Latest / Content, Briefly / We Are Worth More Than Our .md Files
Transcript
- 0:00[ on-hold music] Hey everyone, Alex here. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Beehiiv. I have been floored by how fast the Beehiiv team ships new products.
- 0:16We started our partnership with them three months ago, and in that time, they've launched so much. Case in point, when we started, Beehiiv did not have a podcast platform.
- 0:25Now they do, and the entirety of our podcast, Content Briefly, is now hosted on it. On top of that, they've got a website builder, webinars, and an industry-first MCP server for wiring into your AI tools.
- 0:37It's really clear Beehiiv is building the hub for creator-led media businesses. As a team of one, that's exactly what I want.
- 0:45Fewer tools, fewer logins, and one place that keeps adding helpful features before I even have to ask them.
- 0:51The entire Superpath Media business is now on Beehiiv, which I'm really excited about and was honestly not part of the plan when we moved the newsletter to Beehiiv a few months ago.
- 1:01This month, Superpath members get 30% off of Beehiiv with the code Superpath30. Check the show notes for details, and thanks again to the Beehiiv team for sponsoring this episode.
- 1:11Hey everybody, and thanks for tuning in to another episode of Content Briefly. Today, Eric and I are talking mostly about Claude Code.
- 1:17I recently had my kinda Claude Code moment, where I finally, like the light bulb went off, and I realized how incredible and powerful it is.
- 1:25And so I've been building these, uh, content workflows in Claude Code, and it kinda just sent me down this path of thinking like, "Wow, everything I know about content marketing is baked into these markdown files in Claude Code."
- 1:36[chuckles] Like, is that a good thing or a bad thing? I mean, it definitely makes my life easier because I can... You know, now that the workflows are built, I can just hit go, and I can...
- 1:45You know, something that used to take me hours takes a couple of minutes. But then, like, what are the downsides of that?
- 1:49Like, what are the downsides of all of your knowledge being in a little file that could be shared around, which a lot of people are doing. I have conflicting feelings about it. So that...
- 1:57Anyways, that's kinda the, the topic we're getting into today. There's a happy ending, though. I will tease that. Like, you know, there's so much else that goes into being a good marketer.
- 2:04You know, your skills.md file is just a tiny little bit of what makes you good at your job.
- 2:10And so while I feel like it's healthy to maintain a little bit of skepticism about all this stuff, I don't think there's too much to worry about either.
- 2:16And then also, we talk about a bunch of little tips and tricks for using Claude Code. So, hopefully all that's helpful. If you're not already, make sure you check out, uh, the superpath.co membership.
- 2:25Pro members get access to all kinds of things, including the community, AI show and tells. There's tons of programming every week.
- 2:31Alex sends out an email every Monday morning, uh, with the list of that week's programming, and the list keeps getting longer. There's just a whole bunch of things that you can get involved in.
- 2:40A bunch of different levels, too, like everything from one-on-one calls, which are obviously very personal, to, like, events you can just be a fly on the wall for.
- 2:47He's also built up an awesome new member portal, so all this stuff is easier to find if you wanna, like, check out a recording or get a summary of it and things like that. So, superpath.co. I'll get out of the way now.
- 2:57Enjoy this conversation with Eric and I about Claude Code. Hey everybody. Jimmy, formerly of Superpath. [chuckles] I'm still not used to saying that. Currently of Miro. Here today with Eric. Eric, how are you?
- 3:07I'm doing well. Damn it. I should've had something more interesting to say. [chuckles] We're keeping that in. We are not cutting that. [chuckles] We were thinking maybe we'd talk about AI today.
- 3:16[chuckles] Something different.
- 3:18But in all seriousness, you know, I've been writing this series of blog posts for Superpath, mostly about AI, and so we were gonna sort of chat through the most recent one, which is titled, "We Are Worth More Than Our.MD Files," right?
- 3:30[chuckles] Which is, like, a real thing I've been feeling lately, and I would not be surprised if other people are, too. So if you want, Eric, I can just kinda like tee up the idea, and then we can chat through it.
- 3:40Yeah, please, please read to me. Read the entire article. I'll just sit here and listen. [laughs] Okay. So the idea is... All right. I- The Jimmy Daly audiobook.
- 3:47[chuckles] The re- I've been using Claude Code a lot lately, and I feel like I started using Claude Code because I hear about everybody else using Claude Code, and I kinda wanna see, like, what's going on. And it does...
- 3:58It's ki- kind of fun to be, like, in the terminal. Like, it makes me feel smart, like I'm doing something, like, really sophisticated, even though I'm mostly just having the same chat that I would have in the Claude app.
- 4:08But recently, I had kind of a breakthrough moment with Claude Code, where I sort of realized how powerful it is and how different it can be from the normal desktop app or web app.
- 4:19Basically, that realization was sort of building a content workflow, and it is so much easier to build a multi-step, fairly complex workflow in Claude Code.
- 4:31So, like, for me anyways, like, I go on regular, you know, Claude Desktop, and I'm like, "I have to do a thing. Help me do it." And it kinda, like, helps me do it, which is helpful and faster.
- 4:40Claude Code is a little different because you can just say... If you build it, you can just say, just, "You do it," and it will just run through all the steps.
- 4:47So I built this workflow with, like, 10 different skills and a bunch of different steps, and kinda, like, some built-in points of human intervention to kinda make sure it's, like, heading the right direction.
- 4:54And now I can just run it whenever I want, and it makes content creation, like, a lot, a lot easier. And so, like, the whole workflow relies on skills, and the skills are my skills, but in a markdown document.
- 5:07And this just had me thinking about, like, wow, all of my worth, all of my experience, all of, like, the skills that I have, can it really just be boiled down to this markdown document?
- 5:18And then, so I kinda was, like, noodling on this idea, and then Katie Parrott from Every, who's fantastic, and her writing about AI is some of the best out there, posted in the Superpath Slack and was saying, you know, everybody is sharing their skills, their Claude skills, on social.
- 5:32Like, this is the new currency of thought leadership. And I was like, "Whoa. That's crazy." Because you are, like, in a sense, like, giving away the things that make you good at what you do.
- 5:44So, like, I totally get it's a great thing to share because it's very attractive to the audience. You know, it's very clickable. At the same time, it's like, I don't know if I feel comfortable doing that.
- 5:53Like, do I want... If I already have this sort of hesitation that everything I know is in these markdown files, do I wanna share those? Like, I don't... Probably not, actually. That's a...
- 6:05That's kind of the gist of the article, is like- Work is turning into these like series of kind of portable objects that can be saved and exported and shared and reused and remixed, and I kind of love it because it makes my day-to-day work so much easier, and also I kind of don't love it because, like, I feel protective over them, and I don't wanna share them.
- 6:29And I feel like probably all marketers, or at least many marketers feel this way. It's like that,
- 6:34you know, marketers, in addition to doing their jobs, are oftentimes using social media to build personal brands and promote their stuff and whatever.
- 6:42And like this would be by far the easiest way to do that, but I don't want to. And so there's this like tension there. I will tease the end of the article, which is that I think we're worth more than our Markdown files.
- 6:53[chuckles] But I feel like that's kind of a good place to kick this off. Like, so I mean, yeah, I know you're also in Claude Code a lot. Have you had similar reflections?
- 7:00Like, are you the type of person-- Do you wanna share stuff like this on social?
- 7:04Do you have the same kind of hesitation and maybe fears that I do, that there's so much of our work and experience and actual human skill gets tied up in this stuff that it somehow detracts from like the greater value that we could provide as marketers?
- 7:19Yeah. I mean, there's so many levels to this. I think on the first level, there's the, "Is AI gonna replace us?"
- 7:26question, and it feels like if you're just teeing everyone up with the AI that you've built with your own skills and then saying, "Here you go. You take this and run."
- 7:36Like, I'm even worried about sometimes, like inside my own company, like, am I just gonna build myself out of a job with like all these AI workflows that if they're simple enough to use, someone else can come and just click the button once a week?
- 7:49Like, I never wanna build that system, right? Yeah.
- 7:51So like what's the healthy medium between like a human in the loop AI workflow, where my expertise is like needed in the system, versus just like building something that you can just like add to your tool belt and be like, "Okay, I have Eric now."
- 8:05I never wanna build that, right? So I think there's that first like big area of like, I definitely don't wanna build myself out of a job. Yeah. Yes.
- 8:14Do you think-- I observe this sort of trend of, okay, like we talk at Miro a lot about AI adoption and AI transformation. This is like a big deal at the company, and like you can understand why.
- 8:24Like we're trying to get people to use the software, which is like very AI first, blah, blah, blah.
- 8:29And a lot of companies are hitting a limit right now, and I wonder if part of the limit is the individuals experiencing exactly what you just described, which is like, I'm willing to use this up until a point, and then I'm not comfortable anymore.
- 8:40Yeah. I mean, I think there's, like I would put myself in the power user category, and like I've run AI enablement sessions within Doc where I'm like, "Hey, guys, I understand how to use Claude.
- 8:50I really think you guys should all understand to do your jobs well." Like I did this with our CS team, our salespeople, and our like go-to-market leaders, and, you know, some people were very receptive.
- 9:01I could tell other people were kind of just like nodding politely along. Not to say that they weren't interested, but I could tell that they were just gonna like go back to calling their customers or whatever, right?
- 9:10They weren't gonna- Yeah, yeah... go. And so, but like, so I'm definitely witnessing firsthand, there's like huge individual variation and like enthusiasm towards AI.
- 9:19I like, I personally, day to day, I'm not really thinking that much about, like I'm not gonna use more AI because I'm worried about replacing myself or anything like that.
- 9:27But I, once you're getting into this realm of like, am I gonna share it publicly? No. And I think that's an interesting, like, point of...
- 9:36I do think, like I've, I help run Superpath Community, so obviously I feel very strongly about like sharing learnings.
- 9:44We even do an AI show and tell in the Superpath Community where people like really show the bones of what they're building with AI, and I think like that form of sharing is very healthy, like in the inspiration department.
- 9:56"Look at this cool thing I built and how I built it." I, I think there's lots of value in that.
- 10:00But like, am I going to say, "Okay, I built this really cool competitor database where I can analyze all of Doc's competitors and just like publish it on the internet for my competitors to also like install in their Claude?"
- 10:14Like, no, I'm not gonna do that. Yeah. So I think it's figuring out what like education and healthy sharing looks like around AI versus just like giving away the car keys. Totally.
- 10:23I think there's another part of the kind of like marketplace that has emerged for skills, which is that I think sometimes, I sort of sense that people sometimes share them to like let others know, like, "Hey, I'm good at this."
- 10:35Totally. And also, like you kind of get a sense in the comments of where everybody else is. I don't know if everyone else feels this way.
- 10:40I feel a certain amount of pressure and a certain amount of like FOMO when it comes to all these AI things, 'cause it always feels like you scroll through LinkedIn, it's like everybody has like 100 agents doing all these things.
- 10:51And like I don't really think that everyone is as sophisticated as the feed makes it feel like they are, but- Mm-hmm...
- 10:57you know, then you sort of get a sense in the comments of people being like, "Oh, wow, I've never seen this before. That's super cool." Or people being like, "Oh, that's like old news." Everybody does that now, you know?
- 11:04So you kind of, it's like an interesting way to kind of gauge like where you are in the, in the kind of like AI, like, you know, proficiency scale. Yeah.
- 11:15And I mean, you brought up another good point about there's always been this thing on LinkedIn about, you know, comment whatever, and I'll give you access to this amazing resource- Yeah, yeah... I've built.
- 11:25And, and that has always done incredibly well. And I think part of it is like the promise of-- What's interesting is someone's like, "I wrote this blog post that tells you how to do it."
- 11:35People aren't gonna click and read that post. But if it's like, "All you have to do is like reply, and I'll send you this treasure trove of like amazing tools that will just make your life so easy." Like that- Yeah...
- 11:45has always been so tempting to people. Or like, "I made an arc-- I made a database of 50 briefs that will help you with any project."
- 11:53Like those things have always done really well, and I think it's like the promise of things being easy is very interesting to people, which is why these like prepackaged...
- 12:01Like I don't think it's that valuable to download somebody else's skill for the most part. I think like you should-...
- 12:08understand how to build your own skills, and that's what, like, healthy and, like, that's what a great career of using AI will look like. Not being very good at, like,
- 12:17downloading other people's skills or paying for them or, you know- Yeah, yeah... subscribing to some database. I don't think that's, like, healthy career growth long term. Probably not.
- 12:28I honestly won't-- I don't know if this exists yet, but I will not be surprised if an actual marketplace emerges where people buy and sell skills and artifacts and things like that.
- 12:39Well, I mean, actually, we didn't talk about this yet, but there is some precedent for this, which I talk about in the article from the photography world, where, like, going back a, I don't know, 15 or 20 years, people have been using Light- Adobe Lightroom.
- 12:51It's, like, kind of the most popular tool out there for editing and exporting and sharing photos.
- 12:56And, you know, you go and edit a photo, and all your sliders are on the right for contrast and brightness and exposure, all the-- whatever.
- 13:03There's a million things you can edit in Lightroom, and then you can save it as a preset. And so, like, 15, 20 years ago, people were saving their presets and exporting them and then selling them on their blog.
- 13:13And so I kind of did some research on this world, 'cause it felt very similar to me. It's like- Mm-hmm...
- 13:18this very important part of your workflow that can be turned into a little portable file that you could pass around to other people and they could use also.
- 13:25And it's fascinating because in the photography world, it has been a secondary source of income for a lot of photographers, and there don't really-- Like, I could not really find any examples of people hating it or people saying like, "This is bad for photography," or, "It's bad for the profession of photography."
- 13:43Like, I looked around, I really couldn't find much.
- 13:44I mean, I did find a few people saying they hate this, but it's not like, you know, we've had, I think, enough time that we would know by now if this meant that there was only gonna be, like, a tiny percentage of photographers who could maintain a living, and then the presets would, like, kind of wipe out the rest of the competition 'cause everything else looked the same.
- 14:03You know? That did make me feel a lot better, and that kind of sent me down the path of, you know, why else would someone hire you?
- 14:09You know, because you're reliable, because you're a good communicator, because you can just get shit done. You know what I mean? 'Cause you can, like, navigate the politics of an organization.
- 14:16Like, all the things that, like, actually make a big project move forward, where, like, the skill is, like, the single point of execution, but there's, like, so much that goes into even deciding whether or not that's the right thing to do.
- 14:28Totally. Yeah. So that made me feel better. Yeah. Yeah. So, like, the example you brought up of the... Are they called LUT files? I don't know how to say it out loud. Like, L-U-Ts?
- 14:38Like, how do you actually say that as a non-photographer? Is it LUT files? Okay, okay. We're both just talking out of our butts then.
- 14:45But yeah, so it's not like there's this wide, like, anti-L-LUT file sentiment in the industry. That makes sense.
- 14:53An interesting, like, contrast too that you brought up is that before, like, people would share their blog brief template, right? Like, that was a really common ask in the Superpath community.
- 15:05Like, "Who has a great template for a blog brief?" And that felt something that was, like, the perfect, like, healthy medium of what you can share publicly. Like, I would- Mm...
- 15:13gladly share the blog brief at Dock, because it was, like, the instructions for the work, but then somebody had to go do the work, right?
- 15:22Like, you, you know, uh, follow this template and you will be, like, 5% of the way there.
- 15:27Versus with AI, it's like, okay, here's the instructions, and then you just plug it into the thing, and then, like, you start 95% of the way done. And so it feels, like, very different in terms of, like, sharing the...
- 15:41And then, and to your point about the photography, I think you said in the article, like, it doesn't make a bad photograph good to, like, apply some color, like, a different color grade to it.
- 15:52Like, the photograph itself also has to be good. So it's only, like, kind of a filter on already good work.
- 15:57And I feel like the blog brief is, like, the opposite, where it's, like, the in- the first 5%, and then you have to go do the, the rest of the 95%. And so that's what makes me uncomfortable, like, sharing skills.
- 16:09Like, I mean, at least the file of, of, like, you know, if the work's already done, then, you know, who's there to do the work? Yes, totally.
- 16:16That's been, like, the mindset shift for me as I've been going deeper on Claude Code is, like, you really can build a workflow and then just say, "Go." And it just...
- 16:24You probably could set it up like that in the desktop app as well, but, like, at least that's not really how I use the desktop app.
- 16:29I use it more as, like, a fancy search engine, and then it'll, like, help me, like, kind of work through something as we kind of do it together. And this just feels totally different. You know?
- 16:40Like, the workflow that I put together, it takes, like, 15 minutes to run. Which feels- Yeah...
- 16:44weird to sit around and wait 15 minutes for AI to do something, 'cause usually it's, like, instant, but there's so many steps that it takes a while.
- 16:51So I don't-- Like, I do frankly still have, like, a lot of questions about, like...
- 16:56You know, I sort of said this in the article too, like, kind of like with a lot of AI things, like, I feel like it's, like, kind of good, kind of bad, and kind of, like, just, like, I don't know, kind of confusing.
- 17:05Like, I don't really know, like, where does this go from here? A year from now, do we all spend a chunk of our day hitting go on AI workflows and just wait for the results to come in?
- 17:17And, like, what are we doing in the meantime? Like, I just-- The way that we work has already shifted so much. Like, you know, a couple years ago, I didn't know what Claude was.
- 17:24Now I spend, I don't know, half my day in there, maybe more sometimes. Like, what will it be like a year from now? It's hard to even imagine, like, what the day-to-day of the job will even be like. Yeah.
- 17:35Even week to week. Like, at my company, Dock... Well, not my company, the company I work for.
- 17:40Like, they just released their own Claude MCP yesterday, and suddenly, like, I can connect into the product and the help center and all these things directly from Claude.
- 17:52So now I was able to say, like, "Go through the whole help center and, like, flag anything that I'm missing in this blog post." And, like, boom, two seconds, it did it. And that was, like, through the...
- 18:03If you don't know what an MCP is, it's basically sort of like an API between the software and Claude. So, like- Whatever.
- 18:10Airtable would have an MCP so Claude can talk to Airtable and vice versa, so you don't have to build anything yourself. It's sort of like prebuilt connection between the two. You basically never have to leave Claude.
- 18:20Yeah. So you don't have to leave Claude.
- 18:21So like now I can, for like the Doc software, now like our users can interact directly with Doc through Claude, but also that means as like the content marketer, I can like ask questions about Doc with Claude, and so that's unlocked like one week to the next, like half the things I had built, I'm like, "Okay, I don't need this anymore," because now like Claude can answer questions about the tool I'm using.
- 18:42And so when I'm writing an article, I can like use that capability.
- 18:46And so like, and to your point about not, things not even existing, like maybe three months ago, we'd never heard a customer at Doc ask for MCP, and then suddenly like every sales conversation, they're like, "If it doesn't have MCP, I'm not buying it."
- 18:58That's so crazy. Yeah. And so, and so like the market changes so fast, like the technology changes so quickly. And so that's why like I keep advocating for like, it's not as much...
- 19:08So I do think it's very important to like build your own library of skills. Like I'm very pro Claude skills for the record. I just wouldn't necessarily like post them all on the internet.
- 19:17But I do think like developing the skill now of building with AI is way more important than the actual things you build, because like those things are all gonna get replaced. But it, it's- Yeah...
- 19:27it's the same as like building a writing skill. Like, you know, the medium might change or you might be writing LinkedIn posts, you might be writing SEO blogs.
- 19:34Like the channels might change, but like the skill, your personal skills behind that is what matters. And so I think like building the AI muscle is an important skill to have. Yeah. Absolutely.
- 19:47The MCP thing, just to touch on that again for a second, we kind of heard the same thing at Miro. It's like all anybody cares about is like, we just want it to stay in Claude. Like, "Please don't make us leave Claude.
- 19:56That's all we want is to stay." It's such like a crazy thing. But there's this, I feel like
- 20:02there's a whole nother thing happening here, which is like as individuals use a tool like Claude more, the more you use it, the better it gets. It's like the more you connect it to your other tools, the better it gets.
- 20:11And so it's like it's always like accumulating more value constantly. And like I don't really know what that means for everybody else.
- 20:17You know, like you don't really want your SaaS company to just be nothing more than an API to Claude. And data. Yeah. Yeah. Or maybe that will be a good thing one day. I don't really know. It's just like hard to imagine.
- 20:29And then the other just brief thing I would say is if you have not messed around with Claude Code yet, I was kind of intimidated by it, but it was unwarranted.
- 20:36Like once you get it set up, which it just tells you what to do, like you don't, it's not like you have to read a manual.
- 20:41Like you just say, "Set up Claude Code," and it just like tells you some stuff to do, and it takes like five minutes. And once you're in, it's really cool. Like it's really fun.
- 20:49And then related to that, Ryan Law put out a great video a few, maybe like a month or six weeks ago about his Claude Code setup.
- 20:57And now I use that as a starting point to kind of like kind of build the same file structure, th- which was, now I've all changed it.
- 21:03I've changed all of it because I kind of get how it works, but it was a great way to get myself rolling.
- 21:07Speaking of sharing the way that you work, like it was a starting point, not something I could just replicate and instantly use. So I would encourage people to try it out if you haven't already. Yeah.
- 21:17And there's kind of a few levels of using it, because you can use Claude Code to build yourself skills that you can use in the regular Claude chat.
- 21:27That's kind of like the most common way I use it actually, is I'm like, okay, here's a task I want to do often.
- 21:33But what, then the thing it normally adds that's a little better than doing it right in chat is it can build like file structures for things to reference.
- 21:40So like for example, the other day I built like a de-AI writing tool that would like un-AI the writing based on a Wikipedia article that exists now that's really good about like really common AI writing tells.
- 21:55And so what I said to Claude Code was like, "Ingest this whole article, build like a style guide, build like a reference file, and then build a skill that can be called..."
- 22:04And then like I could have done that without Claude Code, but what it did is it made a nice little like file for Claude to reference that says, "Okay, like let's look at all these examples," and it checks my writing against that file.
- 22:15So like it's just a little bit more sophisticated for a basic task like that.
- 22:20But then as I'm sure I've talked about on the show before, I've built more like database-y things, like tools that can like do more advanced research or, you know, I mentioned the competitor database earlier on the show I made.
- 22:32It's basically like a database of text files that just has a lot of information saved about our competitors that's basically just like an offline resource of like what I know about all our competitors, so Claude doesn't have to like search the internet every time.
- 22:46Yeah, yeah. And when it searches the internet, it searches like an old version of the internet half the time.
- 22:51So anyway, so like you can build yourself like nice repositories of things too in Claude Code, which is something I've done a lot.
- 22:58Or when, if an MCP doesn't exist with a tool, you can build your own sort of like connectors to other tools. That's a common way I've used it.
- 23:05Super interesting, because I feel like I didn't really understand until pretty recently, like what's even, why would I want to work on my local computer? Like I don't really even understand why that would be valuable.
- 23:14And it's kind of your point about like creating like the references, that's the exact thing that got me kind of like turned the light bulb on for me, which I built out like what I thought was like a super cool like library of references all in Markdown.
- 23:26And so like as it goes through the content creation workflow, it does not ever have to search the web.
- 23:32I guess there, I do have one step in there where it's searching the web to make sure I'm not like duplicating stuff, but like from our own like Miro, like existing content library. But it's so fast.
- 23:42Like i- if it were to go search, it takes forever to burn through a bunch of tokens, and then this way it just happens like instantly. It's awesome. Yeah.
- 23:48Like if I were, if you'd never used it before and I was saying, "Go, go use Claude Code to build something," I would say if you work at a SaaS company, build yourself a like product knowledge database.
- 24:00And there are tools, there are like tools you can buy that do this, like Glean and whatever. Like there's software that exists with like product knowledge.
- 24:07But if you wanted to build your own in Claude Code, that is by far the most useful-... thing that I use in my day-to-day work.
- 24:13So I'm writing a blog post about Doc or a LinkedIn post or whatever, I'm like, "Oh, make sure you mention this feature," and it goes, "Okay."
- 24:20And it searches the CloudCode database it built and then pulls that information into the content. Like, that is by far the most frequent use I've had so far. Yeah, yeah.
- 24:29And then eventually I extended that to, like, all of our competitors so that, uh... And then it, like, scans their product releases and things like that.
- 24:36And I have the same when Doc releases a product release, it then updates the database of what it knows about Doc.
- 24:41So that's been just incredibly helpful for my day-to-day writing, 'cause that's, like, the hard part of, you know, you're updating content or you're, you know, whatev- you're writing on some topic.
- 24:51You're like, "How are all the ways the product ties in again?" Like, that's the kind of thing that, that's been really helpful for. Yeah, yeah. Do you use Glean at Doc? We don't, no. But I- Okay...
- 25:00I know, like, lots of our customers do. It is awesome.
- 25:04So we use it at Miro, and this is my first time using it, and Miro's a much larger organization than I'm used to working at, so I feel like it's been incredibly useful because it sucks in the entire history of Miro's Slack, all of the company documentation, all of the Miro boards, which is where, like, most of our work happens, all of the transcripts from team calls and all hands.
- 25:24Wow. So, like, I'm building a content workflow the other day and I'm like, "I really need-- What I really need is, like, a messaging and positioning. Like, someone has done this."
- 25:34So I just go in Glean, I'm like, "Do we have a messaging document?" It's like, oh yeah, here it is.
- 25:38And it's, like, finding a Slack thread from 18 months ago that somebody shared, and then I can go and, like, see, like, what people said about it. And everyone agreed that it was good, so I'm like, all right, cool.
- 25:47This is not as recent as I was hoping, but, like, this is a great start. You know, and then I'm like, okay, what about positioning? And then, like, I go find, like, a Miro board where people had already worked on this.
- 25:56And so, like, it, it's amazing 'cause I don't have to, like, bother anyone to go find stuff. Like, I feel dumb being like, "I'm on the marketing team, but I don't know where our messaging guidelines are."
- 26:06So now I never-- You know, you can just always get it and not have to, like, ask around for it.
- 26:09I feel like it, it eliminates an insane amount of, like, tiny administrative work, especially if you're a new employee and you're trying to figure out, like, well, how do I put in for PTO? Where's the messaging doc?
- 26:19You know, whatever, and a million other little things. So I find myself pulling a lot of stuff from there and then sending it into workflows elsewhere too. Yeah, it's very cool.
- 26:28Maybe, uh, I think you, you brought this up, but we didn't really get into it, on, like, the people side of this, and that was kind of your whole conclusion of your blog post, right?
- 26:36It's like, are you worth more than your skill files?
- 26:39And I think, like, Chloe and I talk about this a lot on the show, like, working with other people in your organization and, like, I don't know, sort of like showing up for people as a content marketer.
- 26:48Like, it's kind of an easy role, content, that you're so, like, interconnected in the company and you know so much about the product and, like, you just interact with a lot of teams, and, like, being an enjoyable person to work with is, like, so valuable.
- 27:02Yeah, yeah. So, like, yeah, like, that's a good conclusion of your article. Like, I do think that there's something to be said about
- 27:09even though I was, like, anti sharing of your skills and stuff, I, like, within the organization that I work for, like, and Superpath as well, like, I'm trying to be, like, encouraging of people to use AI.
- 27:21I'm showing off the things I'm building myself. Like, I'm also trying to be, like, a great AI building partner to people, which is- Yeah, yeah...
- 27:29like, even in a world where I'm like, "Okay, here's my skills," I do think there's a lot of soft skills around that too.
- 27:35And it's-- We've seen from the corporate world that people don't really wanna be force-fed AI into their day-to-day jobs, right?
- 27:41Like, AI adoption on a, like, a mass level isn't really there, and I think part of it is, like, how you deal with change management and asking people to change the way they work, and there's so much around AI that isn't just the tools themself.
- 27:57It's how do you convince people to, yeah, change their day-to-day work. And so I think there's a lot to be developed around there as a personal skill. Definitely.
- 28:07Yeah, I feel like sort of generosity within your company is awesome. And I do feel like most companies, or it seems like most companies are-- they have kind of like two AI adoption things happening.
- 28:17One is, like, the top-down part, where the sort of company leadership is looking at, like, sometimes reorganizing the business. You know, changing the way teams are.
- 28:26Like, there's a bunch of, like, kind of top-down things that AI sort of, like, enables different types of work, and maybe you only unlock the true benefits if you're willing to, like, take a good hard look at the org chart and change things around.
- 28:38And then the other part is the bottoms-up part, which is, like, the AI learning channels and the hackathons and the kind of team sharing skills with each other, and that part is the part that, like, is a lot more fun.
- 28:48You know, like, feels good and you can, like, help people and you can learn from others and stuff like that. So I agree.
- 28:53And, like, one thing we've been talking about a lot on our team at Miro is, like, how do we all spend a little less time just, like, with AI alone?
- 29:03You know, like, say I create a piece of content with this workflow that I spend a bunch of time building. Like, the content creation piece took, like, five minutes, but the workflow building took a while.
- 29:11And then, like, what is lost when I bring that back to the team? You know, like, all of it- Right... lives in my head. The files are all on my local computer even. They're not even accessed.
- 29:21You can't even access them otherwise. And so I don't know that we have, like, a super clear vision on, like, how exactly to do it.
- 29:26Some of it we can do in Miro, 'cause, like, we're, that's part of the benefit of the tool, so we're doing more there.
- 29:32But we're trying to be cognizant of this idea that, like, you can become, like, kind of like a silo of one. Yeah. Where you are literally...
- 29:38Like, instead of a team being a silo, it's like now individuals can be silos, 'cause you can just spend all day, and all of your thinking and reasoning and context ends up in a place that nobody else can access it.
- 29:47And, like, is that good or is that not good? And I feel like that's very much, like, an active discussion, at least at Miro right now. Yeah.
- 29:54And there's, you know, they're building some team features into Claude and things like that, but I don't think, like, the-- AI isn't a truly multiplayer thing yet. Yeah.
- 30:05That's been something we've been grappling with at Doc when we're building our product, is that, you know, we talked about the MCP- user.
- 30:13Like you're gonna have the people who wanna work in there, you're gonna have the people who just wanna log into the tool and click the buttons, but then you have this sort of like, like AI admin user who's like, "Okay, I wanna build AI things, and then I want the whole team to be able to use them, whether they're like AI savvy or not," right?
- 30:32And so like how do I standardize AI usage across my company so that whatever, like all our sales reps aren't inventing their own follow-up sequence. Like I, I want them to all- Yeah, yeah...
- 30:41follow the same thing, but I want them to feel empowered to like, I want them to have the benefits of AI without them all reinventing, like you said, being like siloed teams of one.
- 30:50So I think that's like a world that hasn't been built yet of like this really nice like multiplayer AI system.
- 30:58It's a lot of-- I do think companies are gonna build like AI centers of excellence, kind of before how you'd have like someone, like a rev ops type person, but who's, you know, maintaining Salesforce or whatever.
- 31:11But now you'd have something more like an AI department that's- Yeah, yeah...
- 31:15working on your AI tools and standardize, and like maybe content marketers are part of that world where they're like tone of voice and things like that being coached for the company.
- 31:24So I, I think that has like yet to shake out, but that's a good example of what you brought up in terms of like reorganizing the work structure. Yes, totally. I feel like maybe this is a good place to put a pin in it.
- 31:36There's just like so much to discuss here. I feel like the takeaway, at least from this idea of like are we worth more than our markdown files, is yes.
- 31:44Like even I, who like, I wouldn't say I'm certainly not skeptical of AI. Like I mostly, like my vibes on it are like pretty high right now, but like I try to like check that every now and then against reality.
- 31:52Like I don't wanna automate myself out of a job. Like that's not the goal of this. The goal is to like, you know, get more customers. Be, you know, like kinda like be- do a better job as a marketer.
- 32:02And so like to that end, like AI's been incredible. And for folks who are like ahead or behind on the adoption curve, Superpath. How's this segue?
- 32:12Superpath is a great place, seriously, to like kinda continue the educational journey there, because there's so much good conversation about it. The show and tells are awesome.
- 32:21There's just like so much to be learned from them. If you wanna join 'em live, they're there.
- 32:24If you wanna watch 'em later, now there's a bunch of 'em that you can go through, which I actually do from time to time when I'm like, "I wanna do this thing," and like I bet this came up in show and tell, and I'll go check real quick to see if there is.
- 32:34And then, you know, like interestingly, like now, like Alex has built this awesome member portal, which is all vibe coded, so there's just like AI stuff kind of all over the place in Superpath.
- 32:44And I feel like it's just a great place to kinda like either be a fly on the wall and learn, or if you want, you can participate and share too. Totally.
- 32:52And I think, I wouldn't say AI is the dominant topic of conversation now, but it's definitely, you know, maybe a third of stuff that comes up has to do with AI, which is, I think, a healthy proportion.
- 33:04But it's not like a super like AI-pilled community where people are like, "Oh, I built this 100-step workflow download." Like that kind of thing isn't happening. It's- Yeah...
- 33:13it's more like what we described of like the healthy sharing of ideas, and I think it's a really like productive place to learn about AI right now for a content marketer. Totally.
- 33:23So if you're not already a member, superpath.co. Get all the details. Do the free trial. It's 30 days.
- 33:27It's long enough that you can like spend some time and like really get a feel for it and decide if it's a good fit for you.
- 33:32And if you do, I still think it's like the absolute most incredible value that you'll ever get when it comes to professional development. So yeah, check the link.
- 33:41Well, there's always links in the comments, so you can get all that stuff down there. And Eric, thanks as always. It's always good to chat. Yeah, thanks.
- 33:47I'm gonna take the transcript of the show and build my own Claude code Jimmy so that I don't have to talk to you anymore. Put me out of work. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. [laughs] jimmy.md. Yeah, exactly.
- 33:58[laughs] Thanks for listening, everyone. Okay. Cool. Take care. [outro music]