A joint YLP/WLP event in May discussed the professional and personal benefits of writing for publication, including for Lighting Journal, tips and strategies for overcoming writers’ block, and the pros and cons of using AI as a writing tool. Katerina Xynogala and Nic Paton report.
In May, the ILP’s Young Lighting Professionals (YLP) came together with Women Lighting Professionals (WLP) to hold a successful event in Birmingham all about writing: writing for publication in outlets such as Lighting Journal, writing to boost your profile whether online or in print or with your peers, and writing for your own pleasure and to improve your knowledge and confidence.
The event, held at WSP’s offices in the city, attracted around 50 attendees in person and online. A key theme for the day was about encouraging young and new lighters not to assume that writing for publication is simply for, as Lighting Journal editor Nic Paton put it, ‘those with grey hair or no hair’.
In fact, in Nic’s presentation he emphasised that Lighting Journal is always keen to showcase new lighters, and to help those either starting out in the profession or new to lighting to get their voice heard in print as much as those with years of industry experience behind them.
As well as Nic Paton, the event saw presentations from academics Peter Raynham and Jemima Unwin Teji, WSP’s Allan Howard, Stuart Morton from Jacobs, Simon Harrison-Wallace from DW Windsor.
Alongside the main speakers, the event held an interactive session where views and perspectives on Lighting Journal were gathered, as well as insight into what the publication could be doing more of.
It then concluded with a roundtable panel discussion, chaired by Nic Paton, which brought together Allan Howard, Graham Festenstein, Lora Kaleva and Clare Thomas.
Nic Paton opened the discussion by asking the panellists to give an insight into why they write, how they go about writing and, given that there had been a focus during the day on how to overcome writer’s block, how they personally got started in getting words down on the page.
‘IMPOSTER SYNDROME’
Clare Thomas, head of applications and solutions at Urbis Schréder, admitted to, even now, suffering from ‘imposter syndrome’ when it comes to sitting down to write.
‘I don’t have a degree, but I have loads of experience through doing lots of different things in the lighting industry; I’ve had many different roles. I’ve also realised that, just because I haven’t done that more formal route into the profession, it doesn’t mean that my opinion and experience, and asking ‘why?’ a lot, isn’t valid,’ she emphasised.
‘I wrote and presented a webinar during the pandemic – which ended up being a bit more exciting than I expected because it turned into quite an “interesting” question-and-answer session; if I’d have known how many people were on the webinar I don’t think I would have done it!
‘What I learnt was that my opinions and my feelings – asking why – is actually something we should maybe be doing a little bit more of. Nic then asked me if I would put it together as an article and, which was really great, helped me to get my voice out on the page, which was a really difficult thing to do,’ she added.
Graham Festenstein, owner of Graham Festenstein Lighting Design and chair of the ILP’s Architectural Committee, said: ‘First of all, I enjoy writing – when I have time to write. I have quite strong opinions about quite a lot of things, which I like to share. But I also simply think generally it is important for us as lighting professionals to share and discuss; that’s how we learn.’
‘It is partly about passing on knowledge and teaching people to understand – I enjoy that – and being able to watch their careers flourish,’ agreed Allan Howard, group technical director, Lighting & Energy Solutions, at WSP. ‘Then it is partly because there are things happening out there and if someone doesn’t say something, who else is going to know? How can we raise the profile of these issues to the wider community?’
Lora Kaleva, lighting associate at BDP, very much echoed this. ‘For myself, I would say I am very passionate about my work,’ she said. ‘I am proud to call myself a lighting designer, and I like to share that passion. Most of my articles have been around projects that I have worked on. That means it is my own subject, my own project, so I know a lot about it and will be happy to talk about it on end and share all these amazing and fun things we did: “look how nicely things turned out!”’
‘So, basically we all care a lot about what we do and share that care with people,’ agreed Clare, with Allan adding: ‘And taking a pride in things, being able to say: “I did that”.’
ROLE (AND DANGERS) OF AI
The discussion considered the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in the writing process.
As Guus Ketelings highlighted in June’s edition of Lighting Journal, perhaps the most common way people are using AI at the moment is as, essentially, a writing assistant. Tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Microsoft/GitHub’s Copilot can all nowadays write ‘for’ you.
Yet, while AI clearly can write for you, should you be using this powerful tool in this way? What are both the advantages and pitfalls of using AI as a writing support?
‘Never touched it,’ said Allan. ‘I wouldn’t use it,’ agreed Graham. ‘No,’ emphasised Lora.
‘I’ve seen it,’ said Clare. ‘We’re exploring some of the AI tools and you can see some of the snippets that come out. But I think you can forget how important language is. When we’re talking about making what we’re writing accessible, language is really, really important. Will AI help us or not help us? There is a lot of meaning in words that you do not necessarily think about.’
With the panel discussion very much open to the audience, YLP chair Ryan Carroll, from DFL, then interjected. ‘I used it for the first time a couple of weeks ago. I wrote a post on LinkedIn and was curious and hit the button. To be honest, I liked what it did. It recrafted my jumbled up, long-winded statement into something a bit more concise. But I then got a little bit frustrated with it because, yes it had made it short and succinct, but it had taken “me” out of it,’ he said.
‘I’ve not used it much but, likewise, you can tell when it’s been used. It sounds a bit rubbery in the same way that not very good CGI in a movie looks a bit odd and totally human. I wouldn’t want to lose my voice,’ agreed Lora.
‘That being said, a colleague of mine, for whom English is not her first language, I can see that she struggles a little bit with writing in English. We were doing a report together and she admitted having used ChatGPT to improve it and I could see how it has helped her quite a bit,’ she added.
Others from the audience also highlighted how using AI can be a great tool to help get you started, to get a first draft down, especially if writing is not something you feel especially confident about. But there was a consensus that you should very much treat this as just a first draft and ensure your own ‘voice’ doesn’t get lost, that you put your own twist and perspective on things. As Jemima Unwin Teji put it: ‘It is a powerful tool that we need to learn to use, but never at the expense at our own voice.’
Nic Paton also highlighted that, because AI learns and ‘scrapes’ from the internet, it can bring with it a danger of plagiarism or copyright infringement. While most of the time this is unlikely to be a problem – especially if you use an AI version as just a starting point – but it is something to keep in mind when using this tool.
WSP’s Toby Penter also emphasised that you need to be aware of the limitations of AI datasets. ‘You have to make sure the dataset you’re using, if you are going to use it to write anything, is accurate. I’ve not used it to write anything properly but when I have used it, the information it comes out with is generic and nondescript because it is based on the information it’s got.’
‘BRIDGE’ TO OTHER PROFESSIONS
The debate concluded with a discussion around hot topics for Lighting Journal to cover, including the potential for the journal to act as a ‘bridge’ to other complementary professions, such as planning, architecture or even environmental health.
As Graham argued: ‘Why can’t we get other professionals, like planners and environmental health officers, to write articles, to give us their side of the story?’
Peter Raynham very much agreed. ‘The LJ is a beautiful resource. It would be great if we could use it to take it to other professions,’ he added.
And, in fact, Peter, now also of course the ILP’s Vice President – Membership, Qualifications and Registrations, ended up closing the event. ‘If we think how diverse the subjects are – from ecology to lamp replacement, to lighting for photobiology, all of that – how can one journal possibly cope?’ he pointed out.
‘We’re in a situation where the subject we’re working with on a day-to-day basis is so broad that, unless we have an organisation like the ILP, where, if you get stuck with something somebody else somewhere else in the organisation will have failed miserably before! Which is always better to learn from than successes.
‘The LJ is on a hiding to nothing if it always tries to cover everything. But if you can cover the hot topics you’re doing well. If you can also cover a few interesting side ones, that’s even better,’ he added in conclusion.
Aikaterini Xynogala MSc BA(Hons) EngTech LCIBSE is the YLP’s editorial representative as well as engineer – Lighting & Energy Solutions – at WSP
PANEL
THE PANEL
- Graham Festenstein, owner, Graham Festenstein Lighting Design and chair of the ILP’s Architectural Committee
- Lora Kaleva, lighting associate, BDP
- Allan Howard, group technical director, Lighting & Energy Solutions, WSP
- Nic Paton, chair, editor, Lighting Journal
- Clare Thomas, head of applications and solutions, Urbis Schréder
- This is an abridged version of an article that appears in the July/August edition of Lighting Journal. To read the full article just click on the link to the edition.
