Terms

"I come from a company that has a business model that depends on communities flourishing as it's open source," he begins. As such, he wanted to build a secure Discord community that had access to content on WordPress and that's where his first media project, virtualization.info was hosted, this would enable him to "recycle 20 years of expertise".

He decided to use WordPress and not because of his experience, but because of the flexibility of the platform. "There exists a rationale 43% of websites in the world utilize WordPress," he adds. The experience of the WordPress plugin industry means that the results is possible through WordPress is impressive and can be done in an incredibly short amount of time with other solutions."

Don't compromise the importance of branding

Alessandro adds: "Many newsletter and blogging platforms offer little freedom in the creation of a brand. They combine the design and feel of the site, so everyone is exactly the same. You can customize the theme by a bit, and you can incorporate your logo but those are just minor tweaks.

"Every blog or newsletter appears the same. This isn't working for me. And, as I always mention on social media, do not compromise on the solution that is right for you. You shouldn't be compromising on doing the best work you can do just to check a box. Making compromises on your work is one of the things that sets you back over many times over."

A screengrab from the original virtualization.info site

"I have created a brand users remember from 20 years ago, and they still write to me on. I need to have absolute freedom and flexibility to create and design every single image of this website in a way that reinforces my personal brand. I'd like to develop my own brand, not other publishing brands."

Becoming valuable: niche and voice

"Two essential things to consider in the process of creating an online magazine," Alessandro continues. "The first one is finding your target market. It's easy to state, but difficult to do!" he laughs.

He explains that there is nothing to gain from having another person who covers the same subjects like other individuals with the same perspective. "You could cover similar subjects, which can be about cooking, politics or crochet or squash or whatever you like however you must be able to see things from a different angle. This is what defines your area of expertise: the way you look at things is unique."

He explains that Synthetic Work is looking at AI from a non-technical perspective as well as how it affects economics, employment, and society. "If you think about cooking for instance, you might be in a niche where your perspective is about the science of it. This is something is not talked about much - maybe how, at the level of very fundamental chemical what makes something taste good.

Second, you need to find your own voice. "Human creatures learn through imitation: we say, 'Wow, I like the way the person's writing style' we try to emulate this, which is wonderful - that's the way to get as much knowledge as you can. However, you must get to a point where you can develop your own voice. This can be scary!"

It's not easy to imagine that people may not appreciate the way that you look at the world, or write about it, but that's the only way you can be different from the rest. "If you have identical voice, or identical approach as everyone who else, you'll be quickly forgotten."

He goes on to say: "People don't read for information. It may seem counterintuitive but they read because they believe in you: they are curious about you as a person, and that interest percolates onto what you communicate." He urges individuals to make sure their personality is evident in the tone they employ when speaking about what you do.

Alessandro present on stage at OpenStack community gathering at Silicon Valley

Alessandro says that he's witnessed this happening for over 20 years and still sees it every day. In one instance I read a manual to students considering the idea of pursuing a PhD which was written by one of the co-founders of OpenAI. It is not related to artificial intelligence, but it's an old post that was written by him years back. In his post the author suggests attending conferences. He says to look more at the program and focus more on the speaker. You should look for the speakers you've heard of and like or have heard of who are good - regardless of the fact that what they're presenting does not match with what you've researched."

Alessandro explains that this is a perfect example of the point he is making that you should make people aware of your personality and the way you say things. In the end, the things you talk about can become secondary. "Even when they may not be with what you say, they'll want to listen to the things you say nonetheless because they have come to respect you and think that they are playing a vital role in their life."

More information on Synthetic Work

Read more details Alessandro Perilli and his Synthetic Work newsletter here: synthetic.work.