Don't Let AI Kill Personal Touch [Audio Note]

Before the school year started this week as I record this, I got together with the Home and School Association. I'm the president of, it's essentially the PTA of my kid's school. And we got together for dinner and drinks just to possibly meet each other. There are some new board members and just kind of prepare for the school year. And there was something that came up a couple of times that has been rattling around in my brain for a while. And it's the idea of personal touch. So for some context, I went to small schools my entire life. I went to Catholic grammar school, Catholic high school, Catholic college. Like the University of Scranton is a Jesuit university. And, you know, the graduating classes respectively were like 20, 96, and maybe a thousand. And so that is my sole. lived experience. When I went to college, I purposefully didn't want to go to someplace like Penn State where one class could be as big as half of my graduating class, right? So, or one course, I guess, would be like, you know, half as big as my graduating class. Because I wanted to be able to make a bigger impact, even if it was in a smaller pond. And in talking to some of the parents who have sent their kids to both Catholic school, which is my kids go to Catholic school now, versus public school, there was a marked difference. And there are a lot more, my perspective or my, you know, my thinking is that there are possibly a lot more opportunities in a public school, more sports, more extracurricular activities, more classes that you could take. You know, I never had like a home economics class or a shop class. Um, We kind of barely had a computer class. I was like the resident computer expert in my school. So at least that was true my senior year. So it was like you don't get that sort of those sort of opportunities. But what you do get is more of a personal touch because the classes are so much smaller. The teachers, you get that one-on-one with like the teacher knows every student. student. My oldest teachers from kindergarten and first grade still ask about Teresa. The older teachers are excited to have Louie and to meet Abby. And from what I understand, from what I have heard at the public school, at least here, you know, you're in the machine. You know, the kids are being pushed through the school. You know, there's not a lot of mentoring kids. Some teachers might not even know all of the kids. And I've heard the same thing recently about doctors' offices. Like big networks are buying doctors' offices, and you never get the same pediatrician. You get whoever is there that day, and they're pushing kids through the machine and the system. And I'm really grateful that we love our pediatrician. And my personal doctor, I think, like, he's, he more than any doctor I've ever had has helped me get my health back on track. Um, because he has taken the time to like know and understand me. And so I'm thinking about this because if you have followed me on LinkedIn, you'll know that I've been posting very similar things about AI. And I think there is a fuller episode here. But this is just something that's been on my mind. Personal touch, no matter what, will be so, so, so important. And AI is trying to kill this. The amount of pitches I get for this podcast has increased dramatically and the quality has gone down dramatically. because now people are using AI-based CRMs that just transcribe the latest podcast and summarize it and then pitch their guest. I get DMs on LinkedIn that are so impersonal. I got a network connection request on LinkedIn. It was very obviously an AI-generated comment, but the kicker is that the person connecting is someone I know personally and have had conversations with. But they just put their personal connection machine indiscriminately to work. So if you want to stand out, it's going to be easier if you have a personal touch. And, you know, it's something that I'm really going to dig in on. I want to, my whole thing is helping solopreneurs get back their time through automation. But even more than that, it's like used technology to build better human interactions, not replace them. Something at my core, something that Justin Moore said to me recently, like about having a North Star, like my North Star is using technology so that you can, can spend time on relationships, not use technology to remove yourself from the relationship building process. And whether it is teaching kids or taking some extra time with a patient or creating content or connecting with people or cold pitching, using technology to remove yourself is a losing strategy. The winning strategy is smaller scale, better connections. That's what I'm thinking about. I'd love to hear your thought on this. If you go to streamlined feedback.com or email me, Joe at casabona.org. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks so much for listening to this audio note. And I hope you find some space in your week.