The Thinking Person's Guide to AI

The Challenges AI presents to business and technical professionals

De-Skill vs. Re-Skill vs. Up-Skill


These are the questions facing tech professionals and any "gold collar" professions now.  Decades of displacement in US based manufacturing employment through out-sourcing to low cost, low (no) regulation and low (no) cost capital countries have forever changed the US industrial base.  Either workers Re-skilled or better yet, Up-skilled.


The same is true now in all gold collar professions.  AI based workflows are de-skilling much professional value add.  Corporate management layers are now compressed, cloud-based data give instant performance dashboards, and analytics and decisions are automated with little or no human intervention.  What is a professional to do?


First step is to Re-skill.  In the era of rapidly improving AI inference, re-skilling is the critical first step.  Learn a few of the AI tools.  Apply them to your workflows - use your prompts as a starting point to organize your thinking (not replace it).  Gold collar professionals do not have years to re-skill, so the sooner you start, the more adept you will become.


The next step is to Up-skill.  That means to become an expert at using AI for your workflows.  For marketing up-skilling means using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to improve your communications reach to your target customers.  Also, for technical white papers, getting good at framing the target customer value proposition in your narrative.  Today bots are scrapping the web for content - either yours makes the cut or gets ignored.   Your ability to connect with potential customers depends on it.


In the next few weeks I'll explore up-skilling technical marketing.  Let me know what you think.


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Why Schapfel Tech Marketing Services?

By Frank T. Schapfel • October 29, 2025
Experience. Deliver results in a variety of markets and products. Practical. Common-sense approach to implementing marketing programs. Flexible. You can start small and grow into a comprehensive program as your business grows. Customized. Tailored to your business and marketing goals. Technical and Analytical. Engineering-oriented to bring out high contrast product messaging and positioning.

Why did I start Schapfel Tech Marketing Services?

By Frank T. Schapfel • October 29, 2025
I observed a market need to closely develop technical Marketing Strategies and Integrated Marketing programs, focused on High Tech products and services. Identified a desire by small and medium companies to be highly efficient in developing a marketing strategy once, then delivering it across multiple channels in a consistent manner. Found that small and medium enterprises under-invested in integrated marketing programs that achieves their business mission. Come explore how Schapfel Tech Marketing Services can help you achieve better High-Tech marketing results.

Official launch of the Schapfel Tech Marketing Website:

By Frank T. Schapfel • October 24, 2025
The Mission of Schapfel Tech Marketing Services is to bring Strategic Marketing services to small and medium high-tech enterprises. We deliver fractional CMO services to those firms that desire immediate impact on their business success. Schapfel Tech Marketing Services can parachute in marketing experts to design, deliver and measure your new marketing programs. We customize a marketing plan to achieve your business and revenue mission. We use a structured and analytical approach to bring your technical products or services to market. Through our approach we focus on developing highly differentiated positioning and messaging so that you stand out from the crowd. We can leverage your existing marketing infrastructure and staff to speed up implementation, and augment with external experts that you do not have access to or have not yet integrated into your marketing team.