How Honest Is Your Professional Online Presence?

The conversation challenged the assumption that honesty requires either constant self-disclosure or excessive modesty. Professionals can communicate their achievements confidently, keep personal matters private and use tools to improve their writing. The important question is whether they can support the impression they create with real experience, relevant examples and work that stands up to scrutiny.

The panel also considered how AI can help beyond writing posts. Examples included developing a company page assessment, translating an idea into language another team could understand and using HR tools to make more time for meaningful conversations with employees.

The practical test running through the discussion was straightforward: if someone read your profile and recent posts, then met you for the first time, would the conversation reinforce what they expected?

Structured Insight from this Event

Professional visibility creates expectations before a conversation begins. Trust depends on being able to support those expectations with experience, evidence and a recognisable human voice, including when AI helps prepare the message.

 Key Questions Explored

• Where does putting our best foot forward become stretching the truth?
• How can professionals communicate achievements without exaggerating their contribution?
• What role do recommendations, testimonials and examples play in establishing credibility?
• How much of our personal experience should we share on a professional platform?
• When AI helps write our content, whose expertise and voice are readers actually encountering?
• Do we need to disclose that AI has helped with our work?
• How can AI support professional visibility beyond producing posts?
• What practical check can reveal a gap between an online impression and the person behind it?

Who This Conversation Is For

This discussion is useful for professionals who want to communicate their value more clearly while protecting the trust on which their reputation depends.

• Senior and mid-career professionals reviewing how they present their experience online
• Consultants, coaches and advisers whose visibility needs to demonstrate their expertise
• Business owners using LinkedIn to attract clients, collaborators and referrals
• HR professionals and hiring managers assessing the claims people make about their work
• Anyone using AI to help with profiles, posts, articles, images or business communication
• Professionals who want to be more visible without feeling they must overshare or constantly promote themselves

Key Insights from this Session

A credible claim is one you can explain

Martin distinguished between a job title and the work someone actually does. A person may lead people and projects without having “manager” in their title. Equally, a loosely worded claim can imply responsibility they never held. The test is whether they can explain and support the statement when someone asks.

Other people's experience gives your claims substance

Roy described a prospective video brochure customer who wanted to speak with existing clients before buying. Their experience supplied the reassurance his own presentation could not provide alone. Recommendations, testimonials and referrals help people assess whether the promise matches the delivery.

A truthful statement can still leave out important context

Felipe reflected on describing himself as having consulted for five years when the early years involved much lighter activity. His example raised a useful distinction between a technically accurate statement and the fuller impression a reader may take from it. The discussion allowed room for different judgements about where that boundary sits.

Honesty does not require sharing everything

Professionals can keep private matters private. Selected behind-the-scenes stories and accounts of mistakes can still help people understand how they think, learn and work. Martin's preference was to share “scars, not wounds”: lessons from an experience rather than an unresolved difficulty simply because it is happening now.

AI can improve the explanation without supplying the expertise

Lynnaire drew a distinction between using AI to communicate knowledge you already have and using it to create the appearance of knowledge you do not possess. A stronger piece of writing should remain something its named author can discuss, explain and stand behind.

A useful brief includes the person behind the words

Felipe compared working with AI to working with a CV writer. A professional writer asks questions, learns about the client and understands what they want to communicate. AI also needs that context. Talking an idea through, supplying examples and asking follow-up questions can produce a better starting point than accepting a generic first draft.

Editing should restore your voice

Lynnaire described adding back expressions and conversational phrasing that AI sometimes removes. The ideas may be hers, but the first version does not always sound like her. Reviewing the language is part of taking responsibility for the finished work.

Disclosure remains a matter of debate

The panel explored comparisons with editors, copywriters, spelling tools and other forms of assistance. Felipe did not think every use of AI required an announcement, but drew a distinction where work was entirely AI-generated and passed off as the person's own. Lynnaire questioned where the boundary should sit and suggested attitudes would continue to change. These were the speakers' views, rather than a settled rule established by the discussion.

AI's contribution can be in the work behind the content

Lynnaire described developing and refining a company page assessment with AI, then using it to review changes Roy had implemented. Felipe shared examples of AI supporting HR administration and identifying patterns in employee conversations. Both illustrated uses that go beyond generating more posts.

A first conversation is a useful reality check

Would a prospective client recognise the person they expected after reading your profile and content? If you would need to qualify your experience, explain away an inflated result or distance yourself from a published opinion, there may be something to revise before that meeting takes place.

Key Concepts from this Discussion

Professional Online Presence

The combined impression created by a person's profile, published content, contributions and other publicly available professional information. Readers may form a view from several of these elements before making contact.

Selective Self-Presentation

Choosing which experiences, achievements and personal details to share. Selection is a normal part of professional communication, but the resulting impression still needs to be accurate.

Evidence of Expertise

Examples, recommendations, results and explanations that help another person assess a professional claim. Evidence makes expertise easier to understand and gives people a reason to trust it.

AI-Assisted Communication

Using AI to organise, refine or help express ideas. Its credibility depends on the human contribution, the accuracy of the material and the author's ability to take responsibility for the result.

Human Voice

The language, observations, examples and judgements that make communication recognisably someone's own. Fluent writing does not automatically preserve that voice.

Disclosure

Explaining that AI or another form of assistance contributed to a piece of work. The discussion explored when that information changes how an audience understands authorship or expertise.

Impression and Experience Alignment

The extent to which a person's actual knowledge, behaviour and capabilities support the expectations created by their online presence.

About the Speakers

Lynnaire Johnston

LinkedIn and AI Visibility Specialist, Link∙Ability

Lynnaire Johnston works with senior professionals and business owners to reach the right people through LinkedIn and other online platforms. Her work focuses on professional visibility, credibility and AI-driven discoverability. She is the author of Link∙Ability and hosts the final Disruptive Business Leadership session of each month.

Roy Kowarski

Exhibition and Brand Engagement Partner, Out There Branding

Based in Sydney, Roy Kowarski helps businesses approach exhibitions, conferences and events with a clear strategy. His work brings together exhibition planning, brand engagement and products such as video brochures to create conversations and improve the return on event investment.

Felipe Cofiño

HR Executive and Founder, Cofiño Consulting

Felipe Cofiño brings 30 years of HR executive experience. Through Cofiño Consulting, he provides recruitment, training, auditing and coaching services, including support for smaller businesses and HR teams. He is also a LinkedIn Top Voice, host of the Workplace Wellness Hour and author of The Backyard Adventures children's book series.

Martin Stark

Courage Champion and Author

Martin Stark is a courage champion, author and storyteller. In this conversation, he brought a practical perspective on supporting professional claims, retaining a human voice and sharing lessons from experience.

Knowledge Block

Honesty, AI and Professional Visibility

Professional online visibility begins shaping a relationship before the first direct conversation. A headline, About section, post or recommendation gives a reader clues about someone's knowledge, judgement and ability to help. The challenge is to make those clues clear and persuasive while keeping the overall impression accurate.

Honesty does not require a complete record of every role, disappointment or private difficulty. Professionals naturally select information for its relevance. The question is whether the selection allows a reasonable understanding of their work. Describing a contribution as leadership, presenting an occasional activity as extensive experience or publishing an opinion one cannot explain can all create a gap between the words and the reality.

Evidence helps close that gap. A specific example shows what a claim means in practice. A recommendation adds another person's experience. An explanation of a mistake and what changed afterwards can reveal judgement as well as competence. Together, these give an audience more to assess than a polished statement of expertise.

AI can support this process by helping people organise ideas, find clearer language and communicate across professional disciplines. Its usefulness depends partly on the information it receives. Detailed context, real examples and a spoken explanation of the intended message can make the work more representative of the person behind it. Reviewing the output remains essential, especially where confident wording goes beyond the evidence or replaces an individual voice with generic language.

The discussion did not establish a universal disclosure rule. It explored the difference between assistance with expression and presenting material as one's own without a meaningful personal contribution. Whatever position someone takes on disclosure, the practical responsibility for the claims they publish remains with them.

A useful review therefore starts with a simple comparison: what would someone expect after reading this, and what would they encounter in a conversation with me? If those two experiences align, visibility can help establish trust. If they diverge, the profile or content needs attention before the discrepancy becomes someone else's discovery.

Quote Highlights from the Conversation

“If you cannot back up what you profess to be saying you've done, for me, that's the red flag in its entirety.”

– Martin Stark

“It's not what I say about myself, it's what other people say about having worked with me.”

– Roy Kowarski

“I'd rather build that reputation of honesty and credibility.”

– Felipe Cofiño

“The responsibility for what we publish always sits with us.”

– Lynnaire Johnston

“Use the tools, but provide the soul.”

– Audience comment from Jay, shared by Roy Kowarski

Key Takeaways for Professionals

• Make claims you can explain and support when someone asks for more detail.
• Describe your actual contribution to a project, including leadership that may not be reflected in your job title.
• Check whether a statement needs context to prevent a misleading impression.
• Use examples, recommendations and testimonials to make expertise easier to assess.
• Share useful lessons from experience while keeping appropriate personal boundaries.
• Give AI your ideas, context and examples before asking it to help with the wording.
• Edit AI-assisted content for accuracy, meaning and your own voice.
• Make sure you can discuss the opinions and advice you publish under your name.
• Explore how AI can support assessment, preparation and analysis as well as content production.
• Review your headline, About section and recent posts through the eyes of someone meeting you for the first time.

Full Transcript

The following is an edited transcript of the Disruptive Business Leadership conversation, How Honest Is Your Professional Online Presence? Opening connection problems, repeated introductions, false starts and technical interruptions have been removed. Repetition and incidental exchanges have been condensed for readability while preserving the substance of the discussion and the speakers' differing views. Comments about future developments reflect the speakers' views at the time of the event.

Welcome and introductions

Roy Kowarski

Welcome, everyone, to Disruptive Business Leadership. At the end of each month, we're delighted to welcome Lynnaire Johnston to lead our discussion. Today, we're bringing October's theme of professional honesty into our online presence.

Before we begin, let's introduce the panel. Lynnaire, tell us who you are and who you help.

Lynnaire Johnston

Kia ora from New Zealand. I'm Lynnaire Johnston, a LinkedIn and AI visibility specialist. I work with senior professionals and business owners to help them reach the right people at the right moment through LinkedIn and other online platforms.

LinkedIn is, in my view, the best place to share your professional views, opinions and ideas. I'm also the author of Link∙Ability, with edition two coming next month. I'm pleased to be back to talk about honesty online.

Martin Stark

Good morning, everybody. I'm Martin Stark, the courage champion and an author. I've been quieter on LinkedIn over the past four months because I've been heavily involved in rewriting and editing a novel, which I plan to release in June next year. As Lynnaire will know, writing and editing can consume most of your spare time.

Roy Kowarski

I'm based in Sydney, Australia, and I describe myself as your exhibition and brand engagement partner.

When companies decide to exhibit at an event or conference, they often get a stand and then ask, “What should I do next?” That's where I come in. I work with a framework of ideas that helps them create conversations and get a return on their investment.

I'll hand over to Lynnaire to introduce today's topic.

Where does putting our best foot forward become stretching the truth?

Lynnaire Johnston

Today, we're asking: how honest is your professional online presence?

This month, you've been exploring professional honesty. We're bringing that discussion into the way we present ourselves online, particularly on LinkedIn and through content we prepare using AI.

We all make choices about what people see. We highlight achievements, choose examples and describe our work in ways we hope will attract the right attention. That's part of communicating our value, but those choices create expectations. Someone reading our profile or posts is forming a view of what we know, what we've done and whether they can trust us.

AI adds another dimension. It can make our writing clearer, but it can also make us sound more experienced, knowledgeable or certain than we really are.

How well does our professional online presence stand up to scrutiny? Where's the line between presenting ourselves positively and giving people the wrong impression?

Your LinkedIn profile will always be selective. We don't list every disappointment, explain every career decision or necessarily include every role. But there's a difference between choosing our strongest examples and describing a supporting role as though we led the entire project.

Martin, where do you draw that line?

Martin Stark

“Stretching the truth” makes me shudder. If you cannot back up what you profess to be saying you've done, for me, that's the red flag in its entirety.

You might say you've led 20 people. Did you lead a team of 20 for two years, or did you lead 20 people on a walk? They're not the same thing.

On the other hand, your title might not say “manager”, but you may be managing multiple projects with different stakeholders and leading 20 people. Can you stand behind the statement? That's the question.

Let me bring in our fictional supermarket. If Kowarski Pavlovas claimed to make the best pavlovas outside New Zealand, we could have a conversation about that. Claiming to make the best pavlovas in New Zealand might get a different response from Lynnaire!

Roy Kowarski

You're a master storyteller, Martin.

Before I answer, I'd like to welcome Felipe, who's joined us, and congratulate him on his daughter's wedding. We missed you, but family comes first. The photographs showed the warmth and joy of the day.

Felipe Cofiño

Thank you, Roy. It was an amazing experience. We're starting to receive the professional photographs, and they're gorgeous. I'm grateful for how well everything went and for having a wonderful son-in-law.

For those I haven't met, I'm Felipe Cofiño. I've been an HR executive for 30 years and I'm the founder of Cofiño Consulting, providing recruitment, training, auditing and coaching services.

I'm also a LinkedIn Top Voice and take part in podcasts and livestreams with this team. The Workplace Wellness Hour is approaching its 100th episode. I'm the author of The Backyard Adventures children's book series too, which gives me a different way to express my creativity.

I work with small and medium-sized businesses needing additional HR support, or organisations wanting to help their HR teams go from good to great.

Lynnaire Johnston

Welcome, Felipe. Our opening question is: where does putting our best foot forward become stretching the truth? Roy, let's come back to you.

Roy Kowarski

How do you convey what you've accomplished without tipping the scale?

I'll use myself as an example. I've been in business for many years. I can describe myself as an expert because I have a proven track record and people who will say so without me being there.

What do people say about you when you're not in the room? It's not what I say about myself, it's what other people say about having worked with me.

Recently, someone interested in my video brochures asked whether I could give him the names of customers he could speak to. I gave him two names. He contacted them and came back saying, “I was 94% ready to purchase. I just needed to speak to somebody else to get the facts about how it works.”

The same applies to our profiles. As I've got older, I've realised that you have to be willing to communicate your strengths. Put your best foot forward. You don't have to stretch the truth.

I'm happy to say I have the knowledge, experience and expertise to help companies in the exhibition space because I've demonstrated it and have testimonials from people who've worked with me.

Lynnaire Johnston

I like that idea of what people say when you're not in the room.

When someone visits my profile, connects or follows me, I sometimes ask what brought them there. Very often, the answer is, “So-and-so recommended that I follow you.”

That's expertise being demonstrated without you having to make the claim yourself. Other people are recommending you as the person to go to, sometimes in conversations you know nothing about.

It's hard to measure unless you ask people how they found you, but those recommendations can make the difference between someone being almost ready and feeling confident enough to take the next step.

Felipe Cofiño

Roy makes a great point. If you're not talking about what you do, how will people know? Who knows you better than you?

Some people take it too far, and AI can give them another opportunity to stretch the truth. We've probably all seen AI images that make someone look a little younger or different. For me, I'd rather build a reputation for honesty and credibility than create the perception that I'm something I'm not.

One reason I offered free coaching and recruitment advice for years was that I wanted people to see what my experience looked like: that it was credible, relevant and useful. That helped build the reputation behind the services I now charge for.

There is an area where I sometimes feel I stretch the truth unintentionally. I might say, “I've been consulting for five years,” and someone hears, “You've been in business for five years. That's phenomenal.” Realistically, the first three years were very light. They weren't full-on.

Sometimes we omit context and people form a bigger impression. If someone thinks I'm busy or the business is larger than it is, I don't always feel I need to correct that. But using that impression to lie is where I draw the line.

I'd rather show the best version of myself, including mistakes. People relate to someone who makes mistakes. I don't want to look so perfect that someone thinks I couldn't understand their difficulties.

People don't always see behind the curtain. I recently spent two weeks in hospital with my mother, who almost died. I don't share everything, and that's all right.

Being human without sharing everything

Lynnaire Johnston

At one of my Link∙Ability community roundtables this week, someone talked about behind-the-scenes posts as a way to help people see the real you.

Some experiences are too personal to share, and you may not want to discuss them. But people respond to stories about mistakes. We all make them, and they're how we learn.

When you explain a challenge, how you overcame it and what changed, people can see how you think and work. That helps them understand what you might be like to work with.

Most of us keep a lot private. I've known some of you for a long time and know very little about your private lives. You know very little about mine, apart from my gardening. You probably know far too much about that!

This is a professional platform, but we're human. Sharing something appropriate can help people understand who we are without requiring us to share everything.

Felipe Cofiño

My intention is usually to share something so people don't repeat my mistakes. But explaining the mistake that prompted the lesson matters too. I need to get better at that.

And you're right about the human side. Three of my highest-performing posts over the past two years were about my daughter's wedding and my anniversary with my wife. People could relate to them. They weren't industry-specific or job-specific. They were life.

Roy Kowarski

There are also ways to let people discover achievements without constantly announcing them.

Martin and Felipe are Top Voices. People can see that, but they don't spend every conversation telling everyone about it. Similarly, I've appeared in Australian top-20 rankings many times. People can find that information without me making it the centre of every introduction.

You can communicate what you've achieved through different parts of your presence.

Lynnaire Johnston

And there are places on your profile for that information. Projects, publications, honours and awards are often overlooked.

If you're proud of something, make sure it's represented somewhere. It doesn't all have to sit in your headline or at the top of the page.

When AI helps write the content, whose expertise are we seeing?

Lynnaire Johnston

Felipe has already mentioned AI, so let's bring it into the conversation.

More content is being written with AI, and I'll put my hand up for using it too. Whose expertise are readers actually seeing?

Many of us seem more comfortable with AI images now. Attitudes towards AI-written posts are still mixed. Some people look down their noses at someone for using it. I think those attitudes will change, perhaps over the next year, but that doesn't remove the question about expertise.

If you're using AI to write about your own expertise, I don't see a problem. If you're using it to elevate the appearance of your knowledge and experience beyond what you actually have, that's different.

Martin, what do you think?

Martin Stark

Think about a CV. Someone who had worked as a chef in a hotel for 20 years might once have asked a friend to look over their CV. Now they might ask AI. The question is: where's the human lens?

An image of a pavlova can look sumptuous, but the taste still has to live up to it.

I also prefer “scars, not wounds” when it comes to sharing experience. A scar has healed. You've learnt something and can share the wisdom. A wound is something that's happening now, while you're still in it.

Felipe shared the joy of being a proud father at his daughter's wedding. We can imagine the preparation and worry behind it, but what he shared was the special experience.

Are you sharing what's special? Are you saying, “I've seen this problem, I've learnt from it and this is what works”? If AI helps you communicate that, great.

But if I bought a pavlova from a shop, I wouldn't say I'd made it. What's genuine is you.

I have to leave now, so have a great weekend, everybody.

Lynnaire Johnston

Thank you, Martin. I'll allow that pavlova example. Whether something is homemade or shop-bought is a useful distinction.

Roy, are you going to buy yours and tell us you made it?

Roy Kowarski

I'll tell you a story from when I lived in South Africa. I had a holiday home on the coast, and neighbours would go fishing and sell some of their catch.

When I bought fish, I'd ask them to throw it to me so I could catch it. Then I could go home and say I'd caught the fish! They didn't have to know how I'd caught it.

That brings us back to how we approach AI. The questions you ask and the explanation you give are central to the answer you receive.

I give it as much information as possible about what I want to convey. AI can often express my thoughts better than I can, but I have to tell it what I want to say and let it refine that.

I've used AI to produce a James Bond-themed series. I wanted a point of difference and a creative way to explain what I do. People want to be entertained and educated. I've used the word “edutain” for years.

That's what AI means in my business: helping me refine what I want to say and present it in a better format.

Lynnaire Johnston

When I use AI for writing, it can sound formal and stilted. The ideas may be mine, but the voice isn't.

I go back and add expressions I would use in conversation. That makes it recognisably mine. Sometimes I work the other way round: I write the content first, because I'm a writer, and ask AI to tidy it up.

It will sometimes remove the phrases that are uniquely me, and I have to say, “I want those back.”

I see that as working with a team member who happens to be a machine. Felipe, what's your view?

Give AI the context a human writer would need

Felipe Cofiño

Martin made me think about CV writers. They were writing CVs for people long before AI. But a good CV writer talks to you, learns about you and understands what you're looking for.

Are you giving AI all that information? You should be.

You need to revisit the work and challenge it when it hasn't captured what you mean. If you accept whatever it gives you as perfect, you're missing that process.

I'll often write something out without worrying about spelling and ask AI to polish it. Then I'll ask for changes to the length or wording.

I've also found the voice feature useful. I have different AI assistants for different purposes, including one I call Computer, inspired by Star Trek.

I'll talk to it as I would another person: “I want to write a post about this. Here's what I'm thinking, and here's how it affects people.” Then I'll ask it to write out what I've said.

That's been more valuable than I expected because I'm speaking from the heart and giving it my voice. I still need to edit the result.

You could also ask AI to question you about a topic, field or role so that it has enough information to understand your perspective. People don't always invest enough time in that.

Lynnaire Johnston

That takes me back to my copywriting business. If I was writing a website, I'd meet the client, learn about their business and listen to how they spoke so I could capture their voice.

Perhaps we've moved forward in how we do something people have been doing for a long time.

We've used tools to remove some of the hard work from other tasks too. I've used Xero for my accounting because numbers aren't part of the work I enjoy. Now we're taking assistance another step further.

Do we need to disclose our use of AI?

Lynnaire Johnston

If we've used machines and other forms of assistance for years, do we need to say that we're using AI in the work we provide?

Do I need to say it about images where it's obvious? I'm not a designer, so I'm not trying to pass design work off as my own. But I am a writer. If AI helps me write, am I passing something off as my own? We've always had editors.

I'm still thinking about where that boundary sits. I suspect attitudes will be different in 12 months, but right now there's still resistance to AI-assisted work and concern about what gets called “AI slop”.

Roy Kowarski

Angie Alexander has asked in the chat, “How do you get the attention that you need without overplaying it?”

That's close to what we discussed earlier. How do we use AI to improve our presence without overplaying what we can do?

For example, I received an international audio award in 2022. I could mention that every time I speak on LinkedIn, but I don't. The information is there for people who want to find it.

We do these live conversations regularly, and people return because they find value in them. AI can help us refine that value and tell the story creatively.

I'm not a creative writer, but I know what I want to say. If AI helps me say it creatively, I'm in.

Felipe Cofiño

There's a balance between humility and self-promotion. I mention being a LinkedIn Top Voice when I introduce myself on shows. That felt uncomfortable at first, but if we never speak about our achievements, how will people know?

On disclosure, I don't think we need to announce every use of AI. We don't announce that we've used spelling or grammar checks.

My caveat is work that's 100% AI-generated. If none of it is yours, don't pass it off as though it is.

People do publish misleading material. If someone's pretending to have expertise they can't substantiate through a conversation or other work, that needs challenging. I don't want people being encouraged to lie about a job title or publish dangerous advice.

But I don't think every use of AI requires an announcement.

Your presence extends beyond individual posts

Lynnaire Johnston

We also need to think about the information available when someone uses AI to look for a person with our expertise.

I've been surprised by how much the information AI can find about LinkedIn profiles has changed this year. When you're thinking about your online presence, think beyond posts. Your profile, articles and newsletters also contribute to the impression you create.

Comments are another part of that presence. At this point, I don't see AI finding them directly in the same way, but I expect that picture to develop. AI is changing all the time.

Our presence is more than good posting and more than the profile alone. That's something to consider when we want to be recognised or recommended for our expertise.

What practical check can we make?

Lynnaire Johnston

Imagine a prospective client reads your profile and a few recent posts, then meets you for the first time. Would that conversation reinforce the impression they already had?

Or would you need to explain that your experience is narrower, that a result needs context or that the confident opinion wasn't really yours?

What would you encourage someone to review first? I should say that AI wrote that question.

Roy Kowarski

Just hold on while I ask AI to reply!

Lynnaire Johnston

Let me explain how I use it to prepare these sessions. I give it information about the events you've held during the month and ask for suitable topics and why they might work.

It helps with the questions, event description and LinkedIn post. There's another process afterwards to help make use of the conversation.

I'm open about that. It helps us prepare and do more with the material more efficiently.

Roy Kowarski

You've helped me improve both my profile and my company page so they're better positioned for search. I see this as a work in progress for all of us.

We need to keep refining how we communicate what we want to be known for. If I knew all the answers, I'd put them on my profile immediately, but it's a continuing process.

Jay has made a lovely comment in the chat: “Use the tools, but provide the soul.”

If we put ourselves into the work and let AI help, we're using it well.

Using AI for assessment and improvement

Lynnaire Johnston

I'd like to give an example from my work with Roy.

I developed a methodology with AI to assess LinkedIn company pages. The assessment used publicly available information rather than the information I personally knew about Roy and Out There Branding.

It identified things the page was doing well and areas that could improve. Roy implemented changes, and we assessed it again. The second assessment recognised the difference.

I wouldn't have been able to develop that methodology on my own. Even with AI, it took several weeks of discussion and refinement.

When we talk about AI and LinkedIn, we often focus on posts and content. But there's work in the background that AI can help with too. The company page assessment is a good example.

Felipe, what would you suggest as a practical check?

Felipe Cofiño

These topics get me passionate and energised!

When I started using AI regularly, I asked myself how much was too much. I adopted a personal 80/20 rule: 80% me, 20% AI. Today, it might be closer to 75/25. It's a way of reminding myself not to hand everything over.

One example of its value was an idea I couldn't get across to a marketing team. I asked AI to put the concept into a marketing plan. When I showed them, they understood it and used it.

It helped me communicate in language that made sense to them.

I also want people to see how AI can give us more time to be human. If I'm your HR person and I'm buried in administration, I'm not focusing on improving the workplace for you.

We have AI tools that help update job descriptions, answer straightforward benefits questions and work with spreadsheets. That saves time.

I wanted managers to have one-to-one conversations with their top performers, rather than focusing only on people who weren't doing well. What's keeping those people here? What might make them leave? What do they want to learn or do next?

I asked managers to submit information from those conversations and created an AI assistant to help analyse it. It produced a dashboard, results and trends showing what mattered to the team.

That analysis could otherwise have taken days or weeks, and I might never have had time to do it. AI helped make it possible. At the same time, we need to be thoughtful about where it supports us and where it might replace work people do.

Closing thoughts

Lynnaire Johnston

I'll wrap up with a few thoughts prepared with AI's help.

The useful test running through this discussion is whether we can support the impression we're creating. That doesn't mean being modest to the point of invisibility. If we've done good work, developed expertise or achieved something worthwhile, we can say so.

Specific examples make those claims easier to understand and trust. We've heard several today.

AI can make communicating that value easier, but the responsibility for what we publish always sits with us. AI helped write that, so even it recognises the responsibility is ours!

Here's something practical to take away. Look at your headline, About section and a couple of recent posts. Find one claim you could make clearer or support with an example. If something sounds impressive but doesn't reflect your experience or expertise, change it.

Our online presence often starts a professional relationship before we've spoken to someone. Make sure the person they eventually meet is the person they were expecting.

Thank you to Roy, Felipe, Martin and everyone who joined us. A special thank you to Merrill Cass for his support and for continuing to share these events.

Roy Kowarski

October's theme has been professional honesty, and this was a fitting final conversation about our online presence.

Thank you, Lynnaire, for joining us each month and being so well prepared. Thank you to our fellow hosts and everyone who supports and shares the sessions, including Merrill and Leslie.

We turn up each week because we enjoy these conversations. We bring different experiences and perspectives, and we don't expect everyone to agree. That diversity of thought is part of what makes Disruptive Business Leadership valuable.

Thank you for joining us. We'll see you next week.