Insights from the AI in Action Presentation

NAWBO Cleveland, February 2024

I had the opportunity in February to speak to the Cleveland National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) on the topic of AI for business owners. This was the first time I’ve been able to present or teach to a live audience since before 2020, and it was such an energizing experience being among a group of so many women whom I’ve developed great relationships with.

I’ve attended several other generative AI presentations over the past year and found that almost all of them start with the assumption that the audience does not know much about the topic already. However, based on the Q&As that follow, that tends not to be the case. It’s actually usually those who are AI early adopters who are in the room to begin with. Because of this, and the fact that the audience was made up of people that I already had a relationship with, I tried a different approach than I would have taken on a room full of strangers.

My Choose-Your-Own-Adventure AI Presentation

In my session description I had already promised the attendees an interactive session. With this in mind, I decided to prepare more material than I knew we could get through. Then, I had different points in the presentation where I would ask them if they wanted to keep going deeper into that topic or if they wanted to move on to something different. I even started the entire presentation with three different topics and asked where they wanted to start!

About 70% of the audience chose to start with the topic “How to learn AI skills and select AI tools.” This confirmed for me that most of the people who chose to attend did not need to start with the absolute basics.

Learn Skills According to Your Needs

In preparing for the workshop, a few people told me they felt overwhelmed by generative AI and the amount that they felt they always needed to be learning. They felt like they were always behind.

I’ve been working in education, helping people learn technology since 2011, and I’ve heard this same message for just as long. The only difference with AI is that because it’s doing so many types of things we’ve never seen technology DO before, we are especially susceptible to the marketers who are telling us we have to learn about the latest thing and buy their latest product to stay ahead of the curve. And because generative AI feels different, we aren’t as great at recognizing them as marketing messages as we might be if someone was trying to sell us a new car or the next version of the iPhone.

A better approach to deciding what skills or tools to learn is to consider what you need to do. A useful model for this analysis is the SAMR model of technology integration. In my presentation, I described the model to the audience, but here, I’m going to share one of my favorite videos with you. 

The SAMR model helps you break down your thinking about how you could potentially use AI technology. Is there an opportunity to substitute ChatGPT for existing analog tools? For example ChatGPT can be a much faster substitute than going to an online thesaurus.

Maybe Dall-E can help you create a stock photo for something that you are having a difficult time finding. This is an example of the augmentation level. One of my colleagues was telling me a story of how he was making a training and wanted a stock photo of a black female firefighter, but he couldn’t find one. He used an AI image generation tool to create the diverse stock photo he couldn’t find. 

AI for Creating Slides

One of the most common AI tools people ask me about is something that can create slides. This is a good example of the modification level of the SAMR model. In the summer of 2023 I tried several AI slide tools and I didn’t find any that I felt were worth recommending. In February, 2024 I included tome.app in my presentation because it’s improved enough to be a good tool that can be supportive to your work.

Additionally, after the presentation, an audience member showed me beautiful.ai, which also looks promising. 

Redefining your Work with AI

The final level of the SAMR model is redefinition. Because of the choose-your-own-adventure nature of my presentation, I quickly went through a few options of this level, but I didn’t get to my favorite example that was a little time consuming. Take a look at this video below to see how to create a talking avatar video.

The purpose of the SAMR model isn’t to specifically get to the highest level. Instead, the point is to recognize that there are different levels at which you can use AI (or any technology) and to help you consider which level might be a useful way to approach solving your problems.

The other important idea to keep in mind is that you don’t need to be using every AI tool all the time. Most of the messages telling you to “keep up with all the rapid changes” are trying to sell you something, even if that something is just asking you for your email address to send you email advertisements. 

Get the Presentation Slides and Worksheet

I’ve shared a few extra resources in this post that were above and beyond what was in my presentation, but I also want to share the slides and the worksheet I shared during my actual presentation. Whether you’re looking to implement these strategies in your projects or simply want to learn more, these resources are a great place to start.