So I had a very annoying little business/social media learning moment this week. I’m still pretty new to intentionally using social media for my business, and I’ve been trying different AI tools because, realistically, I cannot personally do every single piece of content creation, graphics, scheduling, editing, posting, etc. And one of the things I had been letting AI help with was graphics. Well. One of the carousels I had scheduled actually published with completely messed up text in the images. Not like one typo. Like duplicated words, overlapping letters, parts that were basically unreadable. And I somehow did not catch it before it went live. Which was especially horrifying because my business is literally education, curriculum, language, communication, professional learning... So yeah. Great look. 😬 I deleted it, and then immediately started checking everywhere else because of course my next thought was, “Wait. Where else did I use this?” And honestly, that was probably the more useful part of the whole thing. Because yes, the AI messed up the graphic. But I also had a system where something could be generated, scheduled, and posted without me actually stopping to look closely enough at the final visual before it went out. That part is on the process. Which is also kind of funny because so much of the work I do is literally about asking, “Is this actually a people problem, or is this a system problem?” Apparently I needed to ask myself the same question. So I’m changing how I do it. I still absolutely want AI helping me with research, organizing, drafting, repurposing, figuring out structure, and all the behind-the-scenes stuff that makes running this business possible. But I think I want way less AI-generated imagery. Today I literally sat at the table with colored pencils and started doodling little brains, books, arrows, flowers, speech bubbles, puzzle pieces, lightbulbs, paths, hearts, and some very questionable ladders. And I kind of love them. They are not perfect. That is sort of the point. They actually feel more like me. So now I’m thinking I can use my own doodles, my own photos, simple shapes, and real text that gets laid out cleanly in Canva instead of asking AI to invent the whole visual. Which honestly feels better anyway. I think this is one of the weird parts of building a business right now. We’re all using these tools while also figuring out where we actually want them in the process. And sometimes you only figure that out after something goes a little sideways. For me, apparently, the answer is: AI can help me build the thing. I just don’t want it deciding what my brand looks like. Also apparently my brand needed more colored pencils.

AI Evaluation