Summary
Yes, AI helped to generate this story’s image, and yes, it’s a little cheesy. But it works for our Co-cre8 project and here’s the backstory...
Blaine Mathieu, founder of The River Group (TRG), was preparing materials earlier this week for our Creatorbase® Editorial and Publishing Operation (EPO) strategy work. I asked him for guidance on how I should set context for today’s working session, based on the TRG approach and our superheroes theme. Blaine immediately generated the first image in ChatGPT, and then I finalized it in Canva. The whole process took about 20 minutes including a few texts.
The image is only a small piece of intellectual capital that our team co-created this week with preparation, face-to-face conversations, and decisive decision making. Our cheesy image helped us to align and inspire action.
The situation described above is the Co-creators Way in action. Experts agree on an idea and desired outcomes, then collaborate with a contemporary workflow and tools to get us there. “Working to reimagine such a creative domain, with people and agentic AI collaborating, is exciting,” said Blaine. “I appreciate that you asked The River Group to help lead the way.”
Don’t give your relationships or thinking away to AI
Co-create with people first, then AI. In his recent ROI article, Brian Solis said: “I use AI every day and as an AI optimist, my work is focused on what it can help us become and achieve. But I’m increasingly convinced that the defining divide of this era won’t be between people who use AI and those who don’t. It will be between those who use it to expand their capacity to think, create, question, and learn, and those who gradually outsource those capabilities to the machine.”
CEO role for everyone
In my humble opinion, “CEO” is a useful way for us all to think about the essence of our individual roles, and a tool to then do the work for stakeholders: Co-creator, Expert, Owner.
In the AI era with disruption and opportunity, you can now be a superhero to solve a big problem. Your customers, partners, employees, and team members are overwhelmed by planned and unexpected changes. You can be a guide who helps them to move through challenging situations and achieve goals.
Simple model based on the CEO acronym:
- Co-creator: Work with a go-to community of trusted experts whose skills you lack and complement yours. Be a specialist in your domain and a generalist across related domains, creating outcomes with people first, enabled by advanced workflows and tools.
- Expert: Keep building foundational and new expertise through curiosity and learning by doing. Be the business domain expert and essential person your stakeholders need.
- Owner: Own the stakeholder problem, value proposition clarity, and the product or service that solves it. Be essential.
For enterprise employees and solopreneurs
Experienced professionals hold deep knowledge that many organizations are losing. To be essential as an enterprise employee or solopreneur, package your domain mastery around a specific problem, add needed AI fluency, and rely on a community of experts to fill your gaps. Be essential by co-creating outcomes that matter for growth.
Grow for Durable Ownership™
What does Durable Ownership (DO) mean in practice? It is a deliberate mindset shift from passive consumer of content and tasks to active Co-creator of impact and outcomes. It is a commitment to growing your professional and personal assets with an owner’s mentality.
That requires cultivating three core areas, weekly:
- Your go-to community of business domain experts and meaningful relationships. (Co-creator)
- Your intellectual capital and well-being: knowledge, health, financial resources, and safeguards. (Expert)
- Your reputation for being invaluable and trusted; essential. (Owner)
In the AI era, tools can become outdated quickly. Reputation, knowledge, and relationships grow in value over time with consistency. Mastering co-creation is how you keep ownership value and well-being while AI expands your capability.
What’s next?
Our EPO strategy and implementation work with guidance from The River Group and several of our community members will help Creatorbase to:
- Attract new members, advocates, partners, and clients
- Co-create high-quality media assets and digital experiences with and for members
- Elevate and amplify members’ authority and reputations
- Move toward our goal of engaging an audience of at least 1 million people by December 2028
“I had a blast at today’s Creatorbase workshop,” said Nery Ordoñez, Founding 500 member. “Who knew pulling apart the way a story goes from ‘Hey, what if we wrote about this?’ to ‘It’s live!’ could be so much fun? I left with a few ideas I want to try and a new appreciation for all the little things that go into getting a good story out into the world.”
“Great working session,” said Corina Tennies, Founding 500 member. “As a freelancer, it’s so beneficial to be part of a community that shares information and new ways of doing things. And I loved Blaine’s workshop, specifically using our phones to take a poll and then analyzing the results as a group on a shared screen.”
We’ll keep you posted as this Co-cre8 project moves toward implementation. You’ll also notice the impact here on Creatorbase.com and beyond over the next several months.
Help us help you and others
Which operation are you reimagining for people first, enabled by AI? Choose at least one action below to engage:
- Apply to join Creatorbase member-only discussions and Co-cre8 projects.
- Subscribe to the Creatorbase Brief™ weekly newsletter for member insights and updates.
- Share on LinkedIn with #Creatorbase and #TheRiverGroupAI hashtags.
