Don Dingee

Time to face this blog post I've been procrastinating on, great chatting with everyone and thanks for being in here / out there with advice and support.

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Legal gaffes may be what burns the whole thing down, IMHO.

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One of the big time writers for an electronics industry rag a few years back had the annoying habit of coming into a meeting, looking like he paid attention, never taking a note, and reproducing quotes EXACTLY. Pretty amazing to watch. #FreelanceFriends

No planting bad days is great advice.

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Yup. I'm almost always synthesizing quotes from badly worded verbal train of thought, or sometimes two or three of them captured in the transcript. They read and almost always approve making them sound good. #FreelanceFriends

Same here, I pay for Grammarly Pro and use it integrated with Word, it speeds me up. I also pay for Otter to save time, albeit with amusing handling of tech terminology, in transcribing briefings/interviews and mining quotes. #FreelanceFriends

Honestly, that complexity is the only thing standing in between me and retirement right now. Rolling the dice that AI can't handle my niche, at least in final, polished form. #FreelanceFriends

Agreed, if my name is going on it, I'm OK taking an outline or even a rough draft, but it will be heavily revised before publication and it will look like my work. (See hours are hours rule.)

However, my name doesn't go on the vast majority of stuff I do, so I'm ambivalent.

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Yeah, that's pure slime.

My clients are pretty clear on my position: hours are hours once expended, whether you use the work product or not.

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If you have unlimited compute resources, AI coding may get you a solution.

My biz is embedded. Size, weight, and power. Limited memory. Bit-level manipulation. Timing constraints. AI coding for embedded is an absolute joke.

Fight me.

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Yes, AI is really bad at flow and transitions. It makes points in an outline but cares not about readability and progression of a storyline.

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A2: Definitely, for two reasons:

- To let them see what kind and how much fixing is required,
- The rate remains the same.

But I've already caught someone sending me an AI draft, letting me comment, and rejecting all of it. AI is way too confident, and so are most heavy users.

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A1: It's everywhere in electronic design automation. And it's impacting prospecting for my writing clients. 20+ yrs in this niche and I still have to prove my worth to new clients versus AI. However, initial glance is AI can't handle PhD-level subject complexity my clients demand. #FreelanceFriends

Ha, I see cut and paste is not working for me this morning. #FreelanceFriends

Hi, I'm Don. In the wilderness north of San Antonio, I write for electronics and semiconductor firms - case studies, solution briefs, white papers, and thought leadership blog posts. In the wilderness north of San Antonio. Spring training starts tomorrow! #FreelanceFriends

Woo-hoo, new Failure album coming!!!

Call me when someone figures out how to move closed captioning (on for my wife) so it doesn't cover the score bug.

Hi Perry, good to hear from you. My family is originally from Dutchess County NY, I grew up in Claverack in Columbia County. Lots of Dingees in that general area, probably all related somehow. Ancestor built one of the first houses in Beacon, owned by the DAR today.

ha, that site is gonna be the Washington Post for sure, go ahead, fire all the sports writers, see what happens

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Peace out, everyone ... don't forget to take care of yourselves in these trying times.

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Thank you @angelatague.bsky.social for your work in putting topics together, kicking off conversations, and injecting knowledge! #FreelanceFriends

There is no doubt in my mind that AI is absolutely useless writing about baseball, and probably any sport.

It seems that some folks are gonna have to go Bart Simpson versus the stove before they figure out the risks of AI not working.

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That's interesting, I'm keeping an eye out for those. I am seeing a bit of my (large) clients' subject matter experts thinking they can write their own stuff better than I can (AI-assisted or not), but they ... can't. It takes a while to prove that, though.

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My wife laffs when I catch something breaking and it's only on Bluesky, she says "nah, that's not ..." and then it shows up on cable 30 minutes later.

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Yeah, LI is definitely stretching out, I'm seeing more 2w and even 3w old posts.

That's why I dropped X and came here, they completely melted the real-time aspect. You can still see breaking news here on Bluesky.

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A3a: Then, there's FB. Don't like it, but we do use it for our SABR chapter. It generates a whopping 2% of our traffic, but it engages specific people in our <100 person local audience, so we keep it. As @amylhampton.bsky.social said, it also depends on where your audience is. #FreelanceFriends

A3: Totally depends on the channel. Weekly on LinkedIn is fine for posts, though you might want to jump in for comments more often. Monthly is too slow, you lose momentum in the algorithm. Daily is kinda a requirement for TT, IG if that's your bag. #FreelanceFriends

Ooooooh, I have never tried the high concept pitch (it's like this thing you know plus that thing you know with a new spin). It's kinda what AI is doing, though. One of my appeals to my clients is you *don't* want to look like everyone else with AI-generated stuff, right? #FreelanceFriends

A2a: Plus mid-February is just about the time the frenzy in my niche slows down, DesignCon is next week - just cleaning up a thought leadership interview piece. After smoke clears from shows, folks tend to regroup. #FreelanceFriends

A2: not sure where things are going. It is hard to land a writing customer in tech right now with all the AI noise out there. It's still being patient waiting for people who have worked with me, or have been referred to me, and can afford my rates.

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