Daily Inspiration: Skills and Knowledge – “Your most important skill is your ability to learn a new one!”

“Your most important skill is your ability to learn a new one!” – Futurist Jim Carroll

Do I need to repeat this again?

Learning is what most adults will do for a living in the 21st century.

That’s the observation from educator Lewis Perelman, and it could not apply more than to the situation we find ourselves in today with the arrival of a vast number of AI tools. Regardless of whether you think AI is good or bad, it is here to stay, and it would be in your best interest to accelerate your ability to master the skill of what I have long called ‘just-in-time knowledge.’

Consider my own case. I mentioned the other day my use of an extremely powerful tool known as Dow Jones Factiva; it’s my go-to research tool, giving me access to a vast range of information far beyond what I can get on the traditional Internet, or even within AI systems such as ChatGPT. It takes me into the universe of millions of articles from a vast number of publications, many of which are not easily accessible, accessible via a powerful highly targeted, and sophisticated search methodology.

The result is that I feed my knowledge – getting the right knowledge at the right time for the right purpose – with a LOT of very detailed information – when I need that information. That’s long been one of my most important skills, something I mastered almost 40 years ago with the arrival of such research systems. What can I do? Take a look at this set of 1,000+ articles on the role of AI in Clinical Trials, or this smaller subset of the role of AI in Manufacturing. (The latter is but a small file of 100 articles; there are 15 such files). I’ve taught myself how to go out and find a massive set of very specific, detailed information on a particular trend topic that I am currently immersed in, whether for an existing or potential client topic.

Needless to say, it takes a tremendous amount of time to read through these files and undertake the summary research that I need to do, by finding the nuggets of knowledge that I need to ensure my presentation is up to date and spot on. I dare you to take a look at these files, and imagine the hours and hours that I would traditionally need to invest to go through them. Time consuming!

Enter AI!

I’ve been exploring how to use a variety of different tools to query and summarize these documents for the insight I need – I’m mastering a new skill, not content to rely upon just my old one. For now, I’ve settled on a tool called PopAI, feeding it a document of research reports and news articles that is almost 800 pages long, and asking questions of it.

Such as, for example, manufacturing companies actually successfully use AI in their operations:

And then drilling down for specific examples of where they might be doing this with respect to quality control procedures.

Similarly, I’ve been using another tool, Collato.ai, to query these documents.

As I began going down this new research path, I began to realize that these tools were indeed becoming powerful tools to enhance what I was already doing – and decreasing the amount of time in which I needed to do it. That’s a new skill – rather than taking hours and hours to go through vast research sources, I’m now able to do it in but a matter of moments. Obviously, I’ ‘m going back into the documents to check the summaries against the information sources, being on guard for accuracy, as well as doing a quick scan to see what I might have missed. But in essence, I’m learning how to do an old thing in a new way. That’s skills development.

For me, it’s allowing me to generate new knowledge at a far faster pace than I could before.

Think about that – the arrival of generative AI tools is leading to a situation in which we are witnessing a collapse in the cost of knowledge acquisition. That’s significant and transformative, and it demands that those who want to stay in the forefront of the future accelerate the skill set that we have to take full advantage of the opportunity that it presents.

Because learning is what most adults will do for a living in the 21st century!

Coming Monday – I’m starting a new series!

Stay tuned!