Audio
Video
Alastair sits down with Robbie Westacott, a millennial writer, marketing consultant, and founder of Seaforth Creative Group, who has spent his career helping events and media companies get more from their content, communities, and data. A master’s graduate in creative writing and a lifelong storyteller, Robbie is currently ghostwriting a business book, crafting his own fiction, and building an online global community for fiction writers.
In this episode, Robbie and Alastair explore the changing relationship between writing and AI, making an impassioned case for why outsourcing your writing to a machine before you have developed the skill yourself is one of the most damaging professional shortcuts a young person can take. They also dig into the fascinating generational differences in how and why people write, from Boomers finally telling their life stories to Gen Z boldly publishing before they are 25, and the power of genuine human authenticity in a world increasingly saturated with AI-generated content.
Recorded at Granary Studios and produced by James Jones.
Robbie Westacott Takeaways:
- Writing is a foundational skill applicable across every profession — outsourcing it to AI before mastering it yourself will stunt your development in ways that compound over time
- AI-generated content is becoming a commodity; work that carries authentic human voice, effort, and craft will be increasingly valuable as a result
- Gen Z digital natives entering marketing may be more skilled in the tools than the people hiring them — a power dynamic shift every manager needs to be aware of
- Different generations approach writing differently: Boomers often arrive at writing later with a life story to tell; Gen Z publishes boldly and early, often alongside multiple other career pursuits
- For fiction: write the story you genuinely want to tell and fall in love with the process — chasing fame or money makes the craft miserable
- For business writing: empathy and audience-centricity are everything — tailor your message to who you are trying to reach and why
- Community accelerates creative growth: shared accountability with fellow writers, across all age groups, creates consistency that solo practice rarely sustains
Robbie Westacott Links
Substack: https://substack.com/@robbiewestacott
Generationally Speaking Links:
