s served to us is correct. Misinformation and disinformation run rampant. Even Netflix’s algorithms make mistakes. I am not sure what button I accidentally pushed that would make them think that I have any interest in the Paul vs Tyson fight but that did not stop the email from suggesting I might like it – proving once again that algorithms alone are not enough to do the job.
When you take the time to do your homework, you get more than one perspective. You get to think, hone your critical thinking skills and you get to decide what you like and your viewpoint instead of letting someone else decide for you. The result will not only get you more qualified leads, it will make you more qualified for whatever you want to do – personally and professionally.
This was originally published on Does This Make Sense ? on Substack. Subscribe for free here.
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