Choosing the Reader—and Why That Matters
A note about this series: I'm finishing a book on AI leadership for higher education—not a technical guide or a futurist manifesto, but practical guidance for leaders making real decisions under real pressure. As I prepare to send the manuscript off, I'm reflecting on what the writing process taught me. This blog series shared over the next few weeks shares those reflections.
by Claire L. Brady
When I first set out to write this book, I imagined it as a resource for everyone in higher education. Every role. Every level. Every functional area. Presidents and professors, CTOs and student affairs staff, trustees and students themselves.
You can probably guess how that went.
Turns out, a book for everyone is a book for no one.
Early readers gave me direct, generous feedback: I needed to choose a reader. Not because others didn't matter—not because faculty perspectives weren't essential or student experiences weren't central—but because clarity matters more. Especially now, when the pressure to "do something with AI" is intense and the guidance available is either too technical for practical use or too vague to inform real decisions.
I ultimately focused the book on leaders who are making decisions for their institutions and systems right now—the presidents, provosts, VPs, deans, and directors who are shaping culture, setting direction, allocating resources, building governance, and modeling what responsible AI adoption looks like in practice.
These are the people sitting in rooms where AI decisions are currently getting made. Where procurement gets approved or paused. Where policies get established. Where resources get allocated. Where institutional character gets tested against competitive pressure, vendor promises, and faculty anxiety. They're the ones who have to translate hype into strategy, fear into governance, and possibilities into sustainable practice.
That decision—choosing this reader—changed everything about the book's tone, structure, and purpose.
It meant I could assume a certain level of institutional knowledge without explaining shared governance from scratch. I could speak directly to the specific challenges leaders face—the board member asking why you're moving slowly when peer institutions are racing ahead, the faculty senate demanding transparency you're not sure how to provide, the budget constraints that make every technology investment feel risky, the competing pressures to innovate and to protect what makes education transformative.
It meant I could be aspirational without being naive. I could acknowledge that higher education moves slowly for good reasons while still pushing for the urgency student success requires. I could celebrate the thoughtfulness that makes academic culture distinctive while naming when that thoughtfulness tips into paralysis. I could be both optimistic about what's possible and brutally honest about what's hard.
It meant the book could be practical in ways that matter to people making real decisions. Not "here's how AI works technically" but "here's how to know if your data is good enough to support the AI tool you're considering." Not "AI will transform education" but "here's how to tell whether a specific AI application serves your mission or just checks an innovation box."
The book I wanted to write was deeply practical and aspirational. Relational and authoritative. Optimistic and pragmatic. Honest about the realities of higher education—the silos, the governance complexity, the resource constraints, the resistance, the fear—while still believing in the sector's capacity to adapt and lead.
I didn't want it to read like an academic text (though it’s grounded in research). I didn't want it to read like a think piece (though it's conceptually rigorous). I didn't want it to read like a how-to manual (though it's full of practical guidance). I wanted it to read like a trusted colleague sitting across the table, someone who's seen this movie before, who understands the constraints you're working within, who can help you think more clearly about the choices you're facing. Someone who believes you can get this right.
Because the truth is, I do believe higher education leaders can get this right. I've seen it happen. I've watched presidents navigate fierce resistance to build genuine governance. I've seen VP’s choose mission over metrics when they conflicted. I've witnessed institutions delay implementations to fix accessibility issues, discontinue tools that weren't serving students, and build governance structures that actually worked rather than just looking good on paper.
The leaders getting it right aren't smarter or better resourced. They're more intentional. They're asking better questions. They're building stronger foundations. They're making harder choices when values and expediency conflict. And they're learning from institutions ahead of them rather than pretending to invent everything from scratch.
This book tries to help more leaders do that. To give them frameworks for asking better questions. Language for having more productive conversations. Permission to move at the pace their institution needs rather than the pace anxiety demands. Clarity about what readiness actually requires. Tools for making decisions that strengthen mission rather than compromise it.
Other books will come—for faculty navigating AI in teaching and scholarship, for staff using AI in their daily work, for students developing AI literacy and critical thinking. Those perspectives are essential and deserve dedicated attention. But this book needed to meet leaders where they are, without abstraction or hype, acknowledging the weight of responsibility they carry for decisions that will shape their institutions for years.
People often ask whether writing a book is "worth it." I heard plenty of advice suggesting it wasn't—that books don't drive consulting business, that the effort rarely justifies the return, that vlogging reaches more people with less investment, that I should focus on what generates revenue.
I don't feel that way—at least not yet. Maybe I will later. But right now, what I feel is conviction that this book needed to exist.
I love blogging, but its reach is limited. A blog post might reach a few hundred people who happen to see it when it's published. A book can reach thousands of leaders over years, can sit on shelves and get pulled down when someone needs it, can be passed from one president to another, can become a shared reference point for governance committees and strategic planning processes.
A book allows me to go deeper and broader at the same time. Deeper because I can develop arguments over chapters rather than compressing them into 400 words. Broader because it can reach leaders I'll never meet at institutions where I'll never consult.
And most importantly, a book extends the impact. Every leader who reads it and makes better decisions because of it—that's impact I couldn't have created through consulting alone. Every institution that builds stronger AI governance because this book gave them frameworks to work from—that's impact that multiplies. Every student who benefits because their institution approached AI more thoughtfully—that's why any of this matters.
If you're quietly thinking you have a book in you, my advice is simple: do it. Use AI to help outline and organize your thinking. Read widely in your genre to understand what works and what readers expect. Ask questions of people who've been through the process—about timelines, publishers, editors, marketing, all of it. Take the advice that resonates and leave the rest. Start writing before you feel ready. You'll never feel completely ready. Write messy first drafts knowing you'll refine them. Build structure as you go rather than waiting for perfect outlines. Trust that the knowledge is already there—you just need to notice it and write it down.
For me, this book is about extending the work—not stepping away from it. It's another way of serving the mission that drives everything I do: helping higher education institutions navigate technological change with integrity, helping leaders make decisions that strengthen rather than compromise their educational mission, and ultimately helping ensure that students benefit from AI rather than being harmed by it.
As I prepare to send the manuscript off—to let it leave my hands and become something public and permanent—what feels most true is this: the writing clarified not just what I believe about AI in higher education, but why I'm committed to helping leaders get this right.
Because getting it right matters. It matters for the institutions navigating this moment. It matters for the students whose education will be shaped by these decisions. And it matters for higher education's role in society—as a place where technological change serves human flourishing rather than determining it.
This book is my contribution to getting it right. I can't wait to see what leaders do with it.
Once I press 'send' on this manuscript, the next milestone is release—coming later this spring.
I'm ready to see this work move from my hands into yours.
