☕ 5 Minute Read

• Why I haven’t published a newsletter in nearly a month

• The surprising difference between creating and publishing

• What Makena’s learning assessment revealed

• Why AI may be more valuable as a translation tool than a content generation tool

• What I’m exploring next with Cognitive Partners, dyslexia, and personalized learning

The last newsletter I published was #355.

Since then, summer arrived.

The kids got out of school.

Life shifted into a different rhythm.

And while I haven’t been publishing, I haven’t stopped creating.

In fact, the opposite happened.

Over the last month I’ve continued reading research almost every day.

I’ve explored new ideas.

Built new systems.

Started new projects.

And written more newsletter drafts than I can count.

At the moment, I have over a dozen partially completed articles and several that are essentially ready to publish.

Which led me to an interesting realization.

My problem wasn’t creating content.

My problem was publishing it.

For years, I assumed those were the same thing.

They’re not.

Creating is one skill.

Publishing is another.

Researching, exploring ideas, connecting patterns, and generating insights comes naturally to me.

Formatting.

Editing.

Moving content between systems.

Creating graphics.

Writing subject lines.

Checking links.

Reviewing everything one more time.

Those tasks require a completely different kind of energy.

For some people, that’s the enjoyable part.

For me, it’s often the hardest part.

As a dyslexic thinker, I’ve started to realize that many of my challenges aren’t about producing ideas.

They’re about translating ideas from one form into another.

Thought into language.

Language into writing.

Writing into a finished article.

Ideas into execution.

Over the last month, that translation step became the bottleneck.

And once I recognized it, I noticed something else.

That’s exactly where I’ve been using AI.

Not to replace my thinking.

Not to replace my voice.

But to help bridge the gap between creating and completing.

The more I experiment with AI, the less interested I become in content generation.

The more interested I become in cognitive translation.

Helping people move ideas across bottlenecks.

Helping people communicate closer to the speed of their thinking.

For dyslexic and neurodivergent minds, that feels like a much bigger opportunity than simply generating more content.

While all of this was happening, our family received the results from Makena’s learning assessment.

The evaluation confirmed double-deficit dyslexia, along with some anxiety around school.

The results weren’t surprising.

In many ways, they simply provided language for things we had already observed for years.

And that got me thinking.

Sometimes the value of an assessment isn’t that it discovers something new.

Sometimes it helps everyone understand what was already there.

The report didn’t change who Makena is.

It didn’t suddenly create new challenges.

It helped create a shared understanding of challenges that already existed.

In many ways, I think the best tools work the same way.

They help us see patterns.

They help us name problems.

They help us understand ourselves a little more clearly.

Looking back, I realized something else.

This newsletter exists because of Makena.

During the pandemic, I started researching dyslexia more seriously so I could better support her.

That research eventually helped me understand my own experiences.

Which led to more questions.

This led to more research.

Which eventually led to this newsletter.

Dyslexic AI.

The Cognitive Partner concept.

And many of the ideas I’ve spent the last several years exploring.

What started as a father trying to help his daughter slowly became a much bigger journey.

One idea keeps resurfacing in my research.

AI may not be an intelligence revolution.

It may be a translation revolution.

For decades, we’ve focused on information.

How to find it.

Store it.

Organize it.

Protect it.

But information is becoming increasingly abundant.

The challenge isn’t access.

The challenge is translation.

How do we translate knowledge into understanding?

How do we translate understanding into action?

How do we translate thoughts into communication?

How do we translate potential into performance?

The more I study dyslexia, AI, learning, and human cognition, the more I suspect these questions are deeply connected.

And the more I believe that the future may belong to tools that adapt to human thinking rather than forcing humans to adapt to technology.

Over the next few newsletters, I’ll be sharing more about:

• What double-deficit dyslexia actually means

• What we learned from Makena’s assessment

• The AI tools and software we’re testing

• The Cognitive Partner framework

• Why I believe organizations will eventually need Cognitive Operating Systems, not just knowledge bases

• Why AI may be more valuable as a translation tool than an information tool

The more I explore these topics, the more connected they seem to become.

What’s the biggest bottleneck in your work right now?

Not the thing you want to do.

The thing between knowing what to do and actually getting it done.

I’ve become increasingly convinced that this is where AI creates the most value.

Not by replacing human capability.

But by helping us move through the friction that keeps capability trapped.

Hit reply and let me know.

I read every response.

Have a great weekend!

Matt Ivey

Founder, Dyslexic AI

• I haven’t published in nearly a month, but I never stopped researching, writing, or building.

• I currently have more than a dozen newsletter drafts and several completed articles waiting to be published.

• I realized that creating content and publishing content are two different skills.

• For me, the bottleneck isn’t generating ideas. It’s translating ideas into finished, published work.

• AI has been most helpful in supporting that translation process.

• Our family received Makena’s learning assessment, confirming double-deficit dyslexia and some school-related anxiety.

• The assessment didn’t change who she is. It provided language for patterns we had already observed.

• This entire newsletter and much of my work in Dyslexic AI began as an effort to better support Makena.

• I’m increasingly interested in AI as a cognitive translation tool rather than simply a content generation tool.

• Future newsletters will explore dyslexia, Cognitive Partners, AI tools, and what personalized cognitive support could look like in the future.