Bredemarket

Are You “Everybody Else”?

“Everybody uses ChatGPT.”

“Everybody uses the STAR method.”

Are you everybody else?

Not Everybody Uses ChatGPT

I’m sure I’ve tried ChatGPT at some point during the last two years.

But I don’t use it on a regular basis.

Even though whenever someone talks about generative AI, they usually talk about ChatGPT and nothing else.

So if I want to be like everybody else, I would use ChatGPT just like everybody else does. After all, I am a human and I need to be loved.

But if I were to use ChatGPT regularly, that would require me to create an account.

And I have too many accounts already.

Why not use the credentials of one of my existing accounts for generative AI work?

Not Everybody Uses the STAR Method

And if you want to send a prompt to ChatGPT, ask it to reformat a story based upon the STAR method.

For the few who don’t know what that acronym means, you’re obviously behind the times because everybody uses the STAR method.

The acronym STAR stands for Situation, Task, Action, Result. You can apply this in many situations: for example, during a job interview, you could describe one of your past accomplishments using this format.

After all, it only takes four steps.

But what if I can accomplish the same, um, result in THREE steps?

Problem
Solution
Result

That’s the format that Bredemarket used when writing a dozen case studies for an identity/biometric client.

And it worked just fine.

The client’s prospects didn’t stop doing business with the client because it didn’t differentiate between the situation and the task, or the task and the action, or whatever.

The prospects wanted, um, results, not a deep outline.

Not Everybody Fails to Differentiate

I’ve railed about a lack of differentiation before, but for some odd reason the billions of workers in the world don’t listen to me.

They still think the key to success is to copy what everyone else is doing.

But if I were to intentionally adopt a yellow website them and wear retro glasses and sing a lot like Ray of Social’s Georgia Williams, that doesn’t mean that I can achieve the same results that she can.

For one, if you call her to have a natter about your mish, she probably won’t talk about wildebeests at all.

But she’s still doing OK.

You need to adopt your own tone of voice. I was just discussing this with a Bredemarket client regarding a critical piece of content that needs to be in the client’s own voice. Not mine. Not Georgia’s.

So communicate your way, use your preferred generative AI platform, and use your preferred storytelling method.

You be you.

Addendum about this post

Someone scheduled a half hour meeting with me this morning. While waiting for the person to show (they never did), I completed most of this post.

So the half hour wasn’t completely wasted.

(And it could very well be that the person had a valid reason for not showing. I will, or won’t, find out.)

Another addendum about this post

For those who caught my line

I would use ChatGPT just like everybody else does. After all, I am a human and I need to be loved.

here’s the video. But I want to hear Georgia singing it.

(Note to self: find the “This Charming Charlie” website, in which Charlie Brown cartoons are adapted to contain Smiths lyrics.)

Delivery Packages and Geolocation in Residential Neighborhoods

Today’s musings concern delivery packages and geolocation, and may be pertinent if you receive a residential delivery this month. You know, maybe a present or something.

Let’s say you receive a package at your house, the delivery driver takes a picture of your package on your porch as proof of delivery…and the package is subsequently stolen by a porch pirate before you get it.

“Hey, you’re out of luck,” the company may say. “The package was delivered.”

How long will it be until security professionals advise you to NEVER EVER EVER HAVE RETAILERS DELIVER PACKAGES TO YOUR HOME? Use a locker or a staffed business address, but treat residential delivery as EVIL…just like public wi-fi.

Or perhaps expensive packages could be equipped with geotagging…like your luggage. I know that delivery companies hate geolocation as much as airlines do…but it’s a thought.

(Thanks to the anonymous victim of a porch pirate who inspired this. AI-generated image by Google Gemini.)

Type AI

In conclusion—and I will delve into this later—your beloved AI detector may deliver a bunch of false positives, or Type I errors.

For example, if every word in a post is spelled correctly, that’s an obvious sign the text wasn’t written by a human—correct? In the ever-expanding world of virtual communication, correct spelling is a dead giveaway of non-human content—as is the use of characters unavailable on a standard keyboard. Motörhead made a bunch of £ and € despite not being real. As the band never said,

“Timothy Leary’s dead

No, no, no, no, he’s outside, looking in”

(I had to include one hallucination in this post.)

Use MFAID (multi factor AI detection) to increase accuracy when you claim to detect generative AI.

(Timothy Leary image public domain; lyrics from the Moody Blues, “Legend of a Mind”)

If you want to delve into so-called signs of generative AI writing, see

How to Detect ChatGPT-Written Articles

#honeypot1129

(The original honeypot can be found in a post on my LinkedIn profile.)

As previously promised…

I’ve spent over 10 years in identity and biometrics, and other factors, including one-to-many identification, one-to-one verification, and classification (e.g. how old you are).

But as I have noted in a recent article in the Bredemarket newsletter The Wildebeest Speaks, verifying someone’s identity only goes so far.

(For people reading this on LinkedIn: here comes #honeypot1129, for those paying attention.)

For example, how many LinkedIn users sporting a green banner and an #opentowork hashtag have been approached by a person claiming to be from Company X…who is NOT from Company X?

That, my friends, is #employmentfraud – something that the REAL employees at all the Company X’s out there take very seriously.

Of course, no #fraudster who is doing something like that would be foolish enough to send me a LinkedIn InMail with such a claim…would they?

Or comment on this post and make such a claim?

You’d be surprised…

#fraud

#identity

#knowyourrecruiter

(Pre-Disney image of Winnie the Pooh and his hunny pot from the https://platinumprophouse.com/products/classic-winnie-the-pooh-standee URL)

Saving Money When Filling Prescriptions: Not You, The Companies

Healthcare is complicated. When most of us receive prescriptions from our doctor, either the doctor gives us a physical slip of paper with the prescription, or the doctor electronically sends the prescription to your pharmacy of choice. After that, you deal with the pharmacy yourself. Normally it goes smoothly. Sometimes it doesn’t.

Maybe the patient’s insurance company doesn’t cover the prescription, or charges an exorbitant price for it.
Maybe the patient never picks the prescription up. (The industry term is “adherence.”)

Ritalin. CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2805908.

There are a lot of companies that want to help drug companies, physicians, and others make this process more seamless and less costly (for example, by maximizing gross-to-net, or GTN).

How many companies want to help? One afternoon I estimated that 30 companies are in this market. Based upon past experience in the identity verification industry (namely, all those battlecards my team created), this means that there are probably really more than 100 companies in the market.

While the companies obviously have to please the patients who need the prescriptions, they’re not critically important because the patients (usually) don’t pay the companies for the improved service.

So the companies have to sell others on their services.

Alto Technologies: “Alto Technologies’ configurable platform integrates hub and dispensing capabilities into an automated and seamless single service provider solution that improves patient experience and reduces administrative burden.”

Medisafe: “Patient support begins with onboarding and continues throughout treatment, with intuitive guidance throughout every encounter. From initial prescription to benefits investigation and authorization to shipment tracking, patients receive streamlined support with educational information and real-time updates.”

Phil: “Streamline medication access for your patients and providers. Our digital hub platform empowers retail and specialty-lite manufacturers with an alternative channel solution…”

Truepill: “Whether you’re an established brand looking to reach your patients directly, or an emerging company planning your go-to-market strategy, Virtual Pharmacy is the digital pharmacy solution built to scale.”

Of course, there are many more.

And they all need to tell their stories…

Do You Feel Like We Do

Have you ever been told to do something because one of your competitors does it?

Or have you ever been told to do something because it worked for an expert?

(A little secret: it didn’t work for the expert either. If it did, the expert would be like Myspace Tom and retire completely, rather than hawking The Expert Method of Success in Whatever.)

You be you. And the people who feel like you do will gravitate to you.

Justin Welsh (usually) trusts himself

Last Saturday, Justin Welsh wrote about learning to trust yourself. Here’s the TL;DR version:

The most profitable decisions I’ve made came from trusting my instincts….

Every time, someone with more success than me said I was wrong. And every time, my intuition ended up being right. Not because I’m the smartest person in the world. I’m not. My intuition is right because I know what works best for me.

We each have a way we want to conduct business (and life). The way that someone else conducts business is literally alien to us. I couldn’t be Larry Ellison if I tried…and Larry Ellison couldn’t be me.

I (usually) trust myself

As an example, take the title of my blog post “Do You Feel Like We Do,” and how wrong it is.

Let’s start with the first thing I did wrong: I referred to a song title that many of you don’t recognize.
Now the second thing I did wrong: The reason you don’t recognize the song title is because the song in question is a half-century old. In a world where people discount work that relies on sources predating 2000, this is a fatal move.
Can I move on to my third grievous error? The primary reason that I used that title is because when I repurpose this text (originally a blog post) as an Instagram post, I know exactly which audio I’m going to use.
And number four takes the cake. I’m illustrating this piece with a CURRENT picture of Frampton, in which he looks decidedly different when he said…whatever he said on his talk box.

By Druss379 – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=153396739.

But what’s done is done. So I’m posting this on my blog (and elsewhere) and probably won’t delete later.

What does this mean for YOUR communication?

Now as part of Bredemarket’s content creation process, I will write words for other people.

But I don’t want them sounding like me and talking about wildebeests and citing 50 year old songs.

For example, I won’t write in a Sage tone when my client requires a Maverick tone.

So how do I ensure that the text I write for you sounds like you?

By the questions I ask.

Once I know why you do things, how you do them, and so forth, any resulting content will reflect your unique tone and values.

And your involvement at critical points in the process ensures that the final piece sounds right.

If you can use Bredemarket’s content services, or my proposal or analysis services, contact me.

Bredemarket’s “CPA“: Content – Proposal – Analysis.

You won’t see this part of the post on Instagram

As I mentioned above, this blog post is being repurposed on Instagram, but you won’t see this part.

Because Instagram doesn’t like YouTube videos.

Warning: for those who are not familiar with the album “Frampton Comes Alive,” the live version of “Do You Feel Like We Do” is long.

From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3SbJHwBgbA.

When AI Jumped the Shark

Most product marketing references to artificial intelligence are meaningless. Some companies think that they can simply promote their product by saying “We use AI,” as if this is a sufficient reason for prospects to buy.

I’ve previously observed that saying “we use AI” is the 2020s equivalent to saying “we use Pentium.”

It’s a feature without a benefit.

It’s gotten to the point where meaningless references to AI have jumped the shark.

Literally.

“(Several organizations) received a three-year, $1.3 million National Science Foundation grant to teach Florida middle school teachers and students how to use artificial intelligence (AI) to identify fossil shark teeth….Florida teachers learn to use a branch of AI called “machine learning,” to teach computers how to use shape, color, and texture to identify the teeth of the extinct giant shark megalodon.”

(From https://www.floridamuseum .ufl.edu/earth-systems/shark-ai/)

Now I come from the identity/biometrics industry, which uses machine learning extensively. But customers in this industry don’t really care about the “how,” (machine learning). They care about the “why” (identify individuals). For all the customers care, the vendors could use Pentium for identification. Or blockchain. Or Beatrice. As Loren Feldman says, “It doesn’t matter.”

Remember this the next time you want to identify extinct megalodon shark teeth. Now I admit the exercise serves an educational purpose by exposing teachers to the capabilities of machine learning. But if your sole interest is tooth classification, you can simply purchase the non-expurgated version of Olsen’s Standard Book of Extinct Sharks and get the job done.

Marketing executives, AI is no longer a differentiator. Trust me. If you need assistance with a real differentiator, I can help.

If you want to win business, learn more about Bredemarket’s content – proposal – analysis services here.

Career Detective: My AI-generated “Podcast”

I normally don’t listen to 20+ minute podcasts, but I listened to this one because it was all about me.

Seriously…there’s a 20 minute podcast that focuses on me.

The two people on the podcast spent the entire time talking about my most recent ten years of professional experience.

Except…the people weren’t people.

NotebookLM file-to-audio creation

The people were Google bots, powered by Google’s NotebookLM.

Upload PDFs, websites, YouTube videos, audio files, Google Docs, or Google Slides, and NotebookLM will summarize them and make interesting connections between topics, all powered by Gemini 1.5’s multimodal understanding capabilities.

With all of your sources in place, NotebookLM gets to work and becomes a personalized AI expert in the information that matters most to you….

Our new Audio Overview feature can turn your sources into engaging “Deep Dive” discussions with one click.

I uploaded the most recent version of my resume to NotebookLM.

Technically, this is not my resume; this is a PDF version of a portion of my LinkedIn profile. But my resume has similar information.

NotebookLM used the resume as source material to create a 20+ minute podcast called “Career Detective.” In the podcast, a male and a female pair of bots took turns discussing the insights they gleaned from the resume of John E. “Breedehoft.” (I use a short e, not a long e, but people can call me anything if I get business from it.)

Surprisingly, they didn’t really hallucinate. Or at least I don’t think they did. When the bots said I was deeply qualified, as far as I’m concerned they were speaking the truth.

They even filled in some gaps. For example, I used the acronyms for KYC, KYB, and AML on my resume to save space, so one of the bots explained to the other what those acronyms meant, and why they were important.

Probably the most amusing part of the podcast was when they noted that I had worked at two very large companies. (Just so you know, my resume only goes back to 2015, so Motorola isn’t even discussed.) While Incode and IDEMIA are both multinationals, I wouldn’t characterize Incode as massive.

Anyway, judge for yourself

So here’s the audio episode of “Career Detective” that focuses on…me.

By the way, I learned about NotebookLM via the Never Search Alone Slack workspace, but still need to explore NotebookLM’s other features.

Why Do Enterprises Become Dust?

Hardly anything is permanent. And this applies to boxing AND to B2B sales.

Mike Tyson and legacy

By Super Festivals – https://www.flickr.com/photos/superfestivals/53161465181, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=136938246.

Perhaps you heard what Mike Tyson said a few days ago.

I don’t know, I don’t believe in the word “legacy.” I just think that’s another word for ego. Legacy doesn’t mean nothing. It’s just some word everybody grabbed onto.

It means absolutely nothing to me. I’m just passing through. I’m going to die and it’s going to be over. Who cares about legacy after that?

We’re nothing. We’re just dead. We’re dust. We’re absolutely nothing. Our legacy is nothing.

With the life that Tyson has lived, it’s understandable why he’s echoing Ecclesiastes in this interview.

But you don’t have to have had Tyson’s experiences to realize that legacy does not last.

Neither wanted nor needed

In business (and in life), there are companies (and people) who don’t need you or want you.

This may be temporary. The company that doesn’t need you today may urgently (and importantly) need you tomorrow.

By White House – Eisenhower Presidential Library, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3025709.

Or it may NOT be temporary. There are companies that will NEVER need you or want you.

I recently ran across three such companies that will never need Bredemarket.

Six weeks (now less than six weeks)

Perhaps you noticed Bredemarket’s “six weeks” promotion over the weekend. It was addressed to companies that may have a final project that they want to complete before the year ends in six weeks. (Now 5 1/2 weeks.) I emphasized that Bredemarket can help companies complete those content, proposal, and analysis projects.

The promotion included a blog post, a LinkedIn post, a Facebook reel, an Instagram reel, a YouTube short, and appearances in other online locations. Which is probably overkill, since the promotion is already outdated and can’t be used again until possibly November 2025.

I also included email in this campaign, targeting prospects whom I haven’t worked with recently, or whom I’ve never worked with at all. I didn’t go overboard in my emails; although I have over 400 contacts in Bredemarket’s customer relationship management system, I sent the email to less than 40 of them.

As of this morning, none of the recipients has booked a meeting with me to discuss their end of year needs.

Some explicitly told me that they were fine now and did not need or want Bredemarket’s services for end of year projects.
Some didn’t respond, which probably indicates that they did not need or want Bredemarket’s services either.

And I discovered that three companies (four contacts) will NEVER need or want Bredemarket’s services.

Delivery incomplete

How did I discover that?

Via four “delivery status notification” messages.

So I visited the web pages in question, and they no longer existed.

I’ve been building up my CRM for over four years, so it’s not shocking that some companies have disappeared.

But one of the companies (“Company X”) DID exist a mere eight months ago.

I know this because I prepared a presentation on differentiation (see version 2 of the presentation here), and two representatives from Company X received the presentation in advance of a conference.

After the conference organizer distributed the presentation, I offered to meet with the companies individually (no charge) to discuss their content and differentiation needs, or anything else they wanted to discuss.

While some conference attendees took advantage of my April offer, the representatives from Company X did not.

And now in November, Company X no longer exists.

Could Bredemarket have created the necessary content to keep Company X afloat? Who knows?

But EVERY company needs content to differentiate it from its competitors. Otherwise the competitors will attack you. And your competitors may not be as merciful with you as Jake Paul was with Mike Tyson.

If you need Bredemarket’s help with content, proposal, or analysis services, book a meeting with me.

River Rising

I thought I knew the difference between persons and non-person entities (NPEs), and then the Innu Nation does this:

With its thunderous rapids carving through a wild boreal forest in Quebec’s Côte-Nord region, the Magpie River is well known to white water rafters from around the globe. What these travelers may not know is that the Magpie recently became the first river in Canada to be granted legal personhood.