dylan tweney

if you're bored, you're not paying attention

All my posts

  • Never let AI write your first draft

    Never let AI write your first draft

    As we dive headlong into a new year, artificial intelligence continues to loom large, like an alien spaceship hunkered down in the sky above the Empire State Building. It is the most intriguing class of technologies I’ve seen since the advent of the web in the late 1990s.… Story continues … “Never let AI write…

  • The magic of magazines

    The magic of magazines

    tl;dr: I helped make a magazine! –Download the Future of AI here I fell in love with magazines as a young adult. In college, I contributed to the campus literary magazine, the school newspaper, and an upstart leftist zine. Those experiences, plus the time I’d spent writing for my high school’s student newspaper, convinced me…

  • Haiku changed my life

    Haiku changed my life

    One crisp autumn day, on a whim, I started sending haiku to a few friends via email and text message. I had a new phone and was interested in its SMS capabilities. The only things I found that I could get via SMS were sports scores and stock updates.… Story continues … “Haiku changed my…

  • Collaboration and photography

    Collaboration and photography

    COMING UP: MINDFUL WRITING WORKSHOP. I’m co-hosting a workshop on Haiku for the Turn of the Year with Marion Pernoux, a somatic arts therapist and Reiki master, on December 7 in San Francisco. Click here to learn more and register for our mindful haiku workshop.… Story continues … “Collaboration and photography”

  • It’s Clippy’s world now

    It’s Clippy’s world now

    When Microsoft first introduced its Office assistant, “Clippy,” it was ridiculed by many. The cutesy animated paperclip came across as goofy, but the real problem was how annoying Clippy was: He popped up unexpectedly way too often, interrupting your work to offer inane recommendations you would invariably reject.… Story continues … “It’s Clippy’s world now”

  • How to write like Neal Stephenson

    How to write like Neal Stephenson

    I was standing in the futuristic, multi-story atrium of NVIDIA’s “Endeavor” building when I saw Neal Stephenson leaning against a railing. “I bet you’re not a lefty,” I said. The award-winning science fiction author had been a speaker earlier that day at Google, which was hosting Imagination in Action’s Next Revolution of AI summit, a two-day conference…

  • What it’s like to attend a Renaissance Weekend

    What it’s like to attend a Renaissance Weekend

    Last weekend, on a sunny balcony overlooking Monterey Bay, with cocktail chatter in the near background and sea lions barking in the distance, I talked about love with a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Army Special Forces. My new friend spent 10 tours of duty first as a grunt, then as a Green Beret sniper…

  • Introduction to Listening Poetry

    Introduction to Listening Poetry

    This summer, I took a five-week course from The Good Listening Project to learn the craft of listening poetry: poetry that arises from deep listening in a one-on-one conversation. A listener poet is someone who spends time with you, maybe twenty minutes, and then writes a poem for you about whatever is on your mind or in your…

  • Good listening leads to better thinking

    Good listening leads to better thinking

    A fellow consultant recently asked me for advice on writing and publishing more consistently. He wasn’t asking me to ghostwrite for him or to edit his work, as I do for many of my clients. He’s an excellent writer and is able to make time for it. … Story continues … “Good listening leads to better…

  • Writing with (and without) AI

    Writing with (and without) AI

    Artificial intelligence complicates things for writers. It’s complicating everything for everyone these days, sure. We all have AI in our faces all day long, whether we want it or not (and mostly we don’t). But for writers, the existence of chatbots that can generate text — let’s not call it “writing” exactly, but content —…