Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | July 22, 2024 | Worcester Business Journal 19 By Julia Becker Collins Julia Becker Collins is the chief operating officer of Northborough- based Vision Advertising. We've all seen artificial intelligence- generated content, either images or words, running the gamut of painfully obvious AI to dubious provenance. This is the double-edged sword all productivity tools, including AI, fall into: Can you use it enough to save time while spending enough time to make content engaging and helpful? I think you can. 4) Why would you use AI tools in mar - keting? The answer comes down to a lack of resources: time, expertise, money. You might be lacking in one area, like not having enough time to write daily social media statuses, or lacking in multiple, like not having a marketing background nor the overhead to bring on an employee who does. AI tools, including text chatbots like ChatGPT or Bing AI and image generators like Midjourney or Stable Diffusion, look promising when your resources are thin. 3) People will notice unaltered AI mar - keting. If you're taking content made by an AI and directly placing it into your market- ing, people will notice. AI work is imitation, and you don't need to look too closely to find issues with both style and substance. This can lead to pointed comments and discussions that can hurt your brand. 2) Use AI as a starting point. The solution is to treat AI like you would an intern: It needs supervision and review, and not all content it produces will be useful. A few examples include: • Prompts and outlines: If you're not sure what to write a blog about or post to social media, chatbots can produce general lists or prompts, or you can use produced content as a starting point. • Not cornerstone content: AI shouldn't produce content integral to selling, such as website copy, and certainly not products people have to pay to see. Instead, it can help create blogs, social media, and con - tent on third-party websites. • Content needing branding: AI graphics or written content lacks your logos, voice, and calls to action. Once the AI content is produced, it needs these further edits. 1) You still have to do the work. You need to be hands-on to ensure your marketing is successful. From reviewing all the content created to making edits, you're involved. AI can be a useful tool, but it's not replacing the hard work. You'll need to build your marketing expertise; AI only helps. Modernizing the electric grid BY SLOANE M. PERRON Special to WBJ T he foundation of any successful company is having a strong and effective team. e ideal team has talented individuals who can function separately but are even better together. Recognizing individual strengths, outlining shared goals, and establishing clear parameters are all elements of a successful team. Recognize individual strengths. Everyone has unique strengths and weaknesses, which can either make or break a team. Allowing employees to do what they are naturally best at and are passionate about creates success. "is will lead to not only superior work production and ethics but also happier employees with longer retention," Lydia Vargo of Forbes says about the benefits of focusing on individuals' strengths. Outline shared goals. It is key to unite different personalities and work approaches under the same goal so team members know what they are working toward. Clear goals give teams organization as they work together to hit their target. MIT's Human Resource Department provides training on establishing S-M-A-R-T goals: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. rough S-M-A-R-T, teams have an actionable goal uniting them and giving them direction. Establish clear parameters. While the goal is to create a peaceful and productive team, parameters need to be set for when the team cannot reach a consensus or arguments arise. In these moments, having a clear set of ground rules will help mitigate team tension and allow productivity to resume. e University of California, Berkeley recommends having general guidelines in place such as setting time limits for meetings, encouraging respectful debate, and allowing team members to share their real thoughts and feelings about a proposed idea. HOW TO BUILD AN EFFECTIVE TEAM BY KEVIN SPRAGUE Special to WBJ A er months of careful planning and listening to residents, businesses, and community organi- zations throughout the Fitchburg area, Unitil submitted our Electric Sector Modernization Plan to the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities in late January. is was a significant milestone in what has been a very important process in planning for the future electric infrastructure in Massachusetts that supports the state's energy climate goals. e plan complements Massachu- setts' ongoing decarbonization efforts and provides a roadmap for how we can ensure all needed infrastructure is built in an equitable fashion. Historically, system planning was first and foremost focused on ensuring electric service remained safe, reliable, and able to affordably manage the capacity needs of the region. However, any transition to a cleaner energy future requires the system to increase its ca- pacity by as much as three to four times to meet the level of electrification load. is expected increase in load adds an entirely new dimension to planning: we need to build out new electric infra- structure in a manner which maintains safety, reliability, and affordability, but we must also pace this work appro- priately alongside the expected load growth to avoid building investments before they are needed. At the same time we increase capacity, we are focused on continu- ous improvement to grid reliability, communications, and resiliency. For us, it is not just about building up our system, but also about creating and enabling benefits in a way not disrup- tive to our customers' energy needs. We are working to enable the increased, timely adoption of renewable ener- gy and distributed energy resources (DER). We support energy storage and electrification technologies necessary to decarbonize the environment and economy. Of course, some of this work is already ongoing. Programs like make- ready initiatives for electric vehicles, which will help businesses who want to add charging stations are already approved and available. We are enabling DER interconnections, or small-scale power generation projects like rooop solar arrays. One of the largest projects is replac- ing our Advanced Metering Infrastruc- ture system, designed to provide more detailed and granular usage data in support of innovative rate structures such as electric vehicle rates or time of use rates. Currently, our metering provides customers information about daily use, but this change will create smaller intervals within the metering data to allow us to provide customers information on a granular level. A significant portion of our Massa- chusetts service territory is designated in environmental justice communities, and we took strides to make this pro- cess as inclusive as possible. We offered translation services for Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese-speaking custom- ers. We took these steps because it is important for customers to understand our collective roles in making the re- gion prepared for grid modernization. So, what's next for our Electric Sector Modernization Plan? e filed plan is being reviewed and discussed through public hearings and technical sessions with the DPU. But that isn't the end of the conversation; in fact it's just the beginning. ere will be additional revisions to the plan over time, and we recognize that planning for the future is a holistic and iterative process. e pro- cess isn't just us telling our stakeholders what's happening but seeking a genuine dialogue. 4 Things I know about … ... Using AI in marketing Kevin Sprague is vice president for engineering at Lunenberg-based utility Unitil, which provides gas and electric service in north Worcester County, along with Maine and New Hampshire. W W W

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