Trust made by hand
I wrote the first draft of this essay by hand.
At first, I wasn't entirely sure why I needed to put pen to paper — why I felt absolutely compelled to, I should say. Especially considering that all the other writing I do happens on a computer.
But as I heard the scritch of my pen, and saw the words forming my thoughts on the page, guided by my human fingers, it made perfect sense. When I write about trust, my work must be handmade.
I've been in the business of trust as long as I can remember. Marketing is, at its core, convincing an audience to trust a company. Writing novels is asking readers to trust you'll take them on a satisfying journey. And being a mother is an exercise in trusting your instincts and becoming worthy of the trust of your children. Trust is sacred business.
Eventually I will translate this handwriting to a computer and publish it on the web for others to read. In that process, the raw edges will get smoothed out — but my hope, my plan, is to keep the spirit of the writing alive. It's this spirit that differentiates human writing from AI-generated content, after all. Robo-writing leaves a mechanical thumbprint, and it's hard to identify now, even when your gut tells you something about a piece of writing feels "off." That off-ness, I believe, is the void where human spirit should be.
We live in an increasingly automated world, and I have no doubt that AI is here to stay. Like the internet and cell phones. We have to learn to adapt, yes. Yes, and — it makes our spirit-filled human creations that much more valuable.
And how does human-written content connect to trust, you ask? It's inextricable from trust. I'm trusting I'll find the words to express my experience and ideas. Trusting my hand to jot them down. Trusting something here will resonate with you, the reader. And you're trusting me, in exchange, to share something worthwhile. Can we hold up this process to AI-generated marketing content from a company and call it equal? No. And I don't believe anyone would argue with me on this. What we're doing — you and me, here on this page — is creating a human-to-human connection.
Now the question is, can the companies and organizations communicating with us follow suit? Can they return to their roots as not nameless, faceless entities, but groups of humans trying to help others create change? This is what I have been trying to help my clients achieve in my consulting firm for the last decade. And right now, the call I feel to help people communicate like humans has risen to a banshee scream.
I don’t expect a tech startup to handcraft their content the way I have here. But what I hope for, through my work with them, is that they’ll find the human spirit of their words again.
Because it’s that human spirit that an audience — you, my dear reader — has been searching for and left wanting.