A Ghost in the System
What happens to our work after we leave? Scheduled blogs, documents, automations, and processes can keep our presence alive long after we've moved on.
Still publishing long after I’m gone.
by Jana Diamond, PMP
I left Protovate. Or did they leave me? I forget.
Anyway, I forgot to stop talking.
Before I left, I had blogs written and scheduled in Ghost. Some mine. Some written by other people. Some pulled from ideas we'd already been working on.
And every Wednesday, Ghost keeps dutifully publishing them.
Jana no longer works at Protovate.
Jana is still talking.
I'm sorry, but that's funny.
Especially because the publishing platform is literally called Ghost.
You couldn't make this stuff up.
Except This Isn't JANA-BOT
I'd already been thinking about this question because, before leaving, I helped preserve some of the knowledge I'd accumulated at Protovate.
Processes. Templates. Project history. Documentation. The weird little pieces of context that explain why we do something one way when the obvious answer would be another.
That became the whole JANA-BOT question:
What can you preserve when somebody leaves?
But these blogs are different.
Nobody is generating new Jana.
They're not asking an AI what I would say.
They're not imitating my writing style.
I actually wrote them.
I chose the subjects.
I made the arguments.
I approved the final words.
I scheduled them.
The only strange thing is when they're arriving.
So When Is Work Actually Gone?
We tend to think of leaving a job as a fairly clean event.
Friday: employee.
Monday: former employee.
Except work doesn't behave that neatly.
Documents remain.
Processes remain.
Code remains.
Decisions remain.
Emails remain.
Things you taught other people become part of how they work.
And apparently, if you're sufficiently obnoxious about scheduling your blog calendar, your opinions remain too. 😂
Technology makes that persistence increasingly visible.
My physical presence at Protovate ended. Although, was I ever really there-there? I was remote . . .
My work didn't vanish with me.
Some of it kept doing exactly what I'd already told it to do.
Presence Is Getting Weird
And I think that's the interesting part.
We talk a lot about AI creating digital versions of people.
Clones.
Agents.
Bots that answer like somebody.
But technology doesn't need to simulate us to extend our presence.
Sometimes our actual work simply keeps moving after we stop touching it.
A scheduled blog publishes.
An automation runs.
Code executes.
A document answers somebody's question.
A process you designed gets followed by someone you've never met.
None of those things are you.
But you are still somewhere in the chain of causation.
And in my particular case, every Wednesday, a publishing platform appropriately named Ghost wakes up and says:
Jana just will not SHUT UP.
Yep.
Still here.
Still snarky.
Originally published on Protovate.AI
Protovate builds practical AI-powered software for complex, real-world environments. Led by Brian Pollack and a global team with more than 30 years of experience, Protovate helps organizations innovate responsibly, improve efficiency, and turn emerging technology into solutions that deliver measurable impact.
Over the decades, the Protovate team has worked with organizations including NASA, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Walmart, Covidien, Singtel, LG, Yahoo, and Lowe’s.
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