Category: Professionalism

GenAI in Professional Settings: Adoption Trends and Use Cases

GenAI in Professional Settings: Adoption Trends and Use Cases

Debra W Kahn (@debrawk.bsky.social)

Some content and project professionals are making their GenAI wishes come true, some are still contemplating their first wish, and some feel trapped in the genie’s bottle. Such is the current state of GenAI use within organizational boundaries.

In the past few weeks, I have been engaging with practitioners through events and private discussions on the application of GenAI to everyday work. Most notably, I recently delivered a recorded presentation on Human-in-the-Loop for IPM Day 2025, set for release on November 6; led a virtual session for the PMI Chapter of Baton Rouge on September 17, 2025, titled “GenAI: The Attractive Nuisance in Your Project”; and participated in an October 2 webcast, “An Imperfect Dance: Responsible GenAI Use.”

What folks told me didn’t always surprise me.

What they told me matched, for the most part, some of the GenAI adoption patterns I’ve been researching. I’ll share those trends, as well as common and emerging use cases and persistent drawbacks, in this month’s blog post.

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Content Creation in the Time of Disinformation: A Pathway to Trust

Content Creation in the Time of Disinformation: A Pathway to Trust

Debra W Kahn (@debrawk.bsky.social)

“Easy to process equates to easy to believe.” These words leaped off the page as I was rereading David Dylan Thomas’ book Design for Cognitive Bias recently. They apply to the gamut of modern deliberative information-making (short- and long-form) from ad slogans to instruction manuals. They also inform deliberately deceptive content—manipulative and fact-free social media posts, press releases, and political speeches—or disinformation.

As my mind began to grasp the far-reaching implications of this quotation, I realized that it also speaks indirectly to the central construct in successful product communication: trust.

As professional communicators, how can we earn our audience’s trust? How can we appeal to readers who are potentially adrift in a disinformation-polluted social environment?

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The Secret to Consistent Voice, Tone, and Style 

The Secret to Consistent Voice, Tone, and Style 

Debra W Kahn (@debrawk.bsky.social)

Not long ago, I was asked what exactly I do. It’s not really a secret. I help organizations improve their existing content while making room for newly developed content—all while helping to ensure the final, overall experience for the target audience(s) is consistent. But the conversation got stuck on the word “consistent.”

Why is consistency important? How does one achieve it? Especially in technical content?

A consistent voice, tone, and style across documents and online content can be the difference between a cohesive user experience and a confusing jumble of instructions. We’ve all experienced it, right? That user manual or technical guide that feels like a dozen different people wrote it on a dozen different days. The information might be accurate, but the experience of reading it? Well, that’s another story.

So, let’s explore the real story of consistency in voice, tone, and style in technical communication, the pitfalls of inconsistency, and how to establish guidelines that ensure your content speaks with a single voice to the reader, no matter how it is generated or how many writers are involved.

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Of Fallacies, Biases, and Justices: The Terms of Our Time

Of Fallacies, Biases, and Justices: The Terms of Our Time

Debra W Kahn (@debrawk.bsky.social)

It’s political season again in the U.S., and to make an understatement, it’s been a doozy. Speaking of statements (political or otherwise), I think now is a good time to reconsider the logical fallacies we all learned to avoid during our entry-level English composition classes.

No, I will not lecture you like your high-school English teacher would. (And yes, I was one once.) But I would like to lecture Justice Alito. Not only about fallacies but also about biases. More on that later.

Mistakes and Shortcuts

In case you don’t remember, logical fallacies are arguments that make a mistake in logic or fail to “satisfy the criteria of a cogent argument” (Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Mistakes in deductive logic, the “form” of logic praised by Aristotle, are formal fallacies. Failures to make or prove a reasonable argument, whether through deductive or inductive reasoning, are informal fallacies. That might be a distinction without a difference, but historians care. (Please remember I was an English major for a reason.)

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Creating Online Content for Your Customers: Accuracy

Creating Online Content for Your Customers: Accuracy

Debra W Kahn (@debrawk.bsky.social)

The better part of valor might be discretion. (Western society certainly has been debating that since the 17th century.) But I am here to tell you that the better part of quality content is an accuracy check. That’s because inaccuracies in your content can derail your customers’ trust in you, your content, and – by association – your business.

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