Create a Virtual Assistant that is a Failure

Some of my favorite articles to read are the ones that are ridiculous on purpose. They highlight all of the WRONG things to do, in a humorous way, and they seem to stick with you long after you have read them. Here is my pitiful attempt to write something loaded with irony. Here’s how you can create a virtual assistant that is a complete and utter failure.

Step 1 — Solve a Non-Problem

Creating chatbots is fun. You get to spend time doing things not a lot of people understand, and then you can put it on your resume. I just searched for “chatbot” on LinkedIn, and I got 82 thousand results back, and 600 results in Jobs. This is awesome! These people are in demand!

So come up with an idea that uses some kind of chatbot or conversational technology, and then just go and do it. Don’t bother finding out if it solves a problem or not. Companies love it when you use their time and resources to create things that bring no value to them. Things that don’t save them money, don’t help them improve revenues, and don’t help make their customers happier. Throw in technologies that are unrelated, or only somewhat related, so things can be more complex. Things that your organization has no experience with. So maybe a chatbot that is hosted on a quantum computer would be cool….

Note: Bonus points for having a large team. Nothing beats wasting the time of not just one or two people, but a large team of people, Preferably from different areas of the…