In April of this year, I received an email from someone named Rick Calvert.
(A “someone” I’ve grown very fond of now, since being on his stage and getting to know him.)
It was an invitation to deliver my first keynote.
He’d watched my anti-AI to pro-AI video, featured in my newsletter over at Content at Scale:
This was Rick’s email to me after watching my story:
And thus commenced an amazing conversation – all about AI, how Rick was one of the very first to launch an event for content creators and social influencers, Blog World, in 2007. Talk about OG! Rick literally defines original gangsta when it comes to getting people together around content.
I won’t forget the look on his face when we met over Google Meet.
“Julia, I need someone to come KNOCK SOME SENSE into these bloggers about AI. It’s going to take jobs. It’s going to take everything. Can you do that?”
He believed in me, and gave me the Thursday opening keynote.
It was amazing.
A full replay of my 45-minute keynote, on How You Can Win in the Future of Content with AI, is coming to my YouTube channel!
Till then, here are some highlights.
Highlights from My First Keynote – TBEX 2023
Content at Scale was a platinum sponsor of the event. I attended with our COO Josh Slone, and our Creative Director Adrian Boysel.
I must pause and give a well-deserved HUGE shoutout to Rick Calvert, creator and CEO of TBEX.
He told his people that they needed to see AI as an opportunity and adapt… “or get hit by a freight train.” (His words. Not mine.) “And go hear Julia.”
Rick was the first in the world to create an event for bloggers.
And he gets the implications of AI in blogging and content as a whole.
The keynote was so much FUN.
I’m craving the next one already, because I absolutely loved walking off that stage and knowing (SEEING) the impact my ideas, models and frameworks had – we’re talking real clarity for people. Listeners went from completely mystified to knowing exactly how to approach AI and take it into their jobs and life. 😍
If you have an event… if you are reaching people and want to add a female voice on AI in the mix… let’s talk. There’s not a lot of us out there. Drop me a note.
I don’t show up and give just any old talk.
I show you how to use AI with integrity.
I show you how YOU are needed more than ever, but only if you adapt, before AI takes your job.
And I teach you what these new skills will look like.
All based on real data from hundreds of use cases inside Content at Scale’s user base.
I’m updating my evergreen deck at least once a week.
It’s incredible, the sheer unbelievable new era we’re in.
Now let’s move to…
THE QUESTIONS at TBEX.
Dang, they were great.
These people. 😍
Let’s get into ’em.
Top AI Questions From TBEX Attendees
Q. “Don’t you fear AI?”
My A. “Yes, that’s why I chose to hurry up and work for the good AI.” 😂
Q. [Aha moment.] “Julia! You’re essentially the Terminator created (by Content at Scale) to fight the other Terminator trying to destroy us all. Right?”
My A. “I’ll take it.” (What else do you say? Bahahaha.)
To have som fun, I took this as a prompt to Midjourney. It turned me into a 13-year-old computer tech geek, but, I’ll take it. 😂
This was my favorite question, by far. 👇
Q. “What about the existential crisis of people just settling to publish and read ‘okay’ content, aka non-optimized AI content? Since it’s far easier and cheaper to mass produce? Will HQ human writers still even be needed at all?”
My A. “We’re already tired of ‘okay’ content. HQ writers and personal experience will matter more than EVER. It’s all we will want to read or publish. More bad content doesn’t create the desire to read said bad content. It creates the opposite.”
It’s funny, because the person asking this question then told me… “Well Julia, you have more faith in humanity than I do.” 😂
Not really.
I simply believe that humanity won’t change too far from the fundamentals of what makes us, well, human.
Think about it.
As we encounter more and more new and radical tech…
We also get tired of it.
Metaverse fell way flatter than Meta anticipated. People wanted real hugs. Real touch. Real encounters. Not VR ones. Especially in a post-pandemic world where we’d just been cut off from normal society for almost two years.
Bad idea, Meta.
As AI content floods the oceans of the interwebs…
We’re going to want human content. We’re going to crave it, look for it, and turn away from AI-riddled garbage that hasn’t been properly C.R.A.F.T.ed with care.
(Google predicted it in December of 2022, with E for Experience. They want to see your human experience in your content more than ever.)
Want me to speak at your event?
I’m taking these gigs through both Content Hacker and Content at Scale.
If you want me there with the team at Content at Scale (full power 💥 ), check out this resource on Content at Scale and drop me a note there. You can also reach just me through this form.
Cheers to this new age of AI!
