While most of my planning and goal setting happens in the autumn, I often use the new calendar year as a time to make small changes for my business. This year is no exception and I’ve set a modest goal: remain flexible and find new ways to adapt during this continued and prolonged period of change and uncertainty. To do so, I’m returning to regular writing and a small experiment.
Regular Posts and Newsletter
I hope to return to regular writing in the form of blog posts and the newsletter. While I like the consistency a biweekly schedule brings, that proved unsustainable. My hope is for at least one blog post and a newsletter each month.
I love to share my knowledge freely on this site, that’s not going to change. I know that many find my posts and writing useful and have expressed desire to show support. So to make that easy, there’s now an easy way to do that. There are no expectations on my part, but plenty of gratitude if you’re so inclined.
Experiment: NLP for solo and micro businesses
A very long time ago (even longer in technology years), I studied Computer Science and Information Management. My interests were (and are) in language – how we communicate and use language to organize and identify information, and how to automate it (or if it should). There were a variety of topics I studied, such as artificial intelligence and knowledge management, and they are no longer something confined to science fiction or esoteric academic journals.
While we hear big stories about AI today, I’ve noticed one specific sub-topic begin to show up more in my everyday reading — natural language processing (NLP). I studied this at a cursory level as an undergrad over twenty years ago. I’m fascinated by the automation and manipulation of content – both in generating summaries or creating novel content. When GPT-3 made headlines two years ago I added it to my list of things to learn more about. Now it’s time to do something about it.
In this experiment I plan to explore AI in general and NLP in particular. I’m curious to learn answers to the following:
- How has the field advanced?
- Can I explain how it works in plain language?
- How might it benefit solo and microbusinesses?
- What currently unexpected ethical consequences might this new technology bring to society?
My plan is to catch up on the changes and write about what I’m learning here.
