Mind Readings: No Excuses for Lack of Diversity in Content

In this episode of Mind Readings, let's talk about diversity in your content, particularly your visual content. One of the things that people have said over the years is that you know with content they've created. When asked, well, why isn't there more representation in your content? People would say things like, you know, we couldn't find anyone suitable. We don't have any employees who uh are in that uh group of people.

We don't have staff that are that diverse. We didn't have any the right agency or our agency didn't have the talent. And for years we've heard excuse after excuse from creative organizations and companies that they couldn't find or afford diversity and representation, right, in their marketing materials. There's other things at play there, right? Putting aside demographics data and the fact that these folks, some of at least some of them were probably just unwilling to create marketing materials that involve people didn't look like them.

Um those excuses are now permanently over, like permanently. Why? Stable diffusion, uh, mid-journey. These systems can generate images, right? You give them a uh text front prompt and it creates an image.

And these images are royalty free, they are copyright free, they are labor free in a lot of cases, right? Yeah, I mean, obviously, you have to generate them, but it's not like you have to go hire a crew of actors and film directors and stuff like that to do a photo shoot. And you still get representations of people, right? You still get images that look like people. So you can create clip art, stock photography, etc.

Um, of people of any age, ethnicity, nationality, background, gender, without leaving your desk. You don't have to you don't leave your chair to do this. So instead of the the stock image, you know, like two people sitting at a meeting, you know, staring awkwardly at each other, you can create that um and not have to pay a stock photography company, you know, a licensing fee for it, which means that you can ask these machines for different people, right? Instead of saying two guys sitting at a table, right, in an office, you could type in an Indian man and a black woman sitting at a table in an office, right? And it will create and render semi-realistic images or paintings or you know, watercolors or whatever medium you want to choose.

That would be totally appropriate for business use, right? They all clip art we use, it all looks the same anyway. Um, it's it's people in you know, nice suits to having conversations, etc. No one would blink an eye about it, but that generic clip art image can now represent whoever you want it to represent, right? Maybe you do live in an area where there are no Latino people.

Oh well, now you can just type in a Latino man and a black woman at a at a desk in an office, right? Or a Latino man and an Indian woman uh talking at a water cooler, right? All the all the typical marketing imagery. Um and you don't have to go and find talent, you don't have to rent a location. Uh you generate this image quality.

You you generate the stuff with this artificial intelligence, which means there are no excuses anymore for you to not have diverse populations represented in your marketing materials. None. With a few typed commands, a few clicks of your mouse. You can create literally any grouping of people you want, right? You can create three black women uh in gray business suits, um, holding iPads, sitting at a conference room table, and the machines will create a credible representation of that.

You might need to tune it up with like GFPAN to tune up the faces a little bit. But you can create it, you can make it, you can have it, you can use it in your marketing materials. Which means that from today on, from this day forward, the only reason you are not being more inclusive in your marketing materials is because you are making a conscious choice not to be. Right? You are making a conscious choice not to be when the alternatives are free and relatively easy.

That's the important part. As of today, with these tools, you can make free, unlicensed, relatively easy imagery of any kind of people you want. And some of the artwork that people are creating with these tools is astonishing. It's so realistic, it looks so good. You're not being represented because you choose not to be.