Designers are circles, developers are squares

17 March 2024 | Issue #39

In this issue:

AI will handle 95% of what marketing agencies will do
AI comments on LinkedIn
Midjourney consistent characters
Devin, AI for software engineering
How to use AI to write a book about AI
Designers are circles, developers are squares

Happy St. Patrick's Day to those of you in the US who aspire to be like those of us with Irish lineage. If you may have been over-served last night, well, I don't know if this newsletter will help. But Sláinte!

Over the past week, the topic I've heard the most has been Sam Altman's quote about marketing.

“It will mean that 95% of what marketers use agencies, strategists, and creative professionals for today will easily, nearly instantly and at almost no cost be handled by the AI — and the AI will likely be able to test the creative against real or synthetic customer focus groups for predicting results and optimizing. Again, all free, instant, and nearly perfect. Images, videos, campaign ideas? No problem."

Yikes.

I know most of you who are reading this fall into these categories. Since Altman has proven to understand where things are going, and it's a frightening concept.

Kieran Flanaghan, CMO of Zapier, thinks it's closer to 60% of marketing will be automated. That's still a scary number.

The impact is still being determined. But there will be an impact. So where does this leave you? How do you prepare your career for the coming change? How do you counter-program against Skynet?

My advice is to diversify your skillset and focus on strategy and creativity.

Execution jobs are going to be impacted the most. If you're just creating other people's ideas, look out.

Learn how to be great at using generative AI. It's just another tool. If you spent time to learn Photoshop, PowerPoint, or Canva, you can learn how to prompt AI to produce the results you want. There are just under 45 quadrillion articles and videos teaching you how to be better at prompting (I don't know if this number is real, but it probably will be by tomorrow).

Give yourself a project that forces you to learn this stuff. This newsletter is an example of that. I started it to build awareness of the coming AI threat to existing jobs. But it also drives me to stay up to date with the rapid pace of change in AI.

If you have any questions on this stuff, let's chat (links below).

How much AI-generated spam are you getting in your LinkedIn comments? I'm starting to see a lot of it. 2/3 of the comments on my last issue started with the word "Exciting."

My engagements and impressions were up, so there's some upside for me. But I don't know what these people are trying to achieve with these effortless, zero-value comments.

NEWS AT THE INTERSECTION OF AI AND DESIGN

🧑‍🎨 Midjourney Debuts Consistent Characters for Gen AI Images

Midjourney's new feature allowing consistent character generation across images is a big deal for designers, promising a leap in narrative continuity and creative depth for digital storytelling.

Consistent Characters: Enables narrative continuity
Creative Depth: Enhances storytelling
H/T: Frank Prendergast

Keep reading

🤖 Engineers are Going to be Replaced by Devin

Devin claims it is the first AI software engineer. It's very clever marketing that is worrying newer developers because it looks like it can do their jobs easily.

Simple Interface: A few words will build a whole website
Hitesh Choudhary says that AI tools like this can't solve complex problems (you can't tell AI to build Uber)
H/T: Reem Rassam and Tyler Stambaugh in the RISE community

Watch the announcement video

📕 How to use AI to write a book about AI

Ethan Mollick's journey in writing a book about AI, "Co-Intelligence," showcases the symbiotic relationship between human creativity and AI, offering a glimpse into the future of creative work for designers.

AI as a Partner: AI aids in overcoming creative blocks.
Enhanced Creativity: AI suggestions enrich the writing process.

Keep reading

Correction: Last week I announced OpenAI's first acquisition. It turns out that happened last August. Thanks to Chris McKay of the AI literacy platform, Maginative.

NEW RESOURCES FOR YOU

Designers are circles, developers are squares

During my first conversation with Melody Paton Borchardt, I was talking about how my role at Northeastern, and previous employers, managing designers and developers requires drastically different mindsets. (there will be some generalities in this post, so if it doesn’t apply to you, please don’t get offended.)

When I mentioned that developers tend to be highly structured with their thinking, I used my hands to form a block around my face (almost like Voguing, now that I think about it). Melody found that interesting because she tends to think of designers as circles.

This was one of those conversations where I had some of the building blocks for my thinking, but Melody crystallized it into a simple concept: Designers are circles, Developers are squares.

It’s the designer’s job to explore all possibilities to get to a solution.
It’s the developer's job to find the most logical path to execute on that concept.

Designers and developers are both in the problem-solving business.

In many ways, it’s a relay race. Designers perform the initial exploration with an understanding of what the developers need. Developers take that and, with an understanding of what the designers are trying to achieve, bring the design to life.

I love the idea that designers can go in any direction from the starting point and it ends up forming an idea circle. And then it’s the developers who rein that in and create structure and order.

My father studied and taught mechanical drafting back when that was done with pencils and t-squares. I’m sure watching him grade drawings every night got me interested in both sides of drawing: the artistic and technical sides. I’ve had people comment that I’m a creative who is highly technical.

Circles and squares are complementary, not combative. They don’t necessarily fit each other, but they can work really well with each other. There is harmony when combined correctly. They both want similar outcomes and working together means they can achieve more than either shape on its own. The entire impetus for this article and concept is that two people with different backgrounds were having a conversation and found something that was better than the individual parts.

By understanding that designers (circles) thrive on exploration and possibility, and developers (squares) focus on structure and logic, we can create environments where these differences become a source of strength rather than friction.

Must-attend event

Last week we had our quarterly meetup for the CEX NET holders. It was a great session with the Marketing AI Institute's Mike Kaput.

I learned a lot, but I also had a great realization: there were a lot of people on that call who I can't wait to see in person in May! We'll all be attending the third annual Content Entrepreneur Expo (CEX).

These people, most of whom I didn't know two years ago, are now people who I've gotten to know (and work with) since the first event in 2022.

This is the perfect event if you're looking to build out your content business. Or if you like being around people who are exploring or building creative businesses, you need to be here.

I promise you'll be inspired.