One way to kick off the new year is to create a plan that involves investing in yourself. Imagine you are at a company. Your college experience is a distant memory. You completed all of the onboarding training years ago. And, now, you are wondering where to take your skills, career.
I urge you to invest in yourself in 2024 and take advantage of the vast amount of online training available to you. You literally have no excuses left. With training, AI tools, and some time, you can write a novel this year. With training, AI tools, and some time, you can write a business plan and go for the moon. With training, AI tools, and some time, you can create the perfect dinner party and wow your Instagram following with content. With training, AI tools, and some time, you can finally win your fantasy football league and make sure your friends remember it.
The Double-word Score in 2024: AI Training
In 2024, find and take AI training. I am not saying to take training that teaches you to make your own AI startup; I am talking about finding training that teaches you how to leverage the power of AI in your career, hobbies, or life. Your favorite creators spent 2023 trying to get their heads around generative AI like ChatGPT, Midjourney, and Bard. They went through the hype cycle and have landed on a spot where they recognize ethical concerns but understand AI’s cultural impact.
Enter Kirby Ferguson.
I have been following Kirby Ferguson for over a decade. Kirby helped me demystify invention and creativity. He unlocked a creator within me by giving me a process. Kirby is best known for his YouTube series, Everything is a Remix. Give yourself the first gift of 2024 and watch the entire series right now.
This is one of the most impactful videos that I have ever watched. I am not alone in that feeling. I noticed a recent comment on the Everything is a Remix (complete series) video.
[The] “everything is a remix” video from 10 or more years ago was probably one of the first video essays I remember watching on the internet and still to this day remains one of the most memorable and impressionable ones I’ve watched since. Just now, after fiddling around with Midjourney, I went to YouTube to rewatch it after all these years.
YouTube Comment Section
This comment perfectly underscores what’s going on right now. Humans are grappling with what it means to be creative. Creatives who were blessed to have gone through the Everything is a Remix series remembered that there is a process to help weather the storm with or without AI. This YouTube commenter tried out Midjourney, which is a lightning rod for the generative AI discourse, and Everything is a Remix came to mind.
Reading Kirby’s blog posts from 2023, I could feel that he was going through the AI journey and trying to figure out what it all meant. Maybe it all means nothing. We are doomed. Or maybe there is a way to thread the needle and find out how it could help accelerate our content creation work. Maybe we are really good at writing blog posts, but AI helps shorten the time to publish by a few minutes. Those minutes might add up to allow for more content creation. And, maybe with AI, a creator could create other forms of content. Take a blog post and turn it into a script for a YouTube video, for example. This means that not only are you doing what you normally do a little faster, but you are now capable of doing something new by leveraging AI tools.
Create Content with ChatGPT and AI 2024
To my delight, Kirby Ferguson released a new online training course, Create Content with ChatGPT and AI 2024. It’s not free. I bought it for myself, sight unseen. In some ways, I feel like this is my way of supporting Kirby’s work, as it has been so valuable to me over the years, but I also trusted his voice and wanted to unlock more secrets of using AI for content creation. I took the entire course in one sitting, although it is designed to be taken at your leisure. I got sucked in, paid attention to the short videos, and followed the exercises closely. Even for the most experienced creators, there are gems in the course. And, if you are new to AI and content creation, this is the perfect starting point. Carve out four hours from your hectic schedule and invest in yourself. Kirby has released the first part of the course on his Everything is a Remix website for you to evaluate the ROI. This is the first course from a content creator who operates at a high level and it is fascinating to get their thoughts on AI—a window into their process. Just like the creativity process Kirby put forth over a decade ago, Kirby comes back to us with a process for how to leverage ChatGPT for content generation.
Invest in yourself this year—and every year.