Abstract

IT-enhanced human touch
On account manager approach to our profession in the AI-era

The recent pandemic has accelerated the adoption of various IT tools that facilitate remote collaboration. These tools bring diverse benefits to our society, including reduced environmental impacts, more accessible opportunities for frequent communication and engagement among geographically distant teams, and the ability to achieve quality outcomes in less time. Moreover, in the past year, discussions have been ongoing regarding to what extent AI can supplant the role of a research manager. And indeed, if we understand our profession as a personalized and engaged service to individual scientists, who are our long-term clients with agendas we assist in shaping and fulfilling, we must assess which aspects of our work can be replaced. However, should we not instead ask which of those aspects can be enhanced? Mastering and utilizing IT/AI tools can empower us to exploit more those mental capacities within our profession that are truly irreplaceable. This, in turn, allows us to become more engaged and sharing collaborators, fostering mutual motivation and encouragement. In essence, these human factors and capabilities infuse qualities into our relationships that keep scientists creative, positive, and performing at their peak.
Do you embrace the idea of adopting an account management (AM) approach in your role and wish to exchange insights and experiences in this capacity? Are you enthusiastic about harnessing the potential of IT/AI tools while staying true to AM-inspired practices? Are you eager to leverage machine capabilities to enhance top-tier client service rooted in soft skills and professional relationship-building?
Specific topics we would touch include:
1. Facilitation of interactions using IT/AI tools during meetings, workshops, and presentations (e.g., MIRO, Slido, Jamboard…); sharing experiences of increased engagement and the co-creative, productive interactions.
2. Enhancing the visual quality of documents through the utilization of software such as Canva, or even plain MS Office products; improving the comprehensibility and attractiveness of the content we explain and present.
3. Producing highly exploitable analytical outputs to enhance the focus and relevance of work by employing desk-research of open sources, including the analysis of CORDIS datasets;
4. Enhancing the quality of texts, literature reviews, ideas generation, and reports through the utilization of language models such as ChatGPT 4.0, Elicit and Humata; ChatGPT as an integral component of a comprehensive toolset
5. Experimentation with the creation of customized tools utilizing ChatGPT's Explore function focusing ChatGPT's intelligence to develop a collection of applications tailored to specific requirements.
6. Soft skills, personal characteristics, and relationships, as facets of subtle natural intelligence, ultimately determine whether we achieve respectable results and maintain the motivation to continue.
Participants are invited to a follow-up discussion and knowledge exchange. This session provides an opportunity for collective contemplation on how to effectively integrate IT/AI tools into our guiding and supportive roles. The human dimension of our work remains a crucial quality that determines the outcomes and the quality of collaboration. Or does it no longer apply?