“There’s so much information about artificial intelligence and how it can change the way people work – from writers to photographers to designers to information officers to those in health care – this is why we chose to offer the AI for Communicators workshop,” said Christy Broccardo-Grove, communications director for Safe Electricity, and webmaster, past president and workshop lead for Mid-Illinois Communications Association. This day long workshop to be held Oct. 23 on the campus of University of Illinois Springfield features speakers who will show how AI can be used as a tool for everyone at every level of understanding.
This interactive workshop will include a panel of presenters. Andy Crestodina, co-founder of Orbit Media, a web development company in Chicago, will demonstrate the AI framework for marketing and communications.
Jena Marble is a freelance designer and an assistant clinical design professor at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who will discuss generative AI use from this dual focus.
Brianna Miller is a health care marketing expert at Cohere Health and an adjunct marketing professor for University of Missouri-St. Louis. She has developed a niche in the health care space and will show how AI tools can enhance marketing without compromising creativity, trust or compliance. Miller will tackle real world challenges including privacy issues, personalizing campaigns, overcoming resistance to change and measuring success, all while staying true to your brand’s unique voice.
During the luncheon, Marble will explain how AI can support – not substitute – human creativity in communication and design. She’ll teach attendees how to use AI in creating visuals, and how to use it to push your creativity and storytelling.
Marble said, “I champion the integration of generative AI into our workflows and creative processes while keeping humans at the forefront. Designers are using generative-AI tools, such as ChatGPT or Adobe Firefly, as creative collaborators but still having designers leading the process and maintaining creative agency and vision. We’re using these emerging tools to conceptualize and think of things in new and exciting ways and that has led to a lot of really exciting outcomes both in the classroom and in a lot of professional practice case studies.”
Marble will highlight the Pentagram case study and how this global company used Midjourney to come up with new icons during their work to rebrand the performance.gov website.
When asked about his participation in the workshop, Crestodina said, “Marketing has changed. The new tools make certain tasks much more effective. During the workshop, we are going to walk through ways to use AI, and then roll up our sleeves and write prompts together and ask AI to write prompts for us with one goal – to connect with an audience and build trust in their eyes. The best use cases for AI are not using it to write. The content-generative AI is typically not very differentiated, persuasive or compelling; it sort of tastes like water. We’re going to prioritize other uses for AI. We’re going to focus on using AI for empathy and analysis and strategy.
“For example, if you teach AI about your audience and then give AI something you made – a webpage, an article, a press release, a video script – and then ask AI from the audience’s perspective what should be changed, what is missing, how could it be better – then you, as the pro, can decide if you’re going to use the gaps that AI has identified. It keeps us in the loop.”
Crestodina emphasized, “We are not abdicating our jobs to AI. Connecting effectively is the goal in order to drive performance. We can all do better work by using AI as a thought partner. It can help us make products that set us apart so that when your audience reads it, they will find it useful in that moment. We don’t need quantity; we need more effectiveness.”
Broccardo-Grove said the workshop is a fundraising effort with all profits going to the annual MICA scholarship fund managed by the Community Foundation for the Land of Lincoln. Some college students will be invited and non-members of MICA are also welcome to attend.
“This workshop is for those at every level of understanding,” she said. “You’ll be learning from three of the best.”
Visit midilcommunications.org/events for more information or to register for the Oct. 23 workshop.
This article appears in SBJ August 2025.