Well…it depends on how you see it! Did Artificial Intelligence sweep you off your feet or catch you off guard? There are always two sides to a coin and whichever side you are looking at it from, we all agree that AI is here to stay.
On any given day, we find ourselves swinging widely between the extremes of AI – from exhilaration and excitement to caution and concern – sometimes both within a few hours. You are one day super excited that the mundane task you grudgingly used to chug along for several hours now gets done quite literally with the click of a button; then the other day you are faced with copyright, energy, ethics concerns related to AI and ensuring all the behind-the-hood conscientious practices that we uphold every day in our profession are factored in.
One thing that is missing largely from the AI conversation is what happens to human connections if more work gets automated. Are we all doomed to our isolated desks and “chatting” with the AI bots becoming our work conversations?
Not necessarily! We are here to argue on the contrary. Even in an AI world, the power of human connections remains unparalleled. And one of the great ways to make those connections in the workplace is by meeting peers through professional development organizations like CESSE.
Anjana: ACCESSE25 is less than a month away and I’m excited to attend the conference, soak in all the education, and make new connections. But to tell the truth, I have already started reaping the rewards even before the conference has begun. It’s great to have connected with you, Ellen, through the ACCESSE 25 Program Committee!
To share my CESSE story, I’ve been involved with CESSE for the past 5 years and my involvement never stops giving back in bunches. When I attend the Annual ACCESSE conference, I connect with peers, and we stay in touch after the conference. I find that incredibly rewarding for my career development.
I find fellow CESSE members incredibly supportive. They are always there to help and happy to connect you to one of their peers if they find that it will be beneficial. Let’s say I’ve made friends with friends-of-my-CESSE-friends who eventually became my friends too. It’s a ripple effect of benefits!
One angle I’d like to touch upon in the AI vs. human discussion is career development and job search. Every job posting these days receives an overwhelming number of applications and recruitment professionals are dependent on the Application Tracking Systems, often powered by AI, to filter through them to identify potential candidates. This has rewritten the resume writing process to involve keywords, presenting information using metrics, and many other effective strategies to spotlight your resume. They all work great but a human component that can significantly boost your application’s visibility is a peer referral.
Networking during conferences and engaging in volunteer activities with peers through organizations like CESSE can build agency for you when you are looking for that next right opportunity. I can vouch for this as I have personally benefitted from this in my career.
Ellen: Anjana, I completely agree! When it comes to career development, human connection is everything. A personal referral or a direct connection to a hiring team will always carry more weight than a cold resume, no matter how perfectly it is formatted or how strong the metrics are.
I’m also looking forward to ACCESSE25! My involvement with CESSE has ebbed and flowed over the years. Like many of us, I’ve often told myself I’m “too busy” to attend conferences or stay active in professional communities. But after a particularly frustrating year navigating the complexities of hybrid meetings, I realized something needed to shift. I needed to reconnect with peers who understood my unique set of challenges because they have tackled them too.
Since returning to in-person conferences just 18 months ago, the impact has been immediate. The fresh perspectives, time-saving tips, and shared experiences from fellow professionals have saved my sanity, my budget, and my events!
But even more powerful than the insights are the relationships. I met incredible people at every turn; in workshops, on city tours, during community events, and at concerts. Those shared experiences allowed us to fast-track trust in each other.
When we’re physically present with one another, we align more quickly both emotionally and cognitively. We build trust by reading nonverbal cues, exchanging glances, reacting in real time, and finding common ground through shared moments. These face-to-face experiences activate our brain’s social bonding systems and create a lasting sense of belonging.
In just a year and a half, the personal connections I’ve made at conferences have opened professional doors I never imagined possible. I now have a trusted network that serves as my sounding board, support system, and source of inspiration.
I can’t wait for ACCESSE25 and all the opportunities it holds to learn, grow, and strengthen the human connections that fuel our careers and our communities.
Leveraging technology to boost work productivity is a win-win for any organization and AI tools are yet another powerful arsenal in our toolbox. The power of human interactions, though, form the basis of our society and are evergreen in their ability to make connections, share knowledge, and make collective progress. Conferences like ACCESSE25 offer a rich ground to meet peers and expand our network, allowing us to approach the latest technologies like AI as allies and not competitors in the workplace.
