The (other) A.I. we need to talk about
Betcha that you thought about Artificial Intelligence when you saw that headline. Alas, that’s not what i am talking about. It’s another form of A.I.
Analogical Intelligence.
Not to be confused with analog intelligence, which is also necessary when everyone continues to obsess with digital things and may be losing important social skills along the way. Also important, though!
No, analogical intelligence (the new A.I. which is actually the old A.I.) is the act by which we interpret events, problems or opportunities by finding which analogies are more or less appropriate for them.
For example, if you’re working on investment banking, you might realise a useful analogy is that of the financial advisor as, really, your therapist.
Or if you work in tourism marketing, you might realise the importance of investing in B2C as well as B2B is to demonstrate to your B2B audiences that you’re ready to build demand (a bit like CPGs do when they do their sell-in events with retailers).
Or if you work with social media, you might realise that as long as you understand the principles of earned media, customer engagement and OOH, you’re not far off in terms of how media behaviour operates in that space.
These are all useful analogies, and it’s stuff like this that can make or break your career especially when everyone continues thinking A.I. (the other one) can replace whatever you do for work. Which it might. But we’re trying to minimise that risk.
So, perhaps, consider fighting one form with A.I. with another form of A.I.. The more the world throws Artificial Intelligence at you, the more you may want to use your Analogical Intelligence to make sense of clients’ wicked problems and continue justifying a price premium while doing so.
Or, y’know, 10x your ChatGPT prompts or whatever.
