Hi Friends!
March means International Women's Month, and I keep coming back to the women who inspired me and helped shape who I am today. My mom, Pam, used to lie in my twin bed with me as I wound down for the night, running through the options: marine biologist, photojournalist, lawyer. "You like to argue with me." Then she'd sing that 80s song: your future's so bright, you gotta wear shades. My grandma, Cherie, was a different kind of force. Her tombstone holds nothing but the years and a Frank Sinatra quote: "I did it my way." She was clearing a path before I knew paths needed clearing.
Honestly? I still wish International Women's Day would go away. Not because the moment isn't meaningful. Because I want it to be irrelevant. We're not there yet.
This month we're digging into:
The Taste Layer: what actually survives the AI era
What I'm Loving: Joe Lazer on the storytelling boom
Shining a Light: a couple of people who brought me joy this winter
ICYMI: the Claude moment, and why I have skin in the game
ALTITUDE: doors open, some spots already gone 🙌
Let's dig in, friends!
What I’m Practicing
Execution is being commoditized. What doesn't collapse is creativity itself.
The advantage has moved. It now lives in taste, direction, cultural acuity, and judgment. When everyone on your team can generate 100 versions of a campaign in an afternoon, the edge isn't in the generating. It's in knowing which two to run, how to frame them, and what not to ship.
After 50+ LinkedIn audits since September, this is the pattern I keep seeing. The leaders gaining real traction aren't the ones posting the most. They're the ones who know what to say, and what to leave in the drafts folder. That discernment, that editorial instinct, is not a soft skill. It is the skill.
Which is exactly what ALTITUDE is built around. In six weeks together, you'll have a fully built LinkedIn presence, a sustainable editorial strategy, and a clear plan to turn comments into currency = actual business. 8 spots total. A few are already spoken for…
➡️ Prompt: Where this week did your edge come from judgment, not just output?
What I’m Loving
Joe Lazer writes one of the sharpest newsletters in the business of digital content, and his recent breakdown of what's driving the boom in storytelling expertise is worth sharing.
Joe writes…
The numbers alone: job listings for storytellers have doubled in the past year, per LinkedIn data. OpenAI and Anthropic are paying up to $775,000 in total comp for storytelling roles. The companies building the most sophisticated AI tools in the world are betting heavily on humans who can tell a story, because they know what AI can't do.
Joe's framing:
"As AI has driven down the cost of creating mediocre content, it's also driven down the value of that content."
AI slop (I call it the “wave of mediocrity”) is making great storytellers more valuable, not less. There's a second force underneath that, too. Attention is now our scarcest economic commodity. You can't buy it anymore. Ads don't work the way they used to. The foundation of any business is narrative first. Capture attention, and everything else can follow.
This is why I do what I do. And why right now is a genuinely good time to be someone who communicates with clarity and intention.
Shining a Light
I started Co-pilot Communications to do work I love, with people who inspire me. Cherry and Doug are two great examples of that. Thank you both for trusting me with your professional brand and for the quality time we spent together this winter.
Before the work we did together, I was the classic cobbler with his children's shoes - I was so focused on the digital brand of my company that I paid little to no attention to my personal digital brand.
Having a solid framework that brought focus to my narrative platform helped simplify the content creation process - it went from having too many thoughts and not knowing where to start to having
Even though Jess and I have known each other very well over the course of many years, the process of working with Jess brought out many more insights and ah ha moments that had yet to be uncovered.
There is no question that Jess will do her absolute best to know you, understand what makes you tick, and build a plan that works for you.
Before engaging with Jess, my digital persona was feeling a bit dated and needed polishing. Jess helped me see my writing and content strategy from a different perspective and how to improve engagement with a very thoughtful approach. Jess is an absolute joy to work with and really took the time to understand my background and think very thoughtfully about my skill set and writing style and how to support and direct my approach for more engaging work. I would recommend Jess to any friend looking to improve their personal comms strategy.
ICYMI
On March 4th, 1.5 million people switched from ChatGPT to Claude and caused a full outage. It wasn't because of a viral moment. It was a feud.
The Trump administration moved to blacklist Anthropic after the company refused to update its Pentagon contract, specifically over concerns about AI use in mass surveillance and autonomous weapons. Anthropic said no. OpenAI said yes. ChatGPT uninstalls jumped 295%. Even Katy Perry is apparently on board with the migration. (You heard it here.)
I've been watching this closely. Not from the sidelines.
I just finished a Claude Cowork six-part course. And this very newsletter? Built using one of the skills from that course. The meta is entirely intentional.
AI tools are products. Products live and die by trust and utility. Anthropic made a values-based call and the market responded. Add to that the momentum behind Cowork? People noticed. (Me included.)
🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖
Speaking of momentum, I recently sat down with the team at Candor Path for the Above Board podcast to talk about building authentic leadership in a digital world. We covered the credibility gap, why waiting for a "perfect strategy" is costing you, and what it actually looks like to show up with authority online.
I was also a guest on the Millennial Masters podcast, where Daniel Ionescu and I get into why many leaders stay quiet online even when their companies are growing, why over-polished corporate messaging often makes people tune out, and why building trust and authority takes longer than most founders expect but becomes one of the most valuable assets a business can have.
Where’s Jess?
Shoutout to Julia Atalla for nailing last month's challenge, the new Seattle waterfront! That one was easy for you, but I love knowing you are cheerleading for me behind the scenes. 🙌🏼
This month's photo was taken somewhere that recently got a serious makeover. It's not far from home, and it's a place I try to support whenever I can because a revitalized downtown matters to me. Can you guess where I am?
The first person to reply with a correct guess gets a shout out next month.
Thanks for being here. 💛
Remember: You are wildly capable.
— Jess
➡️ Did a friend forward this to you? Subscribe here. You’ll get pro tips and inspo about once a month.
