Why fluency now passes for thought, a framework for telling "familiar" work from "different" work, and a test to catch the difference in your own writing.
I have my own theory about engagement as performance and actually a note that is going out about it.
The research has become so shallow that I don’t even have AI scan it anymore. Everyone has access to the same info and I also think that research is based on other research so we are just recycling it.
I tend to just put observations in my pieces, and if something is new and interesting, I’ll link where it came from. I’m curious what would come out of the prompt you shared. We def don’t need more tote bags! Thanks Mia! 🩵
Yeeeep, I have the same opinion! I’m so curious what the prompt finds in your work, esp because your observations may already be carrying the “different” part before you add any external research.
This is very interesting Anna. If familiar work gets the likes and shares because it makes people feel seen, and different work is harder to produce and harder to immediately validate there's a real incentive problem.😳
I wasn’t even thinking about this as an incentive problem, but you’re right, it’s a whole other layer not just on platforms, workplaces run on this logic too. I have so many stories from inside the orgs 🙉
Thanks for this article. It puts in the words something I've been thinking about before.
I'm sharing a lot of my professional expertise on user experience research but then at some point I realize I'm just saying what I know is true and required by the industry and not so novel. Hence I started including more of my own experiences and also combining that with the Eastern European art as one of my passions, as a metaphor.
I'm still in the process of finding out how to help readers to transform
Thank you for writing this article and sharing the prompt, Mia! Super interesting read and I love the tote bag analogy!
I'm actually in a phase where I try to move away from creating something "familiar," and I'm putting real effort into finding "different" angles, which, I've found, often come from my individual experience. Going to try the prompt and see what I learn from it. Thanks again! 😊
Yes, this is exactly the interesting thing, the angle often comes from the tiny decisions your experience taught you to make, long before you thought to write them down.
I hope the test surprises you, in a good way! And thank you so much for reading ❤️
This article did a great job explaining what actually goes into a truly original piece of writing. 🙏 And the better AI gets, the more important it will be to have a perspective, a method, or some data that can’t be reproduced by a team of agents. 🤔
Exactly!! ❤️ The shift can be practical, emotional, cognitive, or linguistic, as long as the reader’s relationship to the subject has changed by the end.
Ok wow, this gives me so much to think about because my brain instantly went somewhere slightly different.
I completely agree that we’re surrounded by content that sounds intelligent and insightful but doesn’t actually move anything. But I also wonder if we’re entering a period where the movement itself starts to look a bit different.
For the last couple of decades, information has been incredibly valuable, but now information is effectively infinite and frameworks, protocols and how to’s are bloody everywhere.
So this is where I have a funny feeling that interpretation, relationship and meaning-making may become the more valuable skills set going into the next era. I think the humans that can see the world through relational interpretation and act like a translators for the human experience will be desperately needed to cut through the AI era. But that’s just my thoughts.
Because sometimes finally having language for something you’ve felt for years is the shift and being recognised in your own experience is the thing that moves you.
I don’t think it will be because someone handed you a protocol, but suddenly somebody understand yourself differently.
I don’t know that every piece needs to take the reader by the hand and tell them what to do next anymore. I think many of us are already exhausted from being over-protocoled already, so maybe the deeper work now is helping people make sense of what they’re already living. IDK, 🤷♀️ again, we are attaching this from different angles
I think we all have experienced the realisation that knowing something and feeling recognised inside it are two very different experiences, and I think many that gap is only going to become more obvious in the AI era.
I loved how many threads this pulled on in my brain, babe. Thank you ♥️
Also, just to acknowledge your absolute genius here, I know approximately three things about prompts and nothing about codes and all of that world, so half the practical side of this had my brain buffering like an old dial-up internet connection 😑😂 But the underlying conversation around recognition, meaning and what actually moves people? Fascinating. LOVE ☺️
Ooooooh this is such a good complication of the argument - I think the word “protocol” may be a bit more rigid than intended.
I don’t think every piece needs to hand someone a playbook and demand immediate action either (please don’t do this to me 😅), because changing how someone sees themselves or understands what they’re living can be the movement.
Even when I build and share my systems, I try to leave juuuust enough room for people to adapt them, wander around, and make something of their own rather than follow instructions obediently. Thank you for pulling this thread so thoughtfully (and for surviving the dial-up section 😂) ♥️
Ah! Yet again, here you are reading my mind. Great article.
I'm just in the middle of a draft about the term "Assimilation" and the clash between the most widely used variant (The Star Trek Borg consuming and assimilating all technology, culture, and knowledge to homogenize it into the collective) and the less-used variant (that assimilates knowledge, skills, and experience to create new cognitive synthesis and understanding)
(See @Barbara Poblocka, I love a good metaphor too! Mine tend to be Science Fiction and classical history/philospohy)
Thank you, as ever, @Mia, for the stimulating content you produce and your very practical tools and tips.
You've mapped the exact topology of the failure mode. When you point to "the decisions underneath the words," you're naming the bifurcation point. AI is brilliant at tracing the basin of attraction, smoothing the path through the familiar territory of recognition. But a real shift requires a fork where the trajectory gets forced into a different basin of meaning. AI, trained to minimize surprise, always chooses the smooth continuation. It avoids the fork. Your diagnostic isolates the coordinate where human judgment breaks the gradient descent. That's not just a writing heuristic. It's the geometric proof of where the mind actually lives. Have you found that the most irreplaceable parts of your work are always the ones that felt most uncomfortable to write?
I have my own theory about engagement as performance and actually a note that is going out about it.
The research has become so shallow that I don’t even have AI scan it anymore. Everyone has access to the same info and I also think that research is based on other research so we are just recycling it.
I tend to just put observations in my pieces, and if something is new and interesting, I’ll link where it came from. I’m curious what would come out of the prompt you shared. We def don’t need more tote bags! Thanks Mia! 🩵
Yeeeep, I have the same opinion! I’m so curious what the prompt finds in your work, esp because your observations may already be carrying the “different” part before you add any external research.
Thank YOU for reading! 🩵
This is very interesting Anna. If familiar work gets the likes and shares because it makes people feel seen, and different work is harder to produce and harder to immediately validate there's a real incentive problem.😳
I wasn’t even thinking about this as an incentive problem, but you’re right, it’s a whole other layer not just on platforms, workplaces run on this logic too. I have so many stories from inside the orgs 🙉
Thanks for this article. It puts in the words something I've been thinking about before.
I'm sharing a lot of my professional expertise on user experience research but then at some point I realize I'm just saying what I know is true and required by the industry and not so novel. Hence I started including more of my own experiences and also combining that with the Eastern European art as one of my passions, as a metaphor.
I'm still in the process of finding out how to help readers to transform
super interesting an inspiring read, thanks!
That’s exactly what we need to do! A lot of us never notice it, really, because the industry-standard version gets engagement.
I LOVE that bridge - EE art + UX. Huge advocate of combining multiple interests and creating analogies. This is what makes work unique ❤️
Thank you so much for reading, I’m happy it helped! :)
Thank you for writing this article and sharing the prompt, Mia! Super interesting read and I love the tote bag analogy!
I'm actually in a phase where I try to move away from creating something "familiar," and I'm putting real effort into finding "different" angles, which, I've found, often come from my individual experience. Going to try the prompt and see what I learn from it. Thanks again! 😊
Yes, this is exactly the interesting thing, the angle often comes from the tiny decisions your experience taught you to make, long before you thought to write them down.
I hope the test surprises you, in a good way! And thank you so much for reading ❤️
I loved the article and used the prompt on some of my writing. It was a refreshing approach to reframing the narrative.
thank you so much Tom! 🙏🏻 happy that helped!
This article did a great job explaining what actually goes into a truly original piece of writing. 🙏 And the better AI gets, the more important it will be to have a perspective, a method, or some data that can’t be reproduced by a team of agents. 🤔
thank youuuuu Karen! :)
This is what I took away from the Tote Bag argument...
The real test isn't: Does this article tell the reader what to do?
It's: Does this article leave the reader meaningfully different?
That difference might be new distinction, greater clarity, permission, language for something they've experienced, a better decision, or an action.
Bottom line: Content that merely confirms what the reader already believes isn't the same as content that changes their relationship to the issue.
Exactly!! ❤️ The shift can be practical, emotional, cognitive, or linguistic, as long as the reader’s relationship to the subject has changed by the end.
Thank you Lee!
Ok wow, this gives me so much to think about because my brain instantly went somewhere slightly different.
I completely agree that we’re surrounded by content that sounds intelligent and insightful but doesn’t actually move anything. But I also wonder if we’re entering a period where the movement itself starts to look a bit different.
For the last couple of decades, information has been incredibly valuable, but now information is effectively infinite and frameworks, protocols and how to’s are bloody everywhere.
So this is where I have a funny feeling that interpretation, relationship and meaning-making may become the more valuable skills set going into the next era. I think the humans that can see the world through relational interpretation and act like a translators for the human experience will be desperately needed to cut through the AI era. But that’s just my thoughts.
Because sometimes finally having language for something you’ve felt for years is the shift and being recognised in your own experience is the thing that moves you.
I don’t think it will be because someone handed you a protocol, but suddenly somebody understand yourself differently.
I don’t know that every piece needs to take the reader by the hand and tell them what to do next anymore. I think many of us are already exhausted from being over-protocoled already, so maybe the deeper work now is helping people make sense of what they’re already living. IDK, 🤷♀️ again, we are attaching this from different angles
I think we all have experienced the realisation that knowing something and feeling recognised inside it are two very different experiences, and I think many that gap is only going to become more obvious in the AI era.
I loved how many threads this pulled on in my brain, babe. Thank you ♥️
Also, just to acknowledge your absolute genius here, I know approximately three things about prompts and nothing about codes and all of that world, so half the practical side of this had my brain buffering like an old dial-up internet connection 😑😂 But the underlying conversation around recognition, meaning and what actually moves people? Fascinating. LOVE ☺️
Ooooooh this is such a good complication of the argument - I think the word “protocol” may be a bit more rigid than intended.
I don’t think every piece needs to hand someone a playbook and demand immediate action either (please don’t do this to me 😅), because changing how someone sees themselves or understands what they’re living can be the movement.
Even when I build and share my systems, I try to leave juuuust enough room for people to adapt them, wander around, and make something of their own rather than follow instructions obediently. Thank you for pulling this thread so thoughtfully (and for surviving the dial-up section 😂) ♥️
Thanks for allowing me to explore the threads of my thoughts here babe 🥰
Running this on a post I have in drafts right now. Already uncomfortable. 🤣🩷🦩
hahaha I know! enjoy 💕
So many tote bags upon reflection…
Thank-you.
So, so many :) thank you for reading!
Ah! Yet again, here you are reading my mind. Great article.
I'm just in the middle of a draft about the term "Assimilation" and the clash between the most widely used variant (The Star Trek Borg consuming and assimilating all technology, culture, and knowledge to homogenize it into the collective) and the less-used variant (that assimilates knowledge, skills, and experience to create new cognitive synthesis and understanding)
(See @Barbara Poblocka, I love a good metaphor too! Mine tend to be Science Fiction and classical history/philospohy)
Thank you, as ever, @Mia, for the stimulating content you produce and your very practical tools and tips.
Thank you Stuart! I chatted with Barbara today and she’s fabulous, so this comment feels perfectly timed 😊
I really want to read that draft when it’s out! ❤️
Just published it. Prepare to be assimilated! 🖖🖖🏻
instant bookmark!!
You've mapped the exact topology of the failure mode. When you point to "the decisions underneath the words," you're naming the bifurcation point. AI is brilliant at tracing the basin of attraction, smoothing the path through the familiar territory of recognition. But a real shift requires a fork where the trajectory gets forced into a different basin of meaning. AI, trained to minimize surprise, always chooses the smooth continuation. It avoids the fork. Your diagnostic isolates the coordinate where human judgment breaks the gradient descent. That's not just a writing heuristic. It's the geometric proof of where the mind actually lives. Have you found that the most irreplaceable parts of your work are always the ones that felt most uncomfortable to write?
— Iman and Darja