Ben Shields Profile

BEN SHIELDS: My name is Ben Shields. I'm a senior lecturer here at the MIT Sloan School of Management. It is the summer of 2023, which means that I am starting my tenth academic year here at MIT in the fall.

Prior to MIT, I was in industry, where I served as the director of social media at ESPN, the sports media firm of the Walt Disney Company. I was with ESPN in 2008. That's when I started my six-year tenure there.

And it was in the very early days of social media when we were trying to figure out what to do with these platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. And so, had an incredible experience at the company, working with colleagues across the enterprise to build and implement a social media strategy.

Prior to ESPN, I did my PhD work at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. And all of these experiences have led me here to MIT. I love being at MIT because it combines both theory and knowledge and practice. And with my background, both in academia as well as in industry, it really is my home.

Since my last book, which is entitled The Sports Strategist-- Developing Leaders for a High-Performance Industry, I've focused a lot of my work on understanding the impact of technology in the media, entertainment, and sports industries. And what's fascinating about studying technological impact in these industries is that, like many other industries, the disruption is considerable.

I think we're able to, by studying these industries, understand some of the implications of breakthrough, groundbreaking technology and what those technologies are doing, both to the fan or the consumer experience, as well as to business models. So for instance, I've launched a new course here at the MIT Sloan School of Management called Creative Industries, which looks at digital disruption in media, entertainment, and the arts.

And one of the major topics that we explore in that class is the impact of artificial intelligence, which of course I know many ILP members are interested in. And what's been fascinating about our discussions in that class is the impact of AI in media, entertainment, and the arts is not just in the distribution side of these businesses, helping to get content to the right person at the right time.

Where it's getting really fascinating and complex is the impact of AI on the creative side of these businesses and how content creators are embracing AI to help them create even more effective content, and also what some of the unintended consequences of AI can be in the creative process. There's lots of debates happening right now-- well, do we need writers if we have AI that can do that job?

Now, we're finding, over and over again, that AI can be very helpful in the creative process, but the process starts with the unique creative abilities of the human. So those are some of the things that I've been up to since The Sports Strategist. Really exploring the impact of digital disruption, technological transformation, specifically with AI.

And my Petri dish is understanding the impact of AI in industries like media, entertainment, and the arts. And of course, sports is a nice Petri dish for that topic as well.

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BEN SHIELDS: There are two streams to my work. The first is understanding the impact of digital transformation in the media, entertainment, and sports industries. That's the vertical that I focus on.

The second stream of my work is more horizontal, and I look at the importance of communication and leadership in driving change in organizations. And one of the fascinating topics that I am exploring in that stream of work is the impact of AI on communication. And I'm looking at this in three main ways.

The first is how humans communicate about AI in the workplace. Today, and increasingly in the future, humans will be working alongside machines. They will be, in effect, coworkers. So how do managers and employees talk about the robot on the team?

That's a fascinating question to me. Do we talk about that robot or machine as a coworker, or do we talk about it as simply an inanimate object? Fascinating question.

A second question about the impact of AI on communication is, how do humans communicate through AI to an audience? And this goes back to a lot of my work in the social media space where, every single time we open up our social media feeds, we are getting served content through and by an algorithm.

So if we are going to communicate effectively to an audience online via social media, we've got to communicate through algorithms, which means that we have to understand how to persuade these algorithms. What does the Instagram algorithm like and appreciate?

If we want to reach our audience on Instagram or on TikTok or on Threads or whatever the platform du jour is, we've got to understand how that algorithm works and create content tailored to that algorithm to reach the audience on the other side. So that's the second way that AI is impacting communication. Humans have to communicate through AI to reach an audience.

And then the third area that I'm looking at that explores the impact of AI and communication is how humans communicate with AI. We're seeing early examples of this in the generative AI phenomenon, where prompt writing, for instance, has become a critical skill. So if you want to communicate effectively with AI, you've got to learn how to write prompts-- otherwise known as speak their language-- to get the most out of the tool.

That's just one early example of how critical it will be for humans, for employees, for managers to understand how to communicate with AI in order to achieve better results. So this is a fascinating area that I am focused on in both my research and teaching. And it's really focused on the impact and implications of AI in communication and how people will communicate about AI, through AI, and with AI to build better, more effective organizations.

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BEN SHIELDS: We have, for the history of communication, focused largely on, how do you connect with and persuade an audience? I now believe that we have to also be thinking about, how do you persuade an algorithm? How do you persuade the AI to help you achieve your goals?

And again, we've seen that every single day in our social media feeds. We've got to persuade that algorithm to help us get our content to our audience. But we're going to see that notion of, how do you persuade an algorithm, across all different types of applications of artificial intelligence in future.

So let me paint this picture. What does that look like? Well, to be clear, this concept of communicating with and through and about algorithms is not new. We've got brilliant computer programmers who intimately know how to talk with and work with a computer.

What's going to change is that that skill set of connecting with and working with and persuading computers is going to be the job of not just computer programmers but seemingly everyone in an organization. And it's going to be more than just, how do I use this computer, but how do I get the most out of this computer to get my job done? And we, again, in leadership and management, have, for decades, been challenged with, well, how do I get the most out of my people?

In the age of AI and quantum computing, when machines are going to be able to do incredible things, there's going to be a similar question of, how do we get the most out of our AI? And managers of the future are going to have to get the most out of their people, keep them motivated, as well as get the most out of their AI to move their organizations forward.

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