"Using AI to create amateur influence: 24 practical lessons illustrating business positioning, content strategy and AI application" Recommended preface: Create bravely, turn with pragmatism
Someone once asked me: “Vista, there are so many powerful creators around you, are there any who impress you?” I always mention a name with a smile, Penny.
Penny is not only a partner I have worked with, but also a model creator who I have witnessed step by step from practical life to “knowledge translation”. We once ran a [graphic training camp] (https://www.vistacheng.com/2021/06/creation-camp.html) together. She can always explain complex knowledge clearly and thoroughly in a simple and interesting way. She uses pictures and texts to communicate and also uses life to speak. She is not only a creator, but also a person who has walked through the mud and still chooses to face the sun.
In this book “Use AI to create amateur influence: 24 illustrations of business positioning, content strategy and AI application” In “Practical Lesson”, Penny accompanies us through the anxiety and expectations under each AI wave. This is not a technical manual, but a survival guide for rebuilding your beliefs and actions. She used her own story to tell how she started from being a single mother and a freelance worker with no background, gradually building her own knowledge brand, and finding her own place in the AI generation.
This book has several features that I admire very much, and they are worthy of every reader’s careful consideration.
When many books talk about AI, they start with technology, which makes people feel that it is out of reach. But Penny chose to start from the most private and human perspective - she talked about family, parenting, loneliness and rebirth after marriage, and how she uses AI not to show off her skills, but to “not be defeated by life.” Such honesty is rare, and such truth is the most resonant. Because we have all stood at a crossroads in life, not knowing where to go, but she chose to walk out.
As an educator and consultant, I particularly admire Penny The three-layer structure presented in the book: the top layer is “life goals and value ranking”, the middle layer is “workflow and business model”, and the bottom layer is “AI Tools and Application Methods”. This kind of structural arrangement prevents people from falling into tool worship. Instead, they first ask: “What kind of life do I want to live?” and then think about how to make AI a help instead of a shackle.
She reminded us: “AI is just an assistant, the protagonist of life is still you.” This sentence is worth chewing over and over again for every knowledge worker who is anxious about the wave of AI.
“Interest can be used as a living, but you must do three things first.” This is Penny’s real practice in the past few years. She is not in a hurry to tell you how to succeed. She first teaches you how not to fall. From trying bravely and persisting, to understanding the nature of business and using AI to optimize work processes, this book is an action map for those who want to live their own version of life.
Especially her application of MVP (minimum viable product), from entrepreneurship to life, from testing dreams to daily execution, every step is down-to-earth and implementable. This book is not only for people who want to start a business, but also for all “people who want to live differently.”
In this book, you will see Penny put herself back to the center of life again and again. She is not only a mother, a creator, and a slash worker, but also a person who still chooses to bloom in the cracks.
Penny shared with everyone how she went through self-doubt, how she established new professional values in the AI era, and how she used pictures and texts to tell stories, methods, and a way of living. This generation needs a book like this and creators like Penny.
She may not be perfect, but she is honest; she really does not have much background, but she is willing to work hard; she does not have huge capital, but she has the power to keep moving forward. In this way, she is using her own way to make 1% of people live a meaningful life, and also make the remaining 99% begin to believe that they can do it too.
If you are also working on AI Confused in the wave, hesitating at a career crossroad, or simply wanting to have more choices in life─ please read this book. This will be the ticket you bought for yourself, and Penny will be the navigator who will paddle with you.
──Vista Cheng, lecturer at the Department of Journalism at Shih Hsin University and digital marketing columnist for “Economic Daily”
